There is a hiring practice so deeply embedded in corporate America that questioning it gets you looked at like you just said something dangerous. It has consultants, certifications, and decades of institutional momentum behind it. It is also largely useless for the independent restaurant operator who needs to know in 45 minutes whether the person […]
The operator who cannot find a General Manager has a talent problem. The operator who has been running ads for four months without filling the position has a different problem, one that the ads will not solve. Talent is not scarce for the operator who has built the conditions that attract it. It is scarce […]
Wrong question. The right question is whether the operation was designed to produce operating profit from Guest one. If it was, the answer is immediately. If it was not, the answer is never, at least not without redesigning the cost structure that should have been built correctly before the doors opened. There is a distinction […]
The benefit is always less than if your brand controlled everything it touches. Using a third-party to execute a significant portion of your Guest experience can be crippling. The Guest’s loyalty then is with the delivery brand and not your brand regardless. You’ve become a commodity.
They can be, if: it’s the right kind of busy it’s the right kind of busy it’s the right kind of busy Just because a location is in a busy area doesn’t mean it’s the right kind of busy for your restaurant. If you depend on transient traffic then you are continually going to be […]
It does not appear on the P&L. No accountant will flag it. No audit will surface it. No lender will ask about it. But it is the single largest expense most independent restaurant operators are running, and it compounds every shift. The Lost Opportunity Tax is the cost of not maximizing your own potential. Not […]
The word loyalty has been hijacked. In the restaurant industry it has been redefined to mean a discount that rewards a Guest for dining with you or incentivizes them to return at some future point. The result is a system that trains Guests to think transactionally — to respond to points, rewards, and incentives rather […]
Probably nothing. Not because the market is too competitive. Not because the timing is wrong. Because differentiation is not something you create after you open. It is something you design before the first Guest walks in. If you opened without it, you did not forget to add a feature. You built the wrong thing. This […]
The question contains the problem. The moment an operator sits down to define what excellent Guest Experience looks like, they have already made the mistake that produces mediocre hospitality. They are defining it. From inside the building. Based on what they do, what they prefer, what their operational model makes convenient, what their training manual […]
The question is wrong. The right question is: what does this specific Guest need from this specific menu in this specific market for this operation to be profitable at the price point it requires? The answer to that question determines the menu size. Not a best practice. Not a competitor benchmark. Not a theory about […]
It is not the bad boss. The bad boss is a symptom. Every reason cited for why cast members leave — bad culture, poor leadership, inadequate pay, difficult Guests, broken processes, no work-life balance — is a symptom of the same underlying condition. They are descriptions of what the environment felt like, not explanations of […]
Get the read you cannot get for yourself. Most operators who fail in the first year failed before they opened. Not because they lacked passion. Not because the concept was wrong. Because they built on assumptions that were never tested, costs that were never modeled, and a Guest experience that was never designed for the […]
It is a fair question. You walk into a restaurant, the host greets you, and within fifteen seconds you are being asked about your evening plans, whether you have been in before, or what brings you in tonight. The conversation feels practiced. It is not personal. It is not impressive. And it is not hospitality. […]
QFO What are the biggest challenges an independent restaurant faces in its first 5 years of business
The timeline is irrelevant. First year, third year, fifth year — the challenges are the same. They have always been the same. They will continue to be the same for every operator who has not built the system that addresses them. The Five Fundamentals. Perspective. The operator who cannot see the business accurately cannot run […]
Service is table stakes (pun intended). Every restaurant has a service sequence. Twelve steps, fifteen steps, however many steps the training manual specifies. Greet the table. Present the menu. Take the drink order. Suggest the specials. Return with the drinks. Take the food order. Check back within two minutes of the food arriving. Refill the […]
Every business school graduate has an answer. Undercapitalization. Poor location. Bad concept. Weak marketing. High food cost. Labor problems. The economy. The competition. The timing. Every one of those answers is a symptom. None of them is the disease. Restaurants fail because the operator didn’t know what he didn’t know and didn’t ask for help. […]
By definition, best practices are what the crowd does well. They represent the aggregate experience of many operators across many contexts, distilled into recommendations that tend to work to varying degrees in most situations. Which means they are designed to produce average outcomes at above-average consistency. That is a useful thing. It is not a […]
Employee Engagement Is Not A Program The statement that employee engagement is “tricky to tactically execute” contains two errors in four words. It is not tricky. And the employer does not execute it. Engagement is intrinsic to the employee. It is a property of the person, not a product of the program. The cast member […]
Every Shift Is The Only Shift That Guest Will See There is a scheduling philosophy in the restaurant industry that sounds like operational efficiency and produces operational failure. It goes like this: slower days are lower priority. Lower priority days do not require the same level of talent. Therefore, schedule your less experienced cast on […]
Q: Shouldn’t you use social platforms like TripAdvisor to market your business? A: No. You shouldn’t use a consumer platform (which is what social media sites are) for commercial messaging. Social platforms are not a multi-purpose business tool and any attempt to push messaging to them will be met with negative friction. FUQ: But can’t […]