A lot of people share the dream of opening a successful restaurant. This is probably why restaurants are notorious for going out of business in the first two years. You need to have more than a dream. For one thing restaurants are expensive and slow to come to life. It is important to have a huge war chest before you open that door. But there are other things you need to get right as well.
- Your Menu Needs to be Sublime: This begins with knowing what kind of restaurant you want to run and what type of food. But then you need to work the menu into a work of art. You need to have a varied palette, but at the same time the elements need to belong together, and they should work towards the overall vision. And the things that you decide to include in the menu, must be the best version of that item that you can imagine. Resist the temptation to have a vast selection, only include the things that you know can be knocked out of the park repeatedly. Your goal is continuity and consistent perfection.
- Take Your Time Selecting Staff: When it comes to the customer’s experience, a major part of it is the server. Great staff is hard to find, because they already have jobs, but your people are nearly as important as your food. The best servers are consistently social, and flexible enough to please the variety of personalities they will face in an evening. Good servers fight to get their meals out on time, and they make the customer feel like they made that server’s night. They also have great memorization and organizing skills.
- Design your restaurant for comfort and positivity: People go to restaurants to feel good, have fun, and be social. It is supposed to be a bit of lazy self-indulgence. There are many great examples of restaurants in Terrigal with successful designs. Do your research, go out often and find out what kind of atmosphere works and why.
- Marketing: While your restaurant might be the only thing on your mind, it is going to take a long time until other people even think about it at all. Advertising isn’t what it used to be, these days you must find creative ways to get noticed. Spend some time developing a social media and digital marketing campaign. Hire experts that know how to make your website sing, and how to get your hashtag trending.
There is always room for another successful restaurant, but you must have the finances, the people, the food, and the vision. And after that you need to work harder than you ever have before.
Tracking certain analytics from your restaurant operations can help opening up shop a smoother process and help you scale up and become more profitable later. For help knowing what analytics to track and what to do with the data, please see the infographic below.
Provided by Chowly – streamlining operations with our restaurant digital ordering system integration
