Today, we’re talking about the 5 truths every entrepreneur needs to know about running a successful restaurant.
Running a restaurant can be a dream job. But, running a successful restaurant is the true dream.
What makes one restaurant a success and another a failure? Based on our customer’s feedback, there are five key truths to running a successful restaurant today.
The 5 key truths of running a successful restaurant:
- Customer service is key
- Cleanliness and sanitation rule in the era of COVID-19
- Your digital brand builds trust
- Menu engineering makes for better profits
- Takeout and delivery matter
Let’s explore each of these 5 entrepreneurial truths about running a successful restaurant.
Care for customers
To begin, one of the most important keys to a successful restaurant is superior customer service.
Many restaurant owners and operators assume customer service is only customer-staff interactions. But, customer service includes every single facet of your customer’s experience with your restaurant.
Beyond friendly staff, there are several other components of customer service to consider, like:
- Delivering food in a timely manner
- Loyalty programs for repeat customers
- Not overbooking reservations
- Options to order food online
- Customer appreciation measures
Moving ahead, how can you improve your customer’s experience with your restaurant?
Cleanliness rules
In today’s COVID-19 world, stringent cleanliness, hygiene, and sanitization measures are absolutely critical to a restaurant’s success.
In order to succeed in this era, restaurants must adhere to strict cleaning measures and hygiene protocols.
But, that’s only part of the picture.
Successful restaurants must also tell their customers about their vigorous safety and hygiene protocols. By broadcasting your safety and cleanliness measures on your website, social channels, and physical signage, you can signal to your customers that their safety is your top priority.
Better branding
A third tenet of successful restaurants is that today’s thriving restaurants have up-to-date, well-designed branding. This includes online branding, like a website, social channels, or e-loyalty programs.
That said, if you do not yet have any digital marketing efforts behind your restaurant, don’t panic! There’s an easy place to start. A user-friendly website is a great step to helping improve your restaurant’s brand.
The top benefits to having your own restaurant’s website include:
- Earn customer trust. Customers shop online. Your restaurant needs a website to stay relevant.
- Allow online ordering for takeout and delivery, which increases your revenue.
- Employ tactics like updated social media streams and positive customer reviews to improve your image.
- Pop up in online searches for local restaurants.
If your restaurant does not yet have a website, Dash can help you create a well-designed, user-friendly website in just 5 clicks.
Menu engineering
Another key truth of running a successful restaurant? Creating a menu that your customers love and that works for the business.
While you might have delicious recipes or a passion for food, running a successful restaurant is more than your tasty menu offerings.
In order to run a successful restaurant, you need to consider if your menu is helping or hurting your profit margins. This practice is known as menu engineering, or analyzing and designing a menu to maximize restaurant profits.
Menu engineering helps restaurants turn bigger profits and waste less food.
If you want to engineer your menu for better profits, consider:
- Your food costs – Are your wholesale prices the best you can get? Are you ordering too much?
- Your finishing items – Are you adding expensive garnishes without charging the customer?
- Your portion sizes – Are customers leaving behind excess food?
- Your offerings – Are you selling too many items?
By analyzing your current menu, you’ll find simple tweaks to help you reduce waste, improve your profit margin, and increase your chances of success.
Better takeout and delivery programs
Finally, one more key truth to running a successful restaurant is the need for a great takeout and delivery program.
60% of U.S. consumers order delivery or takeout once a week and 63% of young adults use third party delivery services to order food.
With numbers like those, one thing is clear. A strong delivery and takeout program is key to a restaurant’s success.
If you do not yet have a delivery and takeout program in place, there are two options for your restaurant.
- First party delivery is when your customer orders and receives their food from your website or app, and your staff delivery driver.
- Or, third party services like UberEats, Postmates, Doordash, GrubHub handle all aspects of takeout and delivery for your restaurant, including ordering, payment, and delivery.
If your restaurant does not yet offer takeout or delivery, now is the time to get your program up and running.
If you’re ready to increase your profits with takeout and delivery options, Dash can help you easily get started. Dash is an easy-to-use Order Management System that syncs activity from all your channels (online, mobile, and 3rd-party apps and orders) in one place, to make your delivery and takeout system as efficient as possible.
