Step 2 – Implementation
Goals – Capabilities – Timeline – Budget
Whether you want to expand your business to more locations, improve profitability, or recover it from a death spiral, it all begins with an evaluation of your goals, needs, and capabilities. From there we are able to recommend a path that gets you where you want to go including timeline, costs, and support along the way. Many restaurant operators fail, not by doing something wrong, but by continuing to do what used to be right but is now no longer relevant. Other restaurant operators fail because they squander time and resources on ineffective solutions or quick fixes only to miss the correction window. Our process identifies misalignments in structure, resources and behaviors, then builds a plan to either redeploy resources to better growth strategies or refocus resources and competencies to be more competitive.
Organization & Brand
Culture
Is your team aligned behind a set of common goals? Are you clear about how you will manage conflict, establish trust, and build a culture of accountability?Does everyone know what a “good job” means or do you endlessly chase cost reductions without celebrating successes? If your company is not unified behind a set of well-articulated guiding principles, we can get you there. Without them, any success you have is dependent on luck, instinct and muscle. That’s not sustainable.
Leadership
Your managers are responsible for executing your vision and delivering your brand to the public. If you have too many managers, profits suffer. Not enough managers, or the wrong organization structure, and your brand will never be what you intended it to be. We can help you organize manager work and routines that make your business perform at peak.
Staffing
Labor is the most expensive category to manage in hospitality, yet most businesses stick to the outdated “cut-em-when-we-get-slow” strategy. Labor needs are predictable and can be controlled with systems. We can teach you how to get your labor under control permanent.
The Top-of-the-House
The fun stuff is finished. The restaurant is beautiful, the food is great, and service is impeccable. But how are you doing at managing the business side of the business? Tipshare, cash handling, income statements, inventory tracking, invoice management and employee systems can get sloppy in a hurry. Let us identify and implement the right systems and protocols for your business that will allow you to see where the money is coming from, where it is going and to give you the platform from which to control growth.
The Guest Experience
Service Model
I work backwards from Guest expectations to develop service models that work. Fast casual, full service, alcohol vs no alcohol, service sequence, queuing, cashiering, impulse/add-on, front/back waiters vs. servers/server assistants, food runners, tip structures, handhelds, call ahead, reservations, and pay-first systems: the right configuration is vital for optimizing profits. Let me help you build your systems in order to support your growth.
Training
Hiring great people is only part of the equation. Training them to do their jobs well is arguably much more important. We are fluent with most every job function in every conceivable food and beverage operation and can craft a training program that delivers low turnover, high Guest satisfaction and higher profits.
Systems
The foundation of any training program is its structure. Your guiding principles and company’s aspirations must be reflected in your position training systems. The training process must be managed carefully and intentionally. “Follow Sally around for a few days until you get it” is not a training program. We work backwards from what the Guest should experience to build training programs that bring your brand to life.
Design
Guest sight lines, music, temperature, and smells are critical to a guest’s first impression. All too often, owners and managers neglect to seriously consider what a guest sees and feels when they enter a restaurant. Our fresh eyes can help you see your business in a new light by focusing on layouts, signage, internal traffic patterns, sounds and general stage management of your concept to ensure that your Guests feel how you want them to feel when they dine with you.
Marketing
If you’re trying to sell bagels to an audience that prefers breakfast tacos, it doesn’t matter how good the bagels are. We evaluate the ability of your business to serve your intended audience while identifying your actual audience. Then we develop a strategy that positions you to succeed. Sometimes it’s ok to offer something new that no one else offers in a way that no one else offers it, and sometimes it’s not ok. Regardless, we can get you on track to build Guest counts and loyalty.
Production & Cost of Goods
Menu Engineering
Restaurants are unique. They are both production facilities and retail facilities under one roof. As production facilities, the cost of ingredients and the labor used to make finished products must be organized on the front end if there is any hope of managing results after the menu launches. We create menus that reduce unique ingredients, maximize time-and-motion efficiency, and deliver profit. I am skilled at creating menus tuned to your market’s needs and we won’t launch it unless the ingredients, labor, equipment, costs and pricing line up with demand and your ability to execute it.
The Bar
If food menus generally deliver margins between 68% and 73% and bar menus deliver margins between 75% and 80%, it stands to reason that you’d want a good bar program. Furthermore, with cocktail margins generally landing north of 80%, it makes sense to offer a compelling drink assortment through a quality craft cocktail program. Let me make your bar a more prominent experience for your Guests and a greater contributor to your profits.
Inventory Management
Food and beverage commodities are the building blocks of your finished products. In restaurants, they’re often perishable, consumable, easy to steal, easy to ruin, and your employees often feel empowered to experiment with them to make new items you never asked them to make. Unlike #2 pencils for sale at Staples, the cards are stacked against restaurant business profit from the back door forward. We can help you implement best practices to control how you order, receive, store, prepare and manage your inventory to maximize profits and improve your Guests’ experience.
Flow-through
Industrial engineers measure production efficiency in terms of “time and motion” or throughput: how fast can I make something that has the highest quality in the fewest possible steps while maximizing my ROI? I can help you with production efficiency and quality through my evaluation of your systems and processes, recipes and layout to find ways to help you make more money while giving your Guests a better experience.
Back-of-the-House
Computer systems are great, but if you don’t know what to do with all of that data, you’ll just drown in it and not be any closer to the level of execution you need. I ensure that you are fluent with several key systems for managing food cost before recommending computer solutions. Production setting, invoice management, ordering / receiving practices and food handling discipline must all be mastered before you can graduate to more complex systems that rely on a sound understanding of the basics. We start there and can marry your operation to the best systems available once you master each philosophy.
Ongoing Support & Leadership
The corporate office exists for a reason: to provide support to operators and to hold them accountable for delivering results through systems (not through being good at winging it). I can serve as your corporate office by inspecting your facility, systems and financials regularly. I can provide guidance and coaching to managers while being able to spot trouble before it festers into something the Guest sees. Let me know if you need regular oversight and coaching to keep your restaurant performing at the level in which it deserves.
