As a restaurant owner, even if you have daily duties, you must have a different focus and perspective from your team. It would be best if you were a leader with a vision of how you want to operate your restaurant. This vision must be communicated with your entire team, starting with your managers and trickling down to every team member.
Here are my top three best practices and three mistakes to avoid.
Top 3 Best Practices
1. Consistency in service and quality to deliver the best guest experience possible.
This all starts by hiring the right people and by creating a great onboarding experience. Follow this up with training and support so that every team member has the right knowledge and skill sets to provide the level of service you want your guests to receive. Create a culture through your actions and efforts that make your team take ownership of their jobs individually. Reward them both privately and in front of their peers.
The next part is simple: Check the quality of your food and the cleanliness of your restaurant, including the kitchen, front of house (FOH), and bathrooms. You or one of your managers need to personally taste the food and visually inspect the bathrooms, FOH, and the kitchen. Would I be proud to hand out “inspected by” slips to every guest so they knew I was responsible?
2: Listen to your guests, vendors, and your team.
Engage a third party to help you measure guest satisfaction and collect feedback. Schedule time daily to review and evaluate this information and then make appropriate changes to solve any issues.
Create a plan to evaluate and talk with all your vendors in a time frame that suits the type of work they do for you. For example, perhaps you want to talk with your food vendors more often than the company that cleans your hood system. Be involved as your vendors can crush you, or they can be your strongest ally.
Have regular team member meetings. This time can be critically important. Mix serious conversations about issues with some light-hearted discussions and brainstorming about what is going right and what could be improved. Have an open mind.
3: Embrace technology and be smart about its implementation.
My last article discussed Blending Technology with your People and Processes, but it didn’t mention the importance of embracing technology. The truth is that your restaurant can be much more successful with the addition of technology in various aspects of daily operations. Moving into the tech phase slowly is okay, but you really need to do it.
Consider this significant yet overlooked part of the guest experience, “paying the bill.” You are behind the curve if you cannot yet make tableside payments. Compare how you feel when you visit a place that makes tableside payments versus the long process of asking for the check, getting the check, giving the credit card, waiting and waiting, and finally having the bill and your card.
Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid
1: Negative cash flow is overlooked and deadly.
Owners get caught up in the P&L reports, especially the profit numbers. However, a negative cash flow short-term or long-term can put you out of business even if “technically” you are showing a profit.
It is critically important for you to be aware of and strategically negotiate when fixed monthly expenses get paid. Spread them out so they don’t all hit at the same time. The worst thing that can happen is that all your monthly expenses come due simultaneously as rent and payroll. What if this payroll includes quarterly or annual bonuses, followed by a piece of equipment that you can’t live without going down and needing immediate servicing? You are way ahead of the pack if you have a massive pot of money for this issue. Being adequately capitalized is essential but having capital does not mean you can free-wheel your spending because it will catch up with you at some point.
2: Drama is a culture killer.
You have done everything possible to create an environment that makes people want to work at your restaurant. You have a great team with a low turnover rate. Then one day, three of your most senior team members come to you and tell the same story. So and so (manager, server, bartender, whomever) is causing drama. It doesn’t matter what the drama is, but what you do next is essential. Drama must be ended as quickly as possible, and the hope is that it be done in a positive way.
Keep one thing in mind: Evaluate the situation and identify the probable root cause before you go blaming people. Was it a process not being followed, or was it a training issue? Both can be fixed easily. Part of this goes back to Best Practice #1, where we discuss hiring the right people and adequately training them. Kill drama fast, or it will kill you.
3: Resting on your laurels is easy to do and could be the start of a slow death.
My stepfather told me, “If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.” While that might not be technically accurate, there is much truth in what he was saying. Statistically speaking, and depending on your sources, 60-70% of guests never return to the same restaurant after their first visit. We can save why for another time. You just had a killer month, and profits were way up, but as stated, 70% of those people are not returning. You cannot kick back and relax. It would be best to continue doing what you can to increase your core guest count to knock that 70% number down. What if you only had to attract 50% new guests each month? How would that help with your staff planning, inventory planning, and marketing spend?
How hard can it be?
Bryan Meredith is the Restaurateur Coach. With over 25 years of hospitality experience blended with over 15 years of technology experience, Bryan brings a wide range of knowledge to help understand how these two worlds can peacefully work together. As a former owner/operator of an independent BBQ joint in Charlotte, N.C. operating four locations plus concessions, five Professional Sports facilities, and managing over 250 team members, he gets it. Currently, he writes articles, speaks at industry events, and serves as a restaurateur coach.
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