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Executive Summary Location: Southern Illinois and Indiana Restaurant Type: Family-run QSR serving pizza and sandwiches # of Locations: 5 # of Employees: Around 100 Problem: Difficulty tracking employee availability, delivering schedules, finding coverage for shifts, and overall communication Solution: An app where employees can see their schedules, swap shifts, and chat with the team A secret family recipe Dotted along the southern Illinois-Indiana border lie five pizzerias owned by three genera
As a restaurant manager or operator, you are the driving force in productivity – leading your staff and keeping customers happy. However, productivity is more easily trained than managed. Many restaurant operators juggle multiple locations, and adding managers adds another link in the chain of command to manage. Staff productivity plays the largest role in restaurant revenue, which is why it’s so important to invest in your recruiting and hiring strategies, finding like-minded individuals to m
Imagine pouring your heart and soul into your restaurant, only to watch your tables remain empty night after night. One of the building blocks you must put in place before starting a restaurant is market research. Just like a well-crafted mission statement will help guide your business decisions, identifying and understanding your target customers and competitors through restaurant market research will give your business a competitive edge.
As the first and last point of contact for guests, a hostess sets the tone for every diner’s experience. Whether it’s managing reservations, coordinating with servers, or handling situations with grace, a skilled hostess brings a mix of warmth, professionalism, and operational expertise to the table. With these hostess interview questions, you can find the right candidates with the perfect combination of technical and interpersonal skills to create a seamless dining experience.
Hiring the right people can make or break your business. After all, it’s not just the quality of your food that can keep customers coming back — 73% of diners base their satisfaction on the quality of service they receive. Your staff, especially your restaurant manager, plays a crucial role in the overall dining experience. Looking for someone to oversee day-to-day operations is a critical business decision that needs careful consideration.
Finding a well-rounded bar manager can be the determining factor in the success of your business. They play a big role in overseeing your inventory and attending to customer complaints. They also bring creative ideas to the table, such as improving the drink menu and coming up with new events and promotions to drive sales. Through the right interview questions, you can find a manager who doesn’t just fit the job but can boost your bar’s reputation.
Hiring the right wait staff is one of the most critical decisions for any restaurant owner. Your waiters and waitresses are the face of your establishment, shaping the customer experience and directly impacting revenue. According to 51% of restaurant operators, staffing is one of the top challenges to success. You can address this by knowing the questions to ask during the interview process.
Have you ever walked into a restaurant, excited for a great meal, but the server can’t answer your questions about the menu? There was a time when 70% of F&B employees didn’t receive training for customer service. Without the right training, even the best menu or ambiance can fall short due to poor service, leading to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue.
A bar is a profitable business option if you’re looking to enter the food industry. However, understanding how to calculate and improve your bar's profit margin is key to long-term success. One key area to focus on is drink sales, with cocktail sales accounting for about 23% of a bar's revenue. It just goes to show how important drink pricing and cost management are to maximizing profits.
As a restaurant owner, it's easy to pour money into advertising and promotions without knowing how much it’s really costing your business. However, it’s best to understand how cost-effective your current customer acquisition efforts are before dedicating resources to it. Knowing how to calculate and optimize your customer acquisition cost (CAC) can help you make smarter decisions about your marketing and advertising strategies.
Nowadays, running a successful restaurant takes more than great food and good service. With 90% of diners checking a restaurant online before visiting, you also need a strong online presence to attract and boost reservations. To do so, you must have an optimized website and engaging social media profiles. Let’s explore 26 proven online marketing strategies to help your restaurant thrive.
If you feel that digital marketing isn’t giving your local restaurant the results you need, then it's time to explore more targeted strategies. 89% of people do dining research on their phones, so if you’re not making the most of your online presence, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Local restaurant marketing can help you reach your target audience more effectively.
These days, a restaurant's reputation is built on more than the taste of its food. They must also focus on creating memorable experiences for customers at every touchpoint. 60% of guests who have a positive experience are likely to dine at a restaurant more frequently. From creating a welcoming ambiance to offering unique menu items, let’s explore the ways you can refine your restaurant's customer experience in 2024.
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report, originally published in May 2024. Visit our page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. While restaurants are a transitional career for many, a group of hospitality workers still make the restaurant business their career.
Executive Summary Location: Groveport, OH Restaurant Type: Casual Dining Problem: Too much time spent on manual processes. A payroll provider that couldn't support employees with multiple roles. Solution: Team management software that handles scheduling, time clocking, and payroll in one place. Payroll runs went from four hours to a few minutes. Family Pies When Chuck and Janet Ward dropped by a grocery store on a long drive, they never imagined this pit stop would change the trajectory of their
Selling a restaurant can be a major decision for many reasons. One of the main reasons is to cut losses due to financial challenges, with 52% of restaurant owners saying high operating and food costs are really cutting into their profits. Other possible reasons include wanting to retire or find new business ventures. No matter the cause, selling a restaurant requires careful preparation and strategy to ensure you get the best price and attract the right buyer.
Hiring and retaining staff has always been a challenge for businesses in the food industry. With an average turnover rate of 79.6% over the past decade, keeping employees in restaurants has become increasingly difficult. High turnover not only disrupts business operations but also leads to increased costs and time spent on hiring and training new staff.
With 54% of diners saying they would avoid a restaurant with table wait times over 30 minutes, you must develop an efficient kitchen floor plan that helps you serve food quickly and consistently. The right design can ease your workflows and minimize bottlenecks in your operations. What should a restaurant kitchen floor plan include? A well-thought-out floor plan should incorporate various key areas: storage, food preparation zones, cooking stations, cleaning and dishwashing stations, and service
Customers who experience longer wait times are 18% less satisfied with their experience. Hiring a barback can keep your bar operations efficient and boost customer satisfaction. What is a barback? If you’re thinking of opening or owning a bar , you need a barback to help maintain smooth operations. Barbacks mainly assist the bartenders in various tasks, especially behind-the-scenes duties, so that the latter can focus on making drinks and engaging with customers.
As a restaurant owner, you're all too familiar with the constant struggle to stay profitable amidst rising costs. For instance, lettuce and eggs, which are used for burgers and breakfast items, increased by 10.3% and 9.5%. As such, monitoring the cost of goods sold (COGS) can make the difference between a thriving business and one that struggles to stay afloat.
After his pro football career ended, Nate Hybl was searching for his next chapter. The former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback (and ‘03 Rose Bowl MVP) found himself back home in Georgia, longing for the kind of food he was looking for: a healthy, fast, and affordable option. “I couldn't shake the idea that Atlanta should have something better,” says Hybl.
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report, originally published in May 2024. Visit our page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. When an employee joins your team, those first few shifts are not just an opportunity for them to make an impression on you — but for you to show them why they should work for you.
Not many teenagers can say they started a business — but Adrie Groeneweg did. When Adrie was 19 and working at a pizza parlor in Iowa, he was struck by the amount of customers making the trip to eat there from his hometown. Adrie and his father Bill noted a need for a pizza place in town, so his dad bought the building. They opened with a Western theme on December 21, 1981 — his mom's birthday.
Google remains the top platform to search for local businesses and services. 62% of consumers use the search engine to find restaurants, while 51% cite it as the best tool to get more information on a dining establishment, so you should maximize your online presence. However, SEO is no longer enough due to high competition in the food industry. It takes longer to show results, and you can be overshadowed by competitors who have more resources for organic search.
Of all the costs your restaurants generate, your food is one of the largest. The cost of the food you serve can be affected by so many different outside influences, some of them more obvious, like the rise and fall of fuel costs or the effects of good or bad weather. Others are less so, like the sudden pop-culture status of a particular food (think avocados, bubble tea, or cupcakes).
Communication is key in virtually every workplace, but this rings especially true in the restaurant industry. With the industry facing a 73% annual turnover rate and poor communication being the number one reason staff quit , there is a lot that effective team communication could do to improve the hospitality industry. Watch the video version of these 5 restaurant communication tips In order to build an effective work culture and a productive team, restaurant leaders need to communicate successf
It’s no secret that more customers equals higher revenue. However, with fewer customers dining out weekly , restaurants must ensure that they can serve each diner quickly and satisfy them enough that they’ll want to return. Table turnover rate is a crucial factor to consider if you want to provide efficient service. Tracking and implementing strategies to improve this metric will allow you to maximize your dining space and generate more revenue.
Opening a restaurant is a big challenge that requires a huge investment of time and money. But the challenges don’t stop there—once open you have to focus on improving processes, managing labor schedules, and controlling restaurant costs. Indeed, controlling restaurant costs is one of your biggest challenges. Not only do you have to manage many costs including, labor, equipment, and food—but you have to do it while dealing with inevitable price increases.
Opening and owning a bar is one of those unique life experiences; you have no idea what it will be like until you actually go for it. And while it can be enjoyable, rewarding, and, yes—even profitable, it also requires long hours and hard work. In this guide, we're covering everything you need to know about owning a bar to prepare as well as you can for the big opening day.
Restaurant management is one of the best pathways for servers and hosts looking to make the next step in their hospitality careers. As of 2024, they make around $26.42 an hour or $54,962 annually, 35% higher than the average server wage. If you see yourself managing a team and overseeing operations, the path of a restaurant manager may be fulfilling.
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report, originally published in May 2024. Visit our page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. Restaurant work and benefits have not historically been synonymous. Staff meals or post-shift drinks have traditionally been the beginning and the end of any benefits beyond paychecks or tips.
Restaurant accounting isn’t easy. It involves tracking massive amounts of real data and industry benchmarks. It even has its own language, KPIs, EBITDAs, and CoGs. Sounds complicated? That’s probably because you’re hearing most of these words for the first time. Learning basic accounting is like studying a different language, regardless of how many decades you have in the restaurant industry.
This post is adapted from our "What Restaurant Employees Want" report, originally published in May 2024. Visit our page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. Engaging employees effectively is crucial for restaurant operators aiming to build a thriving and motivated workforce.
Profitability remains a challenge for many restaurants, especially with prices for ingredients and labor going up. In fact, only 27% of restaurant owners expect to be more profitable this year. One of the best things to do is to find additional revenue streams to supplement your core food and beverage sales. Diversifying your income sources can help offset rising costs and boost your overall profitability. 7 revenue streams restaurants of every type need to pay attention to Restaurant owners mus
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report, originally published in May 2024. Visit our page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. The restaurant industry is notorious for high turnover. Our data confirms that 66 percent of employees indicated that they had quit a restaurant job, with a quarter having quit more than once.
As an operator, you must have a firm grasp on your revenue, expenses, and profitability if you want to be part of the 20% of businesses that find long-term success in the industry. This involves not only knowing your current financial status but also being able to forecast future trends and make informed decisions based on accurate data. Components of a restaurant’s financial report The food and beverage sales report, prime costs report, inventory report, profit and loss (P&L) statemen
With over 5 billion people using social media globally, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have become necessary tools for businesses to reach customers. From introducing your restaurant to fulfilling orders, you can use social media to drive more traffic to your establishment, in-person and digitally. Discover why restaurants must have a social media strategy and 20 effective ways to boost your social presence online.
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report. Visit our report page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. When it comes to keeping employees happy and retaining them for a long time — is there anything more important than a healthy paycheck? As it turns out, there is.
Many operators struggle with low profit margins, and it’s easy to fall into this trap. In fact, the average restaurant profit margin just falls between 3% and 6%. By finding the right balance, you can avoid these pitfalls and ensure your business stays profitable. Let’s explore what this number means, how you can calculate it, what the average margin is for different types of restaurants, and the factors that can affect low profit margins.
This post is adapted from our “What Restaurant Employees Want” report. Visit our report page to download the full report , which features insights from 1500 active restaurant employees and industry experts. In the rapidly evolving hospitality industry, flexibility has emerged as a critical factor in attracting and retaining employees. According to the 2024 report from 7shifts, a striking 56% of restaurant employees value flexible scheduling.
Running a restaurant is not just about serving great food; it’s also about managing finances. With 50% of restaurant owners reporting inventory costs as the top concern last year, you must leverage reporting tools to see how much profit your restaurant is making and where your money is going. The most important of those reporting tools is the profit and loss statement, commonly called the “P&L.” Simply put, the P&L shows how much restaurants earned and spent for a speci
Running a bar is a lucrative business, proven by the fact that this industry is estimated to be valued at a whopping $36 billion in 2024. Even better, it is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of 5.09% in 2027. While this could be a rewarding venture, opening a bar is not exactly the same as opening a food business. Since your main focus would be selling alcohol to your customers, you need to take a few extra steps.
In 2020, the number of establishments in the food and beverage industry was estimated to be 23.1 million worldwide, and in 2023, there were about 749,404 restaurants in the United States alone. These figures prove how tough the competition is in this industry and how important it is to devise unconventional tactics and extraordinary strategies to stay ahead.
We’ve got some exciting news to share. Our annual restaurant industry report is here, and it’s all about employees. Aptly named “What Restaurant Employees Want,” this report is built from the insights of more than 1,500 active restaurant employees and uncovers what truly matters to them in their work environment. Every year, we see the same challenges crop up for restaurant operators : hiring and retaining top talent.
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