Many restaurants have scrambled to increase their catering business. For many of these companies, a party simply requires an estimated guest count and a reserved table or room. The guests order off the menu and drinks are all charged by the drink. Rarely, the host may restrict their guests to specific entree choices. Usually, a printed menu is prepared with the limited choices specified with prices.

Some restaurants charge a set price per person for food but let the orders go through to the kit… Continue

Did you ever think why the company media representatives and the brand equity managers keep staking and lay emphasis about the essentiality of owning a professional logo design to march on? Is the build up of hype about having custom design logo warranted?

It sounds pretty much explainable, doesn’t it? A logo of a company is the character of the organization which marks its unique identity. There are many competitors of your business around you very near but what really signifies you is… Continue

Our industry is experiencing a shift in the demand curve. Restaurant goers are downsizing from upscale to casual, casual to fast casual and fast casual to QSR and take-out. The regular patrons at many family owned restaurants are watching their checks and eliminating an appetizer or dessert course. If you have a lower priced entree on your menu, you may find the popularity on the increase.

Most of the menu analysis and menu engineering models were built during a time of solid annual growth for… Continue

See who made the top 10 fastest growing restaurant chains with less than 50 units. You may be asked to register though.

Restaurantchains.net

I got this one from a friend last night and read it cover to cover. This should help us all get to the next level in regards to marketing on social networks and social media.



You can download it here:
http://tinyurl.com/ybbbdo9

As I travel I make it a point to read the in flight magazine and the magazine in the hotels that highlight area shops and points of interest. Because of the periodical that they are in, these ads are geared to catch the eye of the visitor who will be in town for only a short while. Certain fine dining restaurants always seem to be a key advertiser in these magazines, and for good reason.

The business traveler is a fantastic demographic for a restaurant brand to build a relationship with. Accord… Continue

The New York Times recently published an article titled "The Small Business Guide to Text-Message Marketing". If you're a small business looking at new innovative and effective marketing methods, text message (SMS) marketing is the way to go. Let's review --

1. Don’t even think about doing it the illegal way.

… Continue

This was forwarded to me yesterday, and I thought I would share this with all of my friends since most of you have a website of your own. This is the top magazine for people with a website, and they are giving away subscriptions to boost their readership. The free subscription is the one on the right side of the web page below:

http://tinyurl.com/yeaqe7o

Feel free to pass it along to your friends also.

Enjoy...

Many brands are coming up with some great new menu items in an attempt to get customers excited and steer them away from the competition. But has anyone noticed that now they are all offering the exact same “New” thing?

It is vitally important to track and evolve your offerings in order to carve out a sustainable piece of a market share. You look at what you offer today, then you also look at consumer trends. But you must be able to adapt your business to meet the new demands created by those t… Continue

I recently read an article entitled "Managing Real and Virtual Waits in Hospitality and Service Organizations", published in 2005 in Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CQ). If you manage or own a business where customers experience a wait, I highly recommend reading this article (link at bottom).

There are three ways to manage waits --

1. Manage the actual wait time. This involves accurately matching resources to customer demand. Ideally, customers would experience no wait whatsoever because

… Continue

Creating An Inviting Lobby

1 - Use Color!
Color can impact your customers in many ways. A traditional feel can be created using neutrals. For a more elegant appeal, try black and grey tones. Vibrant colors, such as reds and oranges, add energy and appeal to a space. A bold paint color or wallcovering is a simple way to transform a space.

2 - Let There Be Light!
Lighting is key to creating the appropriate atmosphere for your restaurant. Orange and yellow tones can create a… Continue

See our September 2009 (annual tracking) segment winners of the fastest growing restaurant chains by category growth % of Casual, QSR, Sandwich, etc.
Continue.....

Thanks for all the emails regarding Recipe Costing. The blog posts from July are posted here for anyone who missed the series:

The majority of operations I start work with do not have an operations manual. These same operators have no formal training for new hires. If you start as a line cook, you take verbal orders for most activities. The restaurant will not provide you with standard recipes. There are no photos of the production action and no information regarding weights and sizes.

When we… Continue

You may have lots of cookbooks, proprietary recipes, books with food yield statistics, market data, shopping lists, inventory count sheets, supplier quotes, product mix reports, quarterly tracking reports and other documents. A professional recipe model should be designed to integrate all of this useful information. The person working on this project needs to wear many hats: purchasing agent, steward, prep cook, line cook, and chef.

Rather than using a cookbook approach, start with your shoppin… Continue

After you have your item list broken down into purchase units (e.g. case) and inventory units (e.g. #10 can), you can begin to visualize the production process. For each ingredient, make a list of units commonly called in recipes. This will vary depending on how many different recipes use each item.

Three common portion methods for recipe ingredients are weight, volume and count. Meat items are often portioned by weight and count. When portioning by the piece, you may have more than one portion… Continue

I started my consulting company in 1990 to help food service operators with financial troubles. Finding it difficult to get paid, I started looking for work with companies in better shape. I ran into a local consultant, Bob Kaiser, who said I should work with computers since I had a background in accounting and technology.

My first assignment was with one of Bob's clients. This company had two catering facilities and used Eatec software. The chef had zero success building recipes despite purcha… Continue

Chefs love to see a recipe model come together in the final stages. Sole proprietor owners love this stage even more if possible. What's the lure? They see how much it costs to produce the actual menu items with all the trimmings.

The most frequently asked question at this stage goes something like "How do we tell the system our cover costs? Is there a way to enter a Q factor?"

I let them know they should enter all applicable costs to properly cost the menu. The follow up question is actually… Continue

http://blog.answers-sys.com

Imagine this…

Every month you get your credit card bill (not very hard to imagine!), you hop online, and pay your bill. The only difference is that your credit card company only provides you with a total amount due. There isn’t a line item statement included detailing the charges to your card. Would you just pay your bill and trust that they’re not charging you an inflated interest rate or billing you for charges you didn’t authorize? Probably not. You could potenti… Continue

Perhaps it's because of the health overhaul by the U.S. government that is shelving the optimists for the time being. Yes, it's the summer, but filings are off around 30% from last year. And more and more new locations are smaller outlets of foodservice.

We think there is a trend toward one family-run restaurants or one small partnership operations, to escape regulatory overhang.

So the micro-restaurant has arrived (or returned?).

This month, I noticed an urgency in 3 restaurant chains which would be out of the question in the past. Top level financial officers have made the dive into inventory control including batch recipe models for work in progress inventory. Calling late at night, I found the CFO of a 35 unit chain in the office working feverishly to get the new database deployed. She was working on recipe costing and linking her recipes to the POS system.

Years ago, restaurant companies needed to be shoved into sof… Continue