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What can restaurant operators do to bring in new guests and keep them coming back for more? Minimizing Menu Price Increases : Just because diners are still eating out and ordering in, does not mean they are happy about higher menu prices. For back of house, operators should focus on tech that drives speed, efficiency, and cost savings.
Steady Online Ordering Brings Food Waste, Donations to the Forefront of Priorities Orderingfood online increases restaurant sales, but it also can potentially increase wasted food if proactive measures aren’t taken – for both the business and consumers at home.
Around 33 to 40 percent of food goes to waste each year. A large chunk of that comes down to complex problems in global food supply chain management that most restaurants have little control over. What restaurants can do, however, is re-think how their direct food supply is managed – from transport to inventory control.
A recent eBook by Softarex Technologies highlights all the main aspects of AI usage in restaurant operations, from customer service to back-of-house management. These systems can understand various accents and dialects, process orders accurately, and even upsell menu items based on customer preferences.
Front-of-house teams juggled high guest expectations with paper logs, manual reports, and legacy systems that weren’t built to keep up with the pace of service. We saw widespread adoption of mobile payments, digital ordering, and contactless dining almost overnight. Real-time insights? Virtually nonexistent.
Scaling an artisan food business is no easy feat. Many small food businesses reach a critical point where they must decide whether to remain small and exclusive or expand into wholesale, manufacturing, and broader distribution. Looking back, I was optimistic—perhaps a bit naïve—about what scaling would require.
Is your restaurant up to speed with the latest best practices for back of house (BOH) management? Everything from decreasing food waste to exploring how automation can increase revenue for small business restaurants is related to BOH procedures. Here are some back of office trends to watch for in 2023.
Online ordering has transformed the restaurant industry, turning what was once a convenience into an absolute necessity. In 2025, the US online food delivery market is expected to reach $424.9 Customers expect to browse menus, place orders, and pay for their meals with just a few taps of their phones. billion in revenue.
Here’s an important – but often overlooked – truth for the restaurant industry: To make your customers to feel valued and appreciated, you must get their orders right! Perhaps they’re understaffed and struggling to keep up with incoming orders. Why is order accuracy so important for a restaurant?
In this guide, youll learn how to use ChowNow tools along with a handful of other effective strategies to increase order volume, boost your current customer traffic, and grow your overall sales. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay top-of-mind with customers and remind them its time to order again from your restaurant.
Increasing your restaurants online order volume doesnt have to feel like an impossible task. In this guide, well walk through seven practical ways to boost your restaurants online order volume. Optimize Your Website and Online Ordering Experience If your restaurants website isnt easy to use, youre probably losing out on online orders.
In today’s fast-paced dining world, guest satisfaction goes beyond just great food—it’s about delivering a seamless experience. Internal communication, especially between front- and back-of-house staff, is one of the most overlooked drivers of operational efficiency and l asting loyalty.
Now, a major question lingers in the minds of many: will diners actually trust ordering directly from the store, or will they always default to the marketplace delivery apps they know? The truth is, even customers who love a restaurant and want to support it often hesitate to order directly. Will the food even arrive on time?
In 2025, I expect automation to keep expanding beyond back-of-house applications into more guest-facing roles. Self-serve kiosks, QR-code menus, and personalized ordering systems will continue to redefine how patrons interact with venues. As we navigate these changes, one theme stands out: innovation.
Hospitality operators are rapidly turning to contactless ordering and payment solutions to help navigate the long road back to normal from COVID-19’s impacts. " While contactless ordering and payment is here to stay, many operators remain concerned about how this new service model will impact their guest experience.
A Dilemma of “Super Size” Proportions Amid rising food prices and shifting consumer preferences, the restaurant industry is facing a dilemma of “super size” proportions. Red Robin climbs 3 percent to 78 thanks in large part to its focus on menu and food. At the same time, U.S. chain sales grew just 3.1
To tackle these challenges, restaurant owners are relying more on digital tools like mobile ordering, self-service kiosks, and AI-powered workforce management. Self-order and payment kiosks as well as QR code menus are streamlining front-of-house operations, improving order accuracy and speeding up service.
From salted egg yolks and chili crunch fusions to mushroom-infused teas and freeze-dried fruit powder garnishes, Kimpton’s in-house experts share the standout ingredients, menu items and techniques that will come to the table in 2025.
If you want to increase order volume for your restaurant, focusing on online takeout and delivery is key. But growing online order volume isnt always easy. Many restaurants struggle with high third-party app fees, low website traffic, and clunky ordering experiences that drive customers away.
One location might offer seamless mobile ordering, while another struggles with glitchy payment systems, creating inconsistencies that can frustrate customers and impact revenue. Customers crave simplified steps at the beginning and end of their food service experiences, and it’s not hard to understand why.
Adopting in-house technologies became necessary for restaurants to stay open throughout the pandemic, restart operations after temporary closures, and pivot services to maintain revenue while still following enhanced health and safety protocols. Too Much Tech Is Not a Solution. Want to be Tech-Savvy? Start with Your Staff.
With the rising costs of goods, consumers growing more conscious of spending habits, and private equity-backed brands popping up in communities large and small, mom-and-pops are in danger of adding to the failure statistics. Today, independent restaurants can and should tap into those same tools–without the massive corporate budget.
And no, increasing restaurant sales doesn’t mean turning your restaurant staff into pushy upsellers trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of every order. And no, increasing restaurant sales doesn’t mean turning your restaurant staff into pushy upsellers trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of every order.
As a step further, offering a flexible menu catered to solo diners – with smaller portions to reduce food waste and allow the diner to taste more dishes – provides waiters with an additional opportunity to make personalized recommendations specific to these menu offerings.
That includes food prep equipment like mixers, food processors and slicers. Following some best practices for care and cleaning not only helps support the longevity of the equipment, but it also helps ensure staff has equipment that can produce consistent, high-quality food output. Check the operator’s manual.
The quicker businesses can feed that information back into operations, the better, whether for personalized dining, staffing optimization, or advertising and marketing. Restaurants are already experimenting with using AI to handle drive through orders to allow human employees to focus on customer interactions in the restaurant.
When properly deployed, they can transform the employee experience by improving daily operations, syncing front-of-house and back-of-house communication and execution, and delivering a memorable dining experience that won’t send staff to the walk-in cooler for a good cry. Hospitality is greater than the sum of its parts.
I came across an old quote from Phylicia Rashad (for those my age – the lead actress in the series “Fame” from many years back) that gave me another opportunity to think about the cooks that I know and have known over the past five (nearly six) decades and why I chose to stand in front of a range. Art is the basis of human expression.”
Customers on average will order more menu items, resulting in a larger bill for the restaurant and a larger tip for the employee. Many restaurant operators juggle multiple locations, and adding managers adds another link in the chain of command to manage. A busy staff means productive staff, which is good for business.
Every day, youre juggling staff, food quality, inventory, customer service, purchasing, and moreall while trying to cultivate a dining experience that wows your customers enough to keep them coming back. Running a restaurant is a balancing act. Its tough, and cant be done passively. What is Restaurant Operations Management?
With a critically shrunken talent pool, restaurants are racing to fill positions in every part of the business — front of house, back of house, and corporate teams. Enter digital tableside ordering. For fast-casual or QSR brands, digital tableside ordering is equally beneficial.
You are sitting in your favorite restaurant and have placed an order on a tablet at your table. After a few seconds of placing the order, a notification appears on your messaging app. Ding* ‘Your order is being prepared by Chef Bot 19 and will be delivered to your table in approximately 19 minutes.
Each system has its own tablet, order flow, and set of requirements, making it difficult to keep up with operations smoothly. Each platformUber Eats, GrubHub, DoorDashrequires its own tablet, login, and order management system. Order management issues. Consumers report that 24.4% Staff training and inconsistent efficiency.
We like to say waffles “drip with success” for food service operators, and it's because of four key factors: profitability, versatility, consumer experience and operational efficiency. It’s a favorite of ours and pretty straightforward. Versatility: They are essentially a blank canvas. . Waffles saw a 15.4
Business begins at the endpoint, especially in food service and hospitality. This includes the entire order to pay processes, from employee collaboration to guest interaction, whether via smartphone, tablet, kiosk or VR headset. And this will take some time. Build Data-First Architectures.
Is online ordering inefficient? Do you lose money due to food waste? Do you lose money due to food waste? Experiencing over-ordering or last-minute shortages? With a modern cloud-based POS, restaurants can streamline order taking, reduce human error, and improve the overall speed of service. Consider your budget.
Since the pandemic, restaurants have endured a plethora of issues ranging from fluctuating dining restrictions to supply chain issues to rising food prices. To take some of the pressure off of an already small staff, restaurants have begun turning to technology solutions with touchpoints in the front and back of house operations.
Front-of-House. Henry is ready to order some dinner. He visits your restaurant’s app and orders his favorite dish on the menu. He visits your restaurant’s app and orders his favorite dish on the menu. He receives an estimated wait time for his order of 45 minutes. Let’s come back to Henry.
Nearly every restaurant in the United States relies on a Point of Sale (POS) system for the majority of its front-of-house operations. That system needs access to the internet in order to keep functioning. Not only can that become frustrating for your guests, but it can also make in-house operations much more difficult.
In recent years, the food service industry has undergone a rapid transformation of automation and increased technology usage. This edition of Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine's Research Roundup features delivery data, tariff troubles, summer dining trends, and Beer Serves America. labor costs at 3 percent.
Are you doing all the right thingsserving amazing food, delivering top-notch service, crafting perfectly balanced drinksbut the tables still arent filling up like they should? The problem isnt your food or serviceits visibility and customer engagementand were going to help you fix that. Optimize your Google Business Profile.
We'll look at what artificial intelligence is and how it's being used in three different areas of the restaurant industry: back of the house, front of the house, and marketing. Let's start with the back of the house.
With rapid advances happening across various industries, including the food industry, you might be wondering: What does AI have to do with running my restaurant? It allows AI to understand and respond to human language, which is how virtual assistants can answer customer questions or take online orders. The short answer?
Managing delivery orders shouldnt feel like running an obstacle course, but for many restaurant operators, thats exactly what it is. Juggling multiple food delivery apps means switching between tablets, manually entering orders into the POS, and trying to keep track of ever-changing fees and commissions.
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