One way to improve service, food, procedures and get pointed feedback is to ask your servers and other employees what can be done better. Encourage anonymous responses to pointed questions. Examples may include:

• What is the food item most wasted on return plates?
• What do we get requests for that is not on the menu?
• What is the weakest item on the menu in terms of quality?
• How can we serve the guest faster?
• What procedures would you most like to see changed?
• How can we help you earn more tips?
• What would you change in the kitchen?
• How can we sell more beverages?
• If you were owner or General Manager, what would you change?

Your operation may have additional focus with the questions. Only use this about three or four times a year to be effective and not a regular bitch session. Give each employee an envelope that makes the responses private.

Finally, publish the results eliminating any personal names. Follow up with additional questions if some of the responses are unclear. These semi-annual forms have produced marketing ideas, menu changes and cost saving procedural changes many times in our operations. The ultimate beneficiary is the customer.

Larry Edger, Author
The Restaurant Ebook

Are you ready for a volatile 2008? Dairy products are up 15 to 30 percent depending on your location. Eggs have almost doubled in price from last year. Almost all canned and frozen foods have gone up at least 8 to 10 percent. Meats and poultry are following suit, particularly if the feed is a corn product.

The causes can be reasoned, argued and debated. The real issue for restaurant owners is finding ways to keep up with the price changes as they occur. If you haven’t scrutinized your invoices since the first of the year, you better start today.

Here are some of the ways restaurants can cope with price increases;

• Compare pricing at least monthly on every item in your inventory.
• Have a spreadsheet that calculates your plate costs on every menu item.
• Change your menu style to allow for weekly and monthly price changes without a huge cost to reprint.
• Force suppliers to keep you abreast of price changes and trends BEFORE they occur.
• Menu more stable items that aren’t increasing at an escalated rate.
• Build anticipated cost increases into menu prices.
• Run more daily specials that can be priced according to the market.

2008 will be a battle to keep your margins from ending the year in the red. Plan now, put the procedures in place and hold on for the ride!

After month’s of delay due to Internet security issues, the ebook that will simplify the lives of many entrepreneurial restaurateurs is available. The book is packed with details about cash flow, operations, training and managing a restaurant. Perhaps the most valuable chapter is “100 Ways to Increase Sales and Market Your Restaurant”.

The author gives readers more than just WHAT to do to be successful, but exactly HOW to do it. The Restaurant Ebook is more than just a typical restaurant manual that tells owners and managers they need more sales, lower costs and better service. The Restaurant Ebook is a guide that explains the “how-to’s” of marketing. The book has one chapter dedicated to why most restaurants fail and the ways to keep your doors open.

One of the most valuable aspects of the book is that it is NOT written by a consultant, but a business person that has developed three concepts that operate successfully today. The reader gets the real life experiences and anecdotes of what works and doesn’t work from years of experience.

Who should buy The Restaurant Ebook? It is a must for anyone:

• thinking of starting a restaurant
• struggling trying to keep their doors open
• having cash flow problems
• who needs to develop more business
• who discovers that traditional advertising doesn’t work
• thinks great food will bring automatic success
• that is struggling against the big chains
• that is considering buying an existing restaurant
• who wants new ideas for marketing their restaurant
• who is experienced, but is burnt out on consultants with no street experience
• considering opening their next restaurant.

Managers, owners and those dreaming of being one of the 5000 or more people who will open a restaurant, cafe, bar, bakery or food operation this year will find The Restaurant Ebook the best investment they have ever made. It’s less than the cost of their next case of coffee!

After five years of writing, while developing restaurants, Larry Edger, a Florida businessman, releases his book titled The Restaurant Ebook, A Guide to Keeping Your Dreams off the Chopping Block. Mr. Edger spent then last eleven years building, operating and successfully growing three independent restaurant concepts into flourishing businesses. During the same period he watched as restaurants opened and closed all around him.

“Seeing a business padlocked isn’t the most pleasant sight”, according to Mr. Edger. Admitting that he had no specific restaurant experience before starting on the food and hospitality journey, the author relied on his 25 years of business experience as President of several multi-million dollar corporations. “All I knew are the lessons learned from operating businesses in multiple states and applied those principles to the restaurant business, while ignoring the warnings about how tough the restaurant business was. I had heard that warning in every business!”, states Mr. Edger. The author admits he was not aware that the mortality rate for restaurants was 60% to 90% depending on whose numbers you use.

During the last five years, the author started and stopped the book many times. It was destined for hard copy when the ebook explosion on the Internet and his son convinced him to complete the book and share his experiences. Mr. Edger states that he had visions of completing the book under some palm trees in the Keys, but ended up in the dark hours with the typical writer’s passion and need to focus. “My writing visions were much the same as the dreams of thousands of entrepreneurs who want to open their first restaurant. Reality is a quick wake up call for dreamers”, states Mr. Edger after completing the manuscript.

For the ultimate motivation to buy The Restaurant Ebook, read the Foreward and Epilogue. If that doesn’t motivate you, you don’t need the book!