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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. The key is to keep these promotions short to avoid menu bloat.
Is your restaurant up to speed with the latest best practices for back of house (BOH) management? So, which back of office trends should restaurant ownership and management be concerned with heading into 2023? Here are some back of office trends to watch for in 2023. – received the majority of customer tips.
When youre updating your online menu or online ordering system, its tempting to just copy over the dish names from your restaurant menu and call it a day. Well-written menu descriptions dont just tell guests whats in a dish; they entice customers, set the tone for your brand, and can increase sales.
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.
Menu pricing isnt just about covering costsits about finding that sweet spot where profitability, customer perception, and operational reality meet. Understanding the Key Factors in Menu Pricing Before you develop your menu pricing strategies, its important to ground your decisions in the numbers.
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. They’re the operational nerve center—linking the front-of-house, back-of-house, and everything in between. Real-time insights?
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.
" Photo by Parker Hospitality Bringing a refined twist to a nostalgic favorite Urban Hill in Salt Lake City has a tableside s’mores experience with every element made in-house. ” Newly opened House of Yoshin in Huntington, NY. "We offer tableside prosciutto carts with three different prosciuttos. .”
While this uncertainty may seem like a challenge, it also offers restaurateurs the opportunity to step back and look at the factors that may be eating away at their bottom line. Adjusting menu prices may have worked in the past, but it’s no longer enough to offset rising costs. One often-overlooked area is water consumption.
Restaurant operators searching for something versatile that will cross the dayparts need to look no further than their breakfast menu as waffles have been breaking out of the morning. Profitability: Waffles are a low-cost, center-of-the-plate item and one of the most profitable breakfast item menu offerings.
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.
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.
Most of these increases in costs will be passed on to the consumer by higher menu prices. If the 200-percent tariff increase goes into effect for European wines, those items will be virtually priced off the menu and will be unaffordable for the average restaurant guest. The EU could also impose tariffs on additional categories of U.S.
In 2018, I opened a self-serve tap house and sports bar called Auggie’s Draft Room. It’s probably not what you think, and it might even be easier than what you’re doing now. Every story deserves an unforgettable ending. Of all the concepts I’ve brought to life, this one stands out as my most successful.
Self-order and payment kiosks as well as QR code menus are streamlining front-of-house operations, improving order accuracy and speeding up service. Customers benefit from the convenience of browsing digital menus and completing payments independently, especially during busy periods.
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.
– Salad House CEO Joey Cioffi In 2025, restaurant chains will increase their usage of connected equipment to be more responsive, resilient, and ready to meet evolving customer expectations in a data-first, efficiency-focused world. At the same time, technology is poised to play an even bigger role in the coming year.
Tipping expectations have skyrocketed, and consumers are pushing back. Standardized Tip-Sharing: A Team Win Tip pooling helps level the playing field, ensuring that both front- and back-of-house staff benefit. According to a recent Bankrate survey , nearly one in three Americans think tipping has gone too far. Timing is key.
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.
It’s also critical to have equipment that is well cared for and cleaned correctly on a regular basis. That includes food prep equipment like mixers, food processors and slicers. Fortunately, the processes don't have to be complicated or time-consuming. Staff can do this at the start or end of a shift.
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.”
In the back of the house, rampant inflation and ongoing supply chain disruptions are cutting into margins. Simultaneously, staffing is an urgent and ongoing front-of-house concern. It is even more so for independent restaurants, which usually have one manager for all front- and back-of-house duties.
For this reason, the culinary, tourism and hospitality industries need to evolve and expand their brand by offering plant-based protein alternatives on menus. Here are five easy ways to diversify your brand through the integration of plant-based foods onto your menu: Sub-Out Recipes to Include Plant-Based Offerings on Your Menu.
Replacing a front-of-house employee costs an average of $1,056, while back-of-house replacement jumps to $1,491. Management replacement is even more expensive at $2,611 per position—nearly 150 percent higher than front-of-house costs.
Foot traffic or heat mapping, menu item engagement, or consumer demographics by time of day. The quicker businesses can feed that information back into operations, the better, whether for personalized dining, staffing optimization, or advertising and marketing.
Growing your produce is an especially great way to: Choose fruits and vegetables you want to feature on a menu. But, when it comes to both front and back-of-house operations, there are things you can do to cut back on waste production, including: Setting up a recycling program. A Sustainable Supply Chain. Quite a bit.
This can help restaurants meet mandated accessibility requirements and guests’ safety concerns, while simultaneously reengineering the overall menu for a better, more modern experience. Here are three ways that digitizing menus can help improve accessibility. Think about it. Get Rid of PDFs. For example, QR codes (remember them?)
Building a Competitive Menu We’ve seen that with chains building out a competitive menu featuring specialty items and showing off their culinary skills to attract customers. This makes business tight causing a hard look at any extra costs. There are many areas where we have seen food service operators benefit!
Instead, you’ll see signage about the health benefits of plant-based eating — the “primary drivers of consumer choice are personal benefit,” says Goldman — and the menu board, designed like any one in other fast-food chains. These numbers are largely hypothetical. Congratulations. The environmental mission can come later.
One key to cooking chicken fingers and other menu items like fries, wings and fried pickles to the quality that both Zaxby’s and customers expect is properly maintaining cooking oil. “Being able to simplify operations for the back of house was the biggest reason I wanted to make the switch,” Neal said.
Customers expect to browse menus, place orders, and pay for their meals with just a few taps of their phones. Whether its takeout, delivery, or even in-house orders via QR codes, customers want a seamless and convenient way to order online. In 2025, the US online food delivery market is expected to reach $424.9 billion in revenue.
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.
How do you successfully reenter the world of service, sales, and most importantly, profitability as we bounce back from COVID-19? Start with Your Menu. Assuming your operation was open at all during COVID-19, you probably removed a number of items from your menu. It’s easier for the front-of-the-house to present.
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. Its tough, and cant be done passively. What is Restaurant Operations Management? Great restaurant operations dont happen by accident.
Tacos are served up at Maizajo, where corn tortillas are made in-house. I loved the menu design here so much that I kept checking out the merch T-shirts, stickers, and more and ended up nabbing a brightly colored tote bag as a souvenir. Subscribe now. Ive just returned from three glorious, food-filled days in Mexico City.
This digitization of the edge will not only enhance the experience, but also create a natural method of collecting data about your guest – who they are, their preferences, how often they visit, how they pay and how you can bring them back to your restaurant more often. And this will take some time.
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. Just because they can order on their own, it doesn’t mean they don’t need your support navigating the menu or finding something new to experience.
You need ideas that will wow new customers and get the regulars excited to come back in. In-house promotions Leverage customers presence in-store by using flyers, table tents, A-frames, and mentions at the bottom of receipts. When its go-time, everyone should be cool, calm, and collectedthat includes both front and back of house.
This includes hours of operation (including holiday updates), your website link, phone number, and menu. Build a Rewards Program to Encourage Repeat Visits Getting first-time guests through the door is the hard partbringing them back is much easier. Here are two ways to make a big impact on your local SEO. Upload high-quality photos.
The 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report revealed that 22 percent of restaurant operators plan to invest in technology like POS software, back-of-house systems, and data analytics in the near future. Meanwhile, an additional six percent will invest more in automation like kiosks and robotics.
Front-of-House. He visits your restaurant’s app and orders his favorite dish on the menu. Then they are guided to scan a QR code to access the menu. Let’s come back to Henry. Let’s review how restaurant technology can assist you with your daily operations. Henry is ready to order some dinner.
These are tools that can help you streamline operations, easily schedule staff, and make sure you never run out of ingredients for your best-selling menu items. Front-of-House AI Applications One of the best things about AI is that while it helps your staff, its also giving your customers a better experience.
By this point, most restaurants have experimented with their concept and menu to adapt. New organizations like No Us Without You and the 86 Fund have also been popping up to help the industry weather the storm of winter and support the most vulnerable people working in the back of house.
A chief reason is due to caution or uncertainty exhibited by conscious consumers, with 48 percent saying they are taking the ‘wait and see’ approach and holding back on spending in 2024. Moving to Multichannel Dining Experiences Dining out is… back? So, what’s the solution? Food availability is often in flux.
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