https://restauranttopia.com/episode-56-your-restaurant-can-increase-ticket-size-with-dessert-and-coffee-sales/

Your Restaurant Can Increase Ticket Size with Dessert and Coffee Sales. How to increase ticket size at your restaurant? A great technique for boosting profits is to increase the average order amount per customer. In this episode, we show you easy and simple ways to wow your customers with desserts and coffee. Each additional after-dinner item you can add will increase the ticket size and expands a restaurant’s margins. Listen to Chef Hamilton, Brian Seitz and Pablo Lopez to help you enhance the customer experience, train your staff and design your dessert/coffee menu to drive bigger ticket sizes.

We want to send a thank you to the following:

https://www.hillcrestfoods.com/ https://www.tri-c.edu/programs/hospitality-management/culinary-arts/index.html

Mocina Coffee https://www.mocina.coffee

https://pierres.com/

https://alamarra.com/

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-55-put-the-salary-on-the-job-post/

Labor is one of the biggest costs that operators have to manage and contend with.  Given this, it is no secret that cutting costs in this department are ubiquitous. 

Strategies such as clever schedules, phase-outs, breaks, menu pricing and cross-training are all recommended and welcome.  For a manager, this ideal can become somewhat of a sport and maybe even a passion. 

Ultimately, it resembles a chess match, but the consequences reach far beyond taking a simple “L” in a friendly game.  It can lead to deteriorated guest satisfaction by way of overloading a short staff with an influx of business, or employee burnout as a result of demanding too much from them on a regular basis. 

One move in this game that is not recommended is the “competitive wages” play.  Throughout my career, I used this strategy often and ultimately to my detriment.  Many employers in this industry simply will not commit to a wage on their job postings as a means of making sure they don’t overpay for a prospect, and perhaps so they don’t lose out on another because the posted wage is just too low to persuade anyone. 

Once I got the prospect in for an interview, the very last thing we discussed, even after a working interview, was “How much do you need to make?”  While waiting for the answer, I would sit and hope they fell in my range if not on the low side. 

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-54-how-to-price-your-restaurant-menu-properly-long-term/

How to price menu properly… Long Term.

Your menu is your #1 marketing piece and should be updated to reflect new trends, fresh ideas and be costed and priced properly for adequate profit.  As Paul Saginaw from Zingerman’s says “It is irresponsible to not make a profit.”

• Food Cost your menu: Amazing how many restaurateurs don’t know their food cost.
  • What does your menu run theoretically with your current pricing and cost of goods? This should be looked at versus your Actual Food Cost with waste, over/under portioning, potential theft, etc.…
  • Focus on Gross Profit on each dish and by category on menu. You will never take Food Cost percentage and deposit it in the bank.

• Menu price bench marking: Look at what other restaurants that you would want to emulate, share you customers with or are just geographically close to you.
  • Look at their menu pricing versus yours and “Pattern” this price difference.

• Raising prices in an uncertain world:
  • This is Pent up demand coming out of the Covid-19 Pandemic. People want to get out and enjoy their favorite local spots again.
  • QSR Magazine did a consumer survey: Customers will spend twice as much money per month at restaurants that meet their cleanliness standards.
    • Article Survey Link

• Knowing Inflation is the key. You can count on 3% inflation each year and potentially more this year with the increased pressure on the supply chain.   
  • Restaurant with $1M in Top Line Sales with inflation (3.5%) is losing 10k per year.
    • That same restaurant purchases around $300K – 3.5% = $10.5K spend that is not recovered
    • It only takes a raise in menu price by 1% to cover this Inflation increase.
      • ½% twice a year will do the trick!
    • Strategic changes:
      • Changing menu every 6 months you can add variety and give customer value with correct pricing.
      • If you never change menu and do price increase every 3-5 years... your customers will notice increases. You are putting more attention on pricing the longer you don’t change.

Always provide Hospitality and EARN the money.  Don’t take customers for granted.

                - Someone is spending their most precious asset with you.  Their time… Give them a value!

Show Notes: https://restauranttopia.com/episode-53-issues-with-the-supply-chain-have-a-great-effect-on-your-restaurant/

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-52-creating-an-impression-that-lasts-with-bob-pacanovsky/

How many of your staff work in the Marketing & PR department of your company?  The answer should be – all of them.  Most customers coming to dine in at your restaurant or picking up food to go may never meet the owner, chef, etc.  Their entire impression of your company could be formed by who served them, talked with them, etc.  Is your staff the best marketing for your company?

How can your staff become skilled at marketing your restaurant? Train them on how to create an Impression that LASTS.  LASTS is an acronym for –

• How you LOOK

• How you ACT

• How you SPEAK

• What your TACT is (how you behave)

• How you SERVE

Jocko Willink's methods for success were born in the SEAL Teams, where he spent most of his adult life, enlisting after high school and rising through the ranks to become the commander of the most highly decorated special operations unit of the war in Iraq. In Discipline Equals Freedom, the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Extreme Ownership describes how he lives that mantra: the mental and physical disciplines he imposes on himself in order to achieve freedom in all aspects of life. Many books offer advice on how to overcome obstacles and reach your goals―but that advice often misses the most critical ingredient: discipline. Without discipline, there will be no real progress. Discipline Equals Freedom covers it all, including strategies and tactics for conquering weakness, procrastination, and fear, and specific physical training presented in workouts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced athletes, and even the best sleep habits and food intake recommended to optimize performance.

Show Notes https://restauranttopia.com/episode-51-discipline-equals-freedom/

They Make 100’s of Decisions When You Are Not Around

Every, single one of us makes hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions daily.  The quality of decision typically dictates the outcome of how our day progresses, or at least until we hit the next intersection.   

As a leader, you are typically more advanced in both experience and quality of decision-making as a result of you learning throughout the years.  Even with this, we all still make some pretty bad decisions.   

Your staff probably is not as experienced, mature, driven, or dedicated as you are.  After all, that is probably why were appointed to lead them!  If you are capable of making bad decisions, imagine what they are capable of.

Many times, you catch them in the act of making a bad decision and are able to offer some sort of consult that leads to a better outcome.  Exponentially more times than that, they make decisions without your presence. 

Nervous?  Maybe you should be!  How do you know they are making the best decisions on your company’s behalf?

https://restauranttopia.com/do-you-know-how-many-decisions-do-your-employees-make-each-day/

There are many things that challenge a restaurant owner.  We wanted to take some time to narrow it down to what we feel the top Challenges (or as we like to call, Opportunities) are in the restaurant industry as we see it.  Each of these could be their own “Super Episode” and we may just do that in the future. 

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-49-3-challenges-that-face-restaurants-and-how-to-handle/

You’re a Role Model…It’s part of the Job

Think back to your first job.  Whether you were a dishwasher, line cook, busser, or host, the manager who brought you on board is most likely who you looked to for daily approval.  Many times, if they lived up to the task, you even modeled your behavior after them!  Why wouldn’t you?  After all, they were in charge of both your professional and financial wellbeing, and often served as the benchmark for success in your eyes. 

In a position of leadership, you become a role model whether you like it or not.  It isn’t up to you, and it simply comes with the job.  No matter the time of day, your behavior is being quietly monitored by those who look up to you! 

Great leaders are cognizant of this and understand the words they say carry tremendous weight.  They can truly mean the difference between a great day and a terrible one for those you manage even though they may seem inconsequential to you. 

As a leader, are you wielding this power with the appropriate level of responsibility?

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-48-youre-a-role-modelits-part-of-the-job/

In the Trenches: Listener question Angela from Ingonish is a Canadian rural community in northeastern Victoria County, Nova Scotia  

This is my understanding of the two questions.

How to know when to delegate?

How to stay motivated?

https://restauranttopia.com/episode-47-in-the-trenches-with-a-listener-question/