![]() Restaurant operators have had to embrace doing more with less – but that doesn’t just have to be about providing a smaller menu with a smaller staff and making it all work. Hybrid ghost kitchens have been on the rise in recent months – and they have the potential to help restaurants use their equipment, staff and ingredients to reach a wider audience. While ghost kitchens, or dark kitchens, were initially known for keeping their operations behind the scenes, these up-and-coming hybrid models are more transparent. They might openly operate a side brand out of the same kitchen that services the restaurant or collaborate with complementary restaurant brands to benefit from economies of scale. We’re at a point where consumers simply value good food – whether it comes from a restaurant kitchen, home kitchen or the kitchen of a collection of multiple brands. This year, how can you tap into your tech to ensure you’re making the most of the resources you have available? ![]() Revenue from loyalty program promotions has grown 74 percent year over year – that’s according to new research from the restaurant tech company BentoBox. As consumers have become even more comfortable with buying from their favorite businesses online in recent years, businesses of all sizes have gained more streamlined, all-in-one tools necessary to capture a loyal following. As a result, smaller restaurants have been able to launch sophisticated loyalty programs just like their larger counterparts. In fact, this is a critical area of business growth that levels the playing field for restaurants in ways that aren’t otherwise possible. As Andrew Robbins, CEO of Paytronix, said in a recent Nation’s Restaurant New report, “McDonald’s plays a game of scale and smaller restaurants can’t compete with it when it comes to contracts, finding great locations, systems – all that stuff. But loyalty and digital guest engagement with loyalty as the centerpiece, you can compete with the big guys.” Of course, once everyone has a loyalty program, some refinement is needed to stand out. Even for small independents, this can happen through detailed personalization and segmentation. Start by analyzing your brand, your ideal guest and the values you want to project. What offers tick all of those boxes for your restaurant? ![]() When the economy is struggling or feels uncertain, marketing budgets can take a hit as business owners tighten their belts. Still, it continues to be important to get the word out about your restaurant – even if you don’t have the budget you’d like at the moment. It may help to look at your existing streams of income and focus on building up those that are inherently helpful in marketing your restaurant. Catering is one likely possibility. It can be a valuable tool for growing brand awareness – all while allowing a restaurant to maximize efficiencies when it comes to inventory and staffing. Rob McColgan, CEO of Modern Restaurant Concepts, said in a recent interview with Modern Restaurant Management that he sees catering as an essential marketing component that helps drive the overall success of his restaurant’s brands. It can open doors for a restaurant trying to gain traction in new markets, as well as allow a business to access new pockets of guests at scale. Even though business catering may not be back to pre-pandemic levels, this simply means there are other potential opportunities restaurants can now tap into for group business. Consider the social gatherings happening in your community – book clubs, community service meetings and school-related gatherings, to name a few. These outlets can serve as free marketing opportunities that organically drive interest and help spread the word about your business. ![]() A single restaurant can produce approximately 25,000-75,000 pounds of food waste each year – or for perspective, nearly the maximum weight capacity of a semi truck. That waste eats into your profits – and while restaurants have been adopting more tools to minimize waste, as well as forging more partnerships to find uses for excess food, most restaurants still have room to improve their waste monitoring and management. That’s particularly true as restaurants stretch to operate with smaller staffs at the moment. Tracking waste can easily slip in the midst of a busy Friday night dinner shift. But consider it one of the key steps you take to get a handle on your costs in 2023 – and even small steps can help you make progress. Tony Smith, cofounder and CEO of Restaurant365, advises restaurants use a food waste log to quickly record food waste when it happens – the who, what, how and why – and then analyzing it later. It can be a digital document or even just a spreadsheet hanging in the kitchen. The log can provide a starting point you can use to track patterns in waste that then dictate changes you need to make to operational tasks as varied as planning your menu, determining serving sizes (and if you need to adjust sizes or upcycle an item in an effort to upsell it) training your team, or adjusting food orders. From there, comparing your theoretical and actual food costs on a regular basis and focusing first on the areas where they are farthest apart can help you minimize your biggest pain points when it comes to food waste. ![]() We’re living in an age of customization and personalization. Consumers want experiences that are in line with their preferences – or to at least feel heard by those providing them. You likely aim to provide that kind of experience for your guests, but what about for your staff? The culture you cultivate for your team will be reflected in the experience, good or bad, that they extend to your guests. So approach your staff as if they are an additional segment of your customer base. Are you giving them opportunities to feel heard – and in a variety of ways? According to CREATE’s recent Future of Foodservice Report, Florida-based Smokey Bones has conducted a weekly virtual town hall meeting with its managers throughout the company since early on in the pandemic. The sessions provide opportunities to share business and functional updates, as well as to field questions from managers – and difficult questions are welcome. Other ways to enhance two-way communication: Have staff answer a quick pulse-survey question at the start of each shift – and then share any corrective actions you’re taking in response to their feedback. Give them opportunities to make suggestions about what they would like to see – there may be an easy change you can make that you hadn’t previously considered. Make it a priority to hire from within and make sure your existing staff are told about new opportunities for advancement. While employee turnover is known to be high in the industry, you can make it less of a problem for your business if you prioritize improving communication and engagement with your team – much like you’d do with guests you’re hoping will return frequently. ![]() The pressure on restaurants to minimize waste and maximize resources goes well beyond food. Restaurants use substantial amounts of energy, particularly in months with extreme weather. If you’re heating outdoor spaces this winter to accommodate more guests, your energy budget will be straining that much more. So, much like you would do with the SKUs you order and the menu items you prepare, measure and monitor your energy activity. Conduct regular energy audits with your utility company or an independent expert who can advise ways your business conserve energy and monitor usage. Schedule preventive maintenance – taking care of your relationship with your service provider can help ensure you’re taken care of when you need help more urgently. For any equipment that is likely going to need replacement parts in the coming months, have backup parts on hand to minimize any downtime that would otherwise result. If, like many other businesses within the hospitality sector and beyond it, you have set sustainability goals for your restaurant, your approach to energy conservation can support those goals. They can also be a compelling part of the story you share with guests who are monitoring their own energy usage more closely these days, as well as looking to support businesses that do the same. ![]() Dining pods, igloos and other creative outdoor seating options continue to be a needed source of revenue for restaurants. In an industry of narrow margins, the benefits of these spaces can’t be unseen – operators would be foolish to let go of the opportunities they now know these spaces provide to boost profitability, advertise menu items to people passing by, and cater to guests who simply don’t feel comfortable eating in a crowded dining room anymore. (In fact, data that Yelp released earlier in the year indicated that the total number of restaurants listing outdoor dining on their website was more than 26,000 – up from less than 8,000 in February of 2020.) However, the novelty of these spaces has had time to wear off and not everyone wants them where they live. As a result, it has become more common for restaurant operators to face criticism from neighbors for everything from noise pollution to increased rodent activity due to the use of outdoor dining areas. But there are ways to keep the peace if you’re struggling. A recent opinion piece on Restaurant Dive suggested that outdoor eateries could be built without speakers – or that restaurants be required to turn down the music at a certain hour in the evening. Cities might offer restaurant operators a standard kit of materials designed to keep them clean and safe for guests, neighbors and others. People who live adjacent to the restaurant could be offered a special discount or other perk when they visit to help secure their buy-in. The holiday period can be a good time to extend some of this goodwill to help smooth out relations and generate some winter business in the months ahead. ![]() Set holiday expectations High inflation and a shortage of staff could mean the holiday season will be looking a little different this year at many restaurants around the country. According to research from Alignable, 48 percent of operators aren’t hiring seasonal or permanent employees, and another 8 percent are laying off employees because revenues no longer support additional hires. At the same time, consumers have been steering their purchases toward more experiential things – to include travel and restaurant meals, as Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach shared on a quarterly earnings call in late October. When consumers spend right now, they’re looking for something special – and that sentiment only ramps up around the holidays – but that can be difficult for restaurants to offer consistently with a skeleton crew. To avoid creating a recipe for guest disappointment and staff burnout, now is a good time to steer your holiday guests toward the experiences that you’re best able to manage with a smaller team than normal. That could mean focusing on promoting holiday meal bundles to be eaten at home, closing your dining room to accommodate more special events where you can more easily plan ahead with staff and supplies, and promoting gift cards for VIP experiences you’re offering in the slower winter months. If you’re operating as usual, just make sure you’re serving a menu that’s as easy and fast as possible to execute with a limited crew. ![]() As consumers have paid more at the grocery store and elsewhere due to rising inflation in recent months, they have largely taken rising restaurant costs in stride. But recent reports indicate this could be changing as some foodservice businesses have continued to raise prices after covering their own inflation-related costs. Some operators, particularly of fine-dining restaurants, are now receiving pushback from regular guests taking issue with added fees that don’t seem to add up – whether it's the doubling of the cost of a bowl of pasta or an inexplicably higher corkage fee for a bottle of wine. To be sure, in an industry of slim profit margins and amid forecasts of a looming recession, operators may be trying to eke out a financial cushion wherever they can. Just know that you may get some resistance from guests – and you may be pushed into a situation where you are honoring previous prices for loyal patrons or otherwise bending your own rules to keep guests coming back. Prepare your staff by explaining the reasoning behind any significant price increases you have implemented, helping them answer guest questions with transparency, and, where possible, avoiding making price increases that may appear to have a flimsy rationale backing them up. To help make big pricing jumps less necessary, bring as much efficiency to your kitchen as possible – from ingredient selection, to waste management, to portion sizing. For example, many chefs report shopping farmer’s markets regularly to integrate even more local, plant-forward options into the menu where possible, since this can minimize significant price spikes and help a restaurant avoid passing them on to guests. ![]() One recent survey found that 80 percent of guests say restaurants help them access favorite flavors that they can’t duplicate at home – or at least that’s what they think – and that’s what drives them to support restaurants. At a time when restaurants are duelling with grocery stores, meal kit companies and even convenience stores for business, it helps to know the reasons compelling your guests to order from you. Are you an end-of-the-work-week treat? Do you offer easy mobile ordering and prompt delivery to suit hungry consumers who want their meal as soon as possible? Do guests trust that you will surprise them with fresh ingredients prepared in inventive ways? Can you package your ingredients in ways that make it easy for a guest to prepare one of your meals for friends at home and look like a talented chef? As you welcome larger numbers of guest orders in person and offsite over the holiday season, solicit people’s feedback about what brought them to you over their many alternatives. Their input may help you to develop plans for new offerings that will help you bring people back and keep business steady in 2023 as economic uncertainty – or simply uninviting winter weather – makes eating out (or even ordering out) a tougher sell. |
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