A few days ago, I was talking to customers at one of our operations. A gentleman asked me about what it’s like to manage a full service restaurant. My response was the same as it has been for the last ten years. Managing the front of the house of a restaurant is like throwing a big party at your home for 150 of your best friends and relatives. The biggest difference is the party is perpetual, every night.

At your home, you want to make sure every guest is entertained, happy, served well and there is no negative body language that would say otherwise. Running a restaurant is much the same.

Your eyes catch everything.  A server who passes by a dirty table, a customer with an empty glass, body language that seems negative, the piece of paper on the floor, the customer waiting for a check, the busboy that needs a haircut, a guest that drops a fork – it all happens almost simultaneously.

When you have a party, don’t you do the same thing? You work hard to make sure everyone has a good time, is happy with your food and leaves with a smile on their face. You eyes scan the room for any glitch that will improve the guest’s experience at your home. Why would you do any less at your restaurant?

At your home you may pay special attention to your mother-in-law who is very picky. Don’t we have the same at restaurants – guests that are picky? We care about how clean the bathrooms are at home – we care at the restaurant also. You would never let loud, inappropriate music blast your guests at your house, nor at your restaurant. The crying baby in the living room at your house is often offered something special ostensibly to satisfy the baby, but really to stop annoying the rest of your friends and family – the same at your restaurant.

While you can find a few differences, the reality is that there are far more similarities between a big party at home and the nightly experiences at your restaurant.

One of the key differences is staff. At home you may hire a person or two to help with the party, but at your restaurant, you may have dozens. If you can train them to think like it is their party every night, you have created an atmosphere that will bring people back time after time. Including the free-loading in-laws!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

If you are a glutton for Internet time, then by all means consider a blog to boost your restaurant’s exposure and start a dialog with patrons. Just remember that an effective blog is like a fish tank of goldfish. If you don’t feed them they die and stink up the place. Your blog will take a little daily care and feeding to be successful.

Don’t expect miracles from your blog. It takes time and content before the search engines start to spider your site and add you to their indexed material searchable by Internet users.

To start your blog, carefully plan what you want the content to focus on. Subjects may include general food advice, recipes and cooking tips. You can write about the restaurant business in general and answer questions about how the hospitality business works. Consider a customer feature section of the blog to focus on patrons who frequent your establishment. Perhaps a daily journal of the restaurant operations for staff and customers alike. Whatever you choose, keep your posts relatively short and to the point. Use laymen’s terms and personal styles that fit your communications goals.

Creating a blog is very easy with many choices for an inexpensive and quick setup. In fact, email me and I will send you a FREE mini-ebook titled Building and Maintaining a Restaurant Blog – The Guide to Getting Your Own Blog in 30 Minutes or Less. This ebook takes you through the process of creating a restaurant bog complete with graphics and full support in just a few minutes. There are ideas and subject recommendations to achieve your goals. It can’t get any easier!

Larry Edger, Author
The Restaurant Ebook

Restaurants spend thousands of dollars on advertising and marketing programs that bring new guests in the door. To sustain growth, insure repeat visits and maximize your investment in new marketing programs, the savvy restaurant owner knows that adjustments must be made to the last step of the marketing process - delivering what the customer expects.

As your staff becomes busier there will be blips in customer service that have to be addressed to bring those new faces back in the door. Here are a few suggestions;

• Keep your staff informed. Let them know why they are busier and how to maintain a high level of customer interaction. Remind them that a smile and quick frequent table visits will solve half the problems.
• Waiting is by far the worst experience a customer can experience. It is clearly documented in every customer survey that the guest doesn’t want to wait for their table, wait for a server to show up, wait for drinks, wait for their order, wait for a server to check on them, wait for a check and wait to pay. Where is your breakdown in the waiting game? Evaluate time frames and eliminate a few seconds from each step and you will have happier guests.
• When service does break down, repair the damage if possible. Servers know when a customer isn’t pleased. Managers should be able to just look at a table and tell from body language and faces if they are pleased. A visit from a Manager is imperative to completing the experience. Do whatever is necessary to insure a return visit - even if it means offering complimentary food or drinks to repair the damage.
• Anticipate your success. If you are confident that your marketing will work, why wait until you are over burdened with new business to hire and train new staff?

One of the early mistakes I made when opening restaurants was too much business to the point of wasting all of the marketing dollars on our poor job of meeting the customer’s expectations. That experience and many other correctable problems are recounted in The Restaurant Ebook. Don’t fall prey to your own success!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

The debate about coupons as a tool for restaurant marketing will rage forever. Some say they are not necessary and give away bottom-line profits unnessasarily. Other entrepreneurs say it is a great way to introduce new guests to the restaurant and to feature new menu items.

The fact is both sides of this raging industry battle are right and wrong. Using coupons and incentives can be a waste of resources if used improperly and too frequently. On the other hand, if used to highlight or feature a segment of your menu, they can change a frequent diner’s habits and encourage more adventuresome trials of your menu.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts when considering coupon campaigns;

• Don’t use a coupon to reward a frequent diner’s existing habit. Why offer $5 off next weeks visit? They would be there anyway!
• Do reward a diner for becoming involved in your marketing. For instance, a free dessert or appetizer for bringing in a new guest is a good incentive.
• Don’t try to drive new traffic to your restaurant with an insignificant coupon. Few people are motivated by a $10 off coupon to try a restaurant for the first time. When is the last time you were motivated by a coupon to try something new?
• Do use a coupon to fill weak sales periods in your day. For instance, offering a free espresso with the purchase of a slice of pie from 2 to 5 PM daily may help build those hours and encourage expanded visits.
• Don’t measure your results solely in the number of coupons returned. Sometimes the mere offering is enough to draw attention to something new. An example may be a series of new pasta dishes coupled with a coupon for a free fried ravioli appetizer. Customer’s attention is drawn to the higher margin pasta selections and may produce sales in the long term, even though the temporary coupon was never used.
• Do work the math on every coupon campaign. Look at your goals and the cost to attain them. Is there a less expensive way to reach the same results?

If you use the coupon as an incentive too frequently, it almost becomes a permanent discount that a customer begins to expect. Over a long period of time, guests may wait to visit only when the incentive is offered. Coupons are just one arrow in your quiver of marketing tools.

The Restaurant Ebook has over 100 ways to market your restaurant and increase sales. Here are a couple that are easy and inexpensive.

• When you want to get the word out to your potential customers in a neighborhood, try working with the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Have printed door hangers made announcing your promotion or opening. Offer a local Girl Scout or Boy Scout troop a donation for passing them out within your demographic target area. A little community participation coupled with a promotion serves two purposes.
• Besides a restaurant, one of the most frequented businesses in most residential areas is the local cleaners. Try partnering with them to exchange coupons or promotions. It will work for both of you. Other partnership opportunities can be hardware stores, car washes, hair salons, barber shops and even insurance agents.
• When considering partnerships, direct mail is another opportunity for businesses to join together and save money. The cost of postage in today’s world may be prohibitive for the lone operator. However, if the costs were split two or three ways, this valuable tool may be lees expensive than running an ad in the local news paper. More effective too!
• Guest cards. Restaurants pay a lot of money to get a new guest in the door. Why not pay your existing customers those advertising dollars. A simple card printed with an invitation to get 10% off their next visit if they bring a new customer with them can be an effective way to build relationships.
• Customers all have childhood memories or travel highlights of food they have eaten that sticks in their mind. Pick a slow night of the week and designate it “Customer Favorites” night.  Specials for the evening will be chosen from suggestions customers offer you. Always get the customers contact information to call them when you plan their feature. Many will bring guests. Another relationship building tactic.

For long term success in the restaurant business, establishing a “feel good” contact with guests is important. Any successful restaurateur will tell you the the best form of advertising is word of mouth from regular diners.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook 

The restaurant industry continues to debate the value of celebrity chefs with their reality shows and entertaining “cooking” shows. Most of us know the public’s perception of these fictional programs is based on the entertainment value as opposed to the real cooking element presented. I am sure I am not the only restaurateur that has laughed as Emeril flubs another dish as they go to break for a million dollar commercial. Personally, I am not convinced these TV personalities have much of an impact on the food business other than their own ability to sell products and advertising.

One thing is clear. Just because they can brand their name and open restaurants across the country, that doesn’t mean success is guaranteed. The customer still has expectations that must be met for an extended restaurant life. No one truly believes the fantasy of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen or the business mess of Rocco’s. Few of these stars have escaped the pad locks that decorate their closed ventures. Ramsay has three closures in the last six months. Under the marketing conditions in the coming year, there will be many more celebs packing it in.

The difference between the celebrity restaurants and the “real” operations that open up is the amount of initial publicity. Robert Irvine, recently deposed from the Food Network, has been planning two restaurants in the St. Petersburg, Florida luxury district downtown for many months. The publicity has been non-stop for six months since the announcement. No independent food operation garners such attention. We do it the old fashion way - one customer at a time.

The basic elements for long term survival must be employed by any venture. You have to create a real connection with the customer. The connection cannot be based on  short lived hype or legend. It must offer an experience that guest will savor, send and save. They will savor the experience by meeting their expectations. Customers will send the experience on to friends and family by word of mouth. Finally they save the visit in their mind for many return visits. If your restaurant doesn’t capture the guest with a connection, no amount of publicity will salvage your ultimate fate.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

In Part 1 we discussed the customer’s tendencies and habits in a difficult economy. Now we need to examine how restaurant owners and managers need to change their thinking to match the consumer’s outlook.

Almost from the day an entrepreneur gets into the restaurant business, the term “margin” is tossed around freely. In the hotel, institutional and chains, the margin between food cost and selling price becomes fixed as the way to price the menu item. Everything is based on an acceptable percentage to maintain profitability. Independent restaurant owners need to re-think this process. Independents don’t have the luxury of a captive market like hotels, hospitals, schools and other foodservice operations that have fewer competitive forces and customers who can opt for convenience as opposed to price or value.

When tweaking your menu for consumer trends, balance is still a concern. You need to have items that will allow the diner to choose lower priced entrees  if that is their mood, while not deviating from your theme or concept. However, pricing becomes an opportunity to look at total plate profits as opposed to just a particular margin goal. For instance, if you are a steak house and price a New York strip dinner at $23.95, you may have costs for the total plate in the range of $11 to $12. You plate profit will be $11 to $13.

When looking at a lower price point for a new menu item or two, consider plate cost and profit rather than just margins. An example could be a Blackened Chicken Breast Fettuccine that has a cost somewhere around $2.50 to $3.50. Priced at $15, you will have about the same plate profit as the New York strip and be offering the diner a choice that is almost $8 less than the extravagant steak. It’s perception that counts. Do you care which dish your customer orders? Probably not.

A customer who orders a generous portion of a Pot Roast Feature with potatoes, onions and carrots can bring the same dollar amount to your bottom line as a lobster dinner. Bacon wrapped pork tenderloin medallions with a red cabbage and apple chutney can be as profitable as that fisherman’s platter at a much lower price. That grouper sandwich at $11 is no more profitable than a grouper cheek Po Boy. Same fish, different cuts and sizes. Turn your nose up at chicken livers if you must, but one of our units recently sold twenty pounds of chicken livers on a featured special in one night. The cost - $.80 a pound! The price $14. Comfort food right out of the baby-boomer’s childhood, but I doubt we could sustain those sales for a long period.

The keys to implementing this strategy are;

• Meet with your suppliers. They can offer insight into product alternatives and hints at what others are doing.
• Look at the lower cost items in your pantry rather than the normal routine of controlling the top 20% of your purchased supplies.
• Use the Internet to search for ideas using keywords like rice, pasta, beans, chicken and pork as ingredients.
• Time is not on your side. Do it now, while the consumer’s plight at the grocery store is fresh in their mind. Don’t lose guests because you failed to respond.

Creativity and spending time focusing on lower cost protein items will give both you and the consumer reasons to stay comfortable in a difficult economic climate.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook 

Most restaurants create their menu according to theme, demographics and functional abilities. This year the industry is facing external challenges unequaled in near term history. Many think we are either in a recession or close to one with spiraling inflation that has hit food costs harder than other business segments and less discretionary cash available to consumers that has reduced their restaurant visits.

It’s time for a menu makeover that includes more than just raising prices.

When uncertain financial times sweep across the country, several things, both consciously and unconsciously, alters the average person’s thought processes. Conserving disposable income becomes a forethought rather than an afterthought. While studies show that people may spend more time at the local pub, they also tend to change their eating habits to varying degrees. Upscale white tablecloth eateries will probably be hit the hardest, but all types of restaurants will feel the crunch.

Menu’s will be scrutinized more carefully than normal. People will look for perceived bargains and items they can’t possibly reproduce at home. At the same time, they will revert to feel good items - like comfort food.

To adapt your menu to uncertain financial conditions, here are a few tips;

• Bargains in the guest’s mind make take the form of smaller portions, a sirloin instead of filet mignon, a sandwich instead of a full meal or even split plates of larger portioned dinners.
• Comfort food may include classics from their childhood and foods they wouldn’t normally eat do to health concerns. There will be the tendency to be less adventuresome in their dining habits.
• Hard to find ingredients that cannot be purchased economically by the average customer may tempt the guest frequently. Examples include fruits like fresh red cherries and green tomatoes , vegetables like red peppers and Vidalia onions and meats like fresh turkey and pork tenderloin.

In every cloud there is a bit of silver lining. There are opportunities for the restaurateur to increase margins while catering to the guest’s whims in a difficult economy. Comfort food can offer great latitude for interpretation. Smaller portions need not mean lower margins and selective purchasing can offer unique specials that may not sell in other circumstances.

Get creative and add your flair and theme to old classics. When was the last time you saw hamloaf on a menu? How about potatoes au gratin? A green bean casserole doesn’t have to be served just around the holidays. If there is anyone who didn’t have some type of beans and cornbread while growing up, they missed part of their childhood! Who can forget the apple crisps and strawberry short cakes before fake sponge cake? Have you thought about mixing old favorites like spaghetti and pork chops? And, of course, there about a thousand ways to be creative with meatloaf. I can’t think of anything more comforting that corned beef hash with a poached egg on top. Macaroni and cheese has become a mainstream menu item that includes everything from truffles to tea leaves.

Now if you read the paragraph above and your mouth isn’t watering just a little bit, you need to move along to another site. The comfort food and ageless classics may be an opportunity waiting to happen for your restaurant trying to meet the customer’s expectations. Do you need to change your entire menu? Absolutely not. You only need a few creative items that gives the customer an alternative - nothing more.

Part two to Restaurant Menu Strategies will deal with a new way to look at profitability and pricing for this economy.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook 

Several months ago, when finishing The Restaurant Ebook, I wrote an Epilogue to the book that outlined a marketing program that we implemented at one of the restaurants. To briefly set the stage, I reported that through September of 2007, the restaurant had lackluster results with only a 2% increase in sales for the year. Even the 2% was questionable if price increases were factored in.

During September, I challenged one of our Managers to choose four or five new low cost marketing ideas from Chapter Seven, 100 Ways to Increase Sales and Market Your Restaurant, of The Restaurant Ebook and implement them. We wanted to keep track of costs and results. The goal was to report the effect on our sales and keep readers and buyers of the book informed of the progress. At the end of February, 5 months into the program here are the results;

• Sales over the same period in 2006-07 have increased a total of $60,312.
• Total restaurant sales have increased over 10%.
• The month of February had an increase of over $17,000 alone!

There is more great news;

• None of the marketing programs used discounts, coupons or margin cutting ideas.
• The total cost so far is less than $200.
• Not a single newspaper ad, magazine ad or other form of media advertising was used.
• It should be noted, although undocumented, most other restaurants in this area are reporting a difficult time as a result of the economy, cost of fuel and consumer’s reduction of luxury spending. Our restaurant is considered upscale casual and guests could certainly find less expensive alternatives.
• We firmly believe we are building solid repeat business, not some promotion that lasts for a few days or weeks and ends when the incentive wears off.

How was it done? Very simply. We created a six month Marketing Plan using the checklists and instructions in The Restaurant Ebook. We planned and implemented each step. We involved staff and kept our commitment to get this done.

There are no quick fixes to marketing. No gimmicks, no overnight magic and if you ever find a quick fix, please report it here for your fellow restaurateurs!

You can listen to the restaurant “witch doctors” or use your common sense to spend a few dollars on knowledge to build your business. You can be in the process of opening a new restaurant, buying a restaurant or just re-vitalizing an existing operation - solid marketing and planning works, even on an eight year old restaurant!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

P.S. Come back in a couple of months to get the final report before we begin our next six month plan.

It’s clear 2008 will challenge even the best restaurant owners. Prices are rising faster than operators can respond. Cost controls  are essential, but how does the restaurateur get ahead of the trends? How can you adjust menu prices before the increases hit your bottom line because you are retroactive to the suppliers’ charges?

Here are some guidelines.

• First, check our commodity trends link in restaurant resources section. Weekly visits will give you an idea of where prices for beef, pork, chicken and dairy products are headed.
• Second, many major suppliers have a Trend Report that they will release to customers. These releases report notices of price increases from processors, manufacturing representatives and other purveyors.
• Third, try to negotiate locked in prices from any suppliers you can. Many will hold pricing for items that you can anticipate usage for the next 90 days.
• Fourth, listen to stock market reports and commodity prices. If a bushel of corn has an extended upward trend, you are going to feel it. If pork bellies look like the they are making a move, you are going to see your prices going up.
• Fifth, use common sense. If wheat and flour are increasing, bread is going up. If sugar takes a jump, desserts are going to follow suit. Oil prices will effect any petroleum products used in manufacturing everything from trash bags to portion cups.

Take these five steps and review your menu every month. You can stay ahead of the game and keep those numbers in the black.

 Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook