Restaurant Operations

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Effective FOH & BOH Systems

Developing Effective FOH & BOH Systems

Originally Posted on RestoBiz – By Doug Radkey (02/22/2017)

The more any restaurant depends on the owner’s day in-day out involvement in the operational details of the restaurant, the greater the risk of failure. Starting and operating a successful restaurant or bar relies heavily on having the right systems in place, allowing the venue and its hired team to work as a cohesive unit.

Having the correct systems in place will create consistency, develop operating capital, enhance your team morale, and build business value while positioning your concept for future growth opportunities.

Below are some basic systems each venue should have in place (and can easily implement if they don’t) to allow the owner some freedom to work on the business and not in the business.

Operating Systems

HR Management | Create a paper trail for all employees, be compliant with local laws, and keep your HR system organized in print form with a digital backup. This would include application forms, emergency contact information, warning notices, copies of any incident reports, plus any staff incentive programs and quarterly staff performance reviews – which should be recorded every three to four months.

Inventory Management | The average restaurant & bar can see three to four percent of revenue lost to theft or mismanagement of inventory, especially in high ticket items such as alcohol, proteins, and day-to-day supplies.

Ensure there is an auditable system in place (digital, app based, and/or paper) at your venue for all inventory in addition to what is referred to as a Top 10; your 10 most expensive items. These items must be recorded and accounted for each operating day to help monitor your bottom line.

Team Communications | How often are you holding individual reviews and team meetings? Do you hold pre-shift meetings? How do your employees communicate with one another, especially between front-of-house and back-of-house during service? Get into the habit of holding daily shift meetings, monthly team meetings, and quarterly staff reviews.

Take it up a notch and consider adding in special training days at a brewery, winery, or a local farm every couple of months, so they can learn, communicate with customers, and train new staff about your offered menu items first hand.

Financial Systems | How often do you review monthly, quarterly, or yearly budgets? How often do you complete a sales mix analysis and review your menu, suppliers, and costs? When you complete your staff schedules, do you complete a roster analysis that measures sales per labour hour, for example? This easily available data will ultimately save time, control your costs, and generate further gross profit!

FOH & BOH Systems

Chef/Mixologist Shift Checklist | This important checklist will keep the leader of the kitchen organized with what needs to be completed in the morning, afternoon, and evening. It should also provide an area to:

  • Project daily sales
  • Record the number of reservations
  • The day’s labour cost for the kitchen (and bar)
  • The previous day’s food waste
  • What needs to be ordered each day

Manager Checklist | Similar to the above checklist, general managers and bar managers should have a similar mindset and list of daily tasks, daily financial goals, and daily staff costs, etc.

If a chef, mixologist, manager, or supervisor is sick or on an extended leave, another team member can step in and understand exactly what needs to be completed, to ensure consistency in your operations.

Kitchen & Bar Prep List | This is a crucial system to ensure your venue minimizes waste. A daily prep list should include all required ingredients, the portion sizes, shelf life, quantity on-hand, and the amount to prep based on both the minimum and maximum you’ve produced and sold on that specific day of the week (in relation to any waste) over the past three months.

This must go hand-in-hand with printed sales reports to visualize trends, maximize efficiency, reduce waste, and improve production times.

Line Cook & Server Checklist | The lists don’t stop at management. All team member (FOH & BOH) positions should have a checklist to hold staff accountable, engaged, and working towards a series of set goals for each day of the week.

Quality Control Measures | It is important to track the number of occurrences related to food quality, service problems, and drink related issues. Find trends in temperatures, timing, presentation, and other forms of customer feedback. Put a dollar figure beside each occurrence, discuss with your team, and take immediate action.

It takes effort, honesty, training, reviews, and accountability by the entire team to ensure these basic systems work and are implemented on a daily basis. It may look like more ‘work’ up front, and there are many more systems to suggest, but these will provide the results you need to begin leading a successful operation, starting tomorrow!

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Adapting to Market Changes

Adapting Your Restaurant to Market Changes

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 02/16/2017

The word “sustainability” has been used often of late in various ways within the food and beverage industry, with sustainable energy and ingredients being in the forefront. The word sustainability can easily be defined as the capacity of something being maintained over a period of time, without jeopardizing its future needs.

The same can be said for your concept. It should be able to continue, for the foreseeable future, right?

With ever-changing demographics, the likely saturation of your hyper-local competition, the ever-changing wants and needs of customers, in addition to the changes in ingredient availability plus fluctuation in both food and beverage costs, how can your food service business be ‘sustainable’?

Nothing in life is ever guaranteed, but some aspects are in your control when it comes to your properties longevity — if you approach your restaurants conceptual planning, with the right mindset.

1. Be Scalable

The first thing, and arguably the most important, is ensuring the concept is scalable. This means providing the opportunity to pivot with market changes and position the concept to grow in a strategic manner through menu changes and pricing changes, all while quickly adapting to a newly-opened competitor without losing your overall vision. Introducing a restaurant business model that is based solely on a current food and beverage “trend” is not building a scalable concept.

The second aspect of scalability is engaging the local community. If you have or plan to have multiple locations in different markets, position your concept to operate in different size capacities in addition to having the ability to purchase product from local farms, breweries, and wineries, etc. specific to that market. And through it all, you must of course keep your core value, vision, mission, and culture statements consistent across the board.

2. Be Profitable

At the end of the day, we all need to make money. Can the concept continuously produce a profit for you and all of your shareholders (staff included) over a long period of time? For a long-term budget forecast, consider the rising food, energy, real estate, and wage costs over time for the most accurate projections.

In three years, can your restaurant withstand these increases based on its capacity for seating and production? Can your restaurant adjust prices and control costs in the future based on the current menu style, price mix, and target demographic? Or will your target market turn a blind eye to your brand if you were to raise prices too high? What would be your plan to deliver the perception of value now and in three years?

3. Be Memorable

We all know, or should know, we’re in the business of selling emotions and experiences, not just food and beverage. Delivering new, memorable experiences will keep your customers coming back, time and time again, over a longer period of time.

Can your concept also invest in improving society and the food system all at once? Every aspect of your concept needs to tell a story, explain your key statements, and resonate with your target market. As the market changes, adapt and scale with it.

Today’s industry news is filled with concerns surrounding food costs, energy costs, climate change, wage increases, nutritional factors, and numerous other social issues, which are (thankfully) forcing concepts to operate more socially-focused business. Each of these concerns, however, provide an opportunity for you to tell your story on how you’re adapting and addressing these concerns.

This is why telling the story of where your meat, fish, vegetable, and beverage ingredients come from is so important, as it also helps customers navigate past the notion that their favorite menu item has recently increased in price. To summarize, storytelling develops a lasting memory.

4. Be Consistent

The overall design of a sustainable restaurant starts with the menu and the types of food and beverage preparation that is required to support that menu in a consistent manner. Having the correct FOH and BOH systems in place will create a level of consistency within your restaurant.

The word consistent needs to start at the top, with the owner/operator, and work its way down with a systematic approach. Creating consistency will equally create a level of trust, anticipation, and eagerness to return for all of your customers.

Matching all of the above with the briefly mentioned sustainable energy and sustainable ingredients, in addition to finding solutions to reducing your level of waste, will ultimately position your overall concept to be ‘sustainable’ long-term and adapt to frequent market changes.

It starts with research, design, and multiple levels of planning plus an innovative, progressive mindset. Do you have it?

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New Year’s Resolutions for Your Restaurant

New Year’s Resolutios for Your Restaurant

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 01/06/2017

Another year has passed us by. It’s time to reflect and make even greater improvements. Whether you believe in developing resolutions or not, your mindset for the upcoming year needs to be about “doing.”

The restaurant industry is known to have its more quiet moments during the first 1-2 months of the calendar year, so this is the perfect time to plan your to-do list and set SMART goals. Let’s get started!

Team Meeting No. 1

A yearly review is not just about looking at the financial statements of the past year. Hold a team meeting and truly listen to your staff. Engage in a positive, organized conversation. What did they enjoy and maybe not enjoy about the past year? What did each department (front of house and back of house) learn? What challenges did they face? What strengths do you as an owner, operator, or manager possess moving forward in the New Year in terms of personnel and what areas need to be addressed?

Business Evaluation

Now is the time to review financials. Did you set budgets and goals last year for your venue (let’s hope you did, if not, get into the habit now)? Did you achieve your financial goals? If not, what threats (challenges) did you face that prevented you from delivering a positive result? Look at your food and beverage costs, gross margins, sales mix analysis, labor costs, inventory management, waste reports, RevPASH analysis, reservations, and other aspects of your business.

You also want to evaluate your restaurant from the point of view of the customer. What reviews did you receive, both offline and online? What types of experiences are your guests having and sharing within your community? Take notes and look for both positive and negative trends to help make future adjustments.

Explore Your Surroundings

What opportunities may present themselves during the upcoming year for you, your team, and your venue? What events are happening within not only your community but also regionally and nationally?

You want to take this time and review your competitive landscape. Which restaurants closed in the past year within your city and within your hyper-local area? Which restaurants are suddenly doing well or are preparing to open? Which weaknesses of theirs could you capitalize on?

Use this quiet time to walk around your establishment. What needs to be fixed, painted, or touched up, both inside and outside? Does anything need to be updated or upgraded? Look at your kitchen and bar equipment, as well as washrooms, tables, and chairs.

How much did you spend on repairs last year? Is it time to reinvest back into the business with some new equipment?

Develop SMART Plans

Using all of this collected data and begin to develop SMART plans for the upcoming year. If you’re unsure of what this might mean, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

In order for goals to translate into motivation and improved operational performance, goals must be specific. Goals must also be measurable to be able to provide progressive feedback and to know when the goal is actually achieved.

A goal must also be attainable by an individual or team member, or properly delegated throughout the organization or by third parties. The goal must be challenging yet realistic. By setting goals unrealistically high, you will not see an increase in motivation or performance in yourself or your team.

In order for goals to positively affect motivation and performance, goals must also be time-related. However, a timeline of tomorrow may make achieving the goal unrealistic. Similarly, within three years may be a timeline so far into the future that it lacks urgency and motivation.

All of your financial budgets, marketing plans, and personal development reviews must meet this SMART acronym to be successful.

Example: “Reduce food costs by 1 percent over the next 60 days by implementing new inventory program, re-training staff on portion control, and meeting with vendors while reviewing our sales mix analysis every 10 days.”

List as many as you believe you and your team can realistically accomplish and ones that you believe, based on the data collected, are the most critical to the restaurant and its success.

List all of your available resources to make goals attainable and try to keep the goals in bite-sized breakdowns; easy for your staff to understand and remember. You also want to recognize the potential for any possible challenges for each set goal so you and your team are well prepared.

Team Meeting No. 2

Take these SMART goals and plans and discuss them with your entire team during a second (very important) team meeting. Agree to a timeline for each goal by signing it with your own signatures. Own your goals and include your entire team in the process.

Have meetings with your team on a scheduled, regular basis regarding performance and progress. Provide and receive ongoing feedback and align a reward system with desirable results.

It’s no secret — personal resolutions often fall apart. That’s why gym memberships soar in January, but facilities are empty come March. If you work as a cohesive unit, you can hold each other accountable to deliver the results you want this year – creating a successful benchmark for your restaurant!

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How to Define Your Restaurant Value Statements

How to Define Your Restaurant Value Statements

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 12/22/2016

The most influential decisions you will make for your restaurant will happen during the start-up phases. Before opening your restaurant startup, you need to determine your value, vision, mission, and culture. (Or if you’re a restaurant veteran, consider this if you need to amp up your already-existing value statements.)

Understanding your goals and being able to state them clearly is the first step toward making them happen.

The definition of value is “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.” For your restaurant or bar, it is a statement that informs not only your customers, but also your staff, about the business’ goals and what its core beliefs are.

Values and company culture coincide with determining your brand identity. Creating a value statement and building the foundation for culture within your concept will create consistency, accountability, and room for growth.

It’s a four-step process. To survive this cut-throat industry, each statement should be clear, powerful, and broad enough to guide your decision-making and help explain your restaurant’s intentions to consumers.

Writing Your Value Statement

Most restaurants and businesses jump right to writing a vision and mission statement. What should come first, however, is a value statement. It will help you determine the rest of the statements and create a sense of consistency throughout.

Start by listing out the following:

  • List 10 key items that will make your concept competitive. Example: The customized decor and vibrant and energetic atmosphere.

  • List five key items you know your guests will talk about. Example: Knowledgeable and attentive staff with effective attention to detail.

  • List 10 key items that you dislike when you’re a guest at another restaurant. Example: Dirty dishware, floors, tables, menus, and washrooms. Make sure to turn these into positives for your restaurant or bar.

  • List five key ways you can recover from a poor customer service scenario. Example: Taking the corrective and fast action to resolve the situation.

  • List 3 key ways (for each) that your team can increase awareness, revenue per customer, and repeat business. Example: Being active within community, using suggestive selling techniques by understanding menu, and by creating consistency.

Now summarize your findings and create a top five list using short, powerful words on how you’re going to drive importance, worth, and usefulness. This should be used as your value statement. This is a great exercise to complete with your team or new hires to not only see their answers, but ensure there is cohesiveness between your values and theirs.

The Vision Statement

Now that you know your values, you can create a vision. What future do you want to create for your restaurant? What potential do you have? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why are you building the concept you’re developing?  Write these answers out and choose positive, carefully crafted words to create a short — 20 words or less — summary that will also not hinder your future growth by being too specific.

The Mission Statement

Using your value and vision statement, you can develop a paragraph that will then build focus, service levels, experiences, and accountability. To assist, look at reviewing your strengths and weaknesses, your target customers, and your suppliers. How will you turn your vision into a promise? Keep it simple but actionable, and under 50 words.

The Culture Statement

Now that there is purpose and focus, who is going to deliver your vision and mission? What values and characteristics must they bring to your concept? How will they be compensated? How will they be rewarded? What kind of work environment are you going to build and sustain? Summarize your findings and create a top five list using short, powerful words, similar to your value statement.

Remember, you want to see the business through the eyes of both the customer and your staff. Creating these four statements should assist you in defining your restaurant’s positioning and should be reflective in all of your future hiring processes, day-to-day operations, marketing, and customer service sequences.

These four statements are only going to be successful if your entire team not only knows them, but also understands them and believes in them, and that rests on you as an owner, operator, manager, chef, and/or shift leader.

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Analyzing Your Hyper-Local Competition

Analyzing Your Restaurants Hyper-Local Competition

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 11/25/2016

In recent years, you may have come across an emerging term online or within the realm of marketing called ‘hyper-local’. Though the term was first introduced to the masses in the early 1990’s, it really started taking form with the development of mobile and GPS applications over the past 5-10 years. However, the idea surrounding hyper-local has been used for decades in terms of basic market research.

The definition of hyper-local describes it as delivering services to a town, village, county, postal code, or another small, defined community within your region. The term is nothing fancy. Just a combination of two words that essentially describes your local community and a term that can be used within a multitude of industries in various ways.

Within the restaurant industry, it is fundamentally important to understand your hyper-local market, especially when it comes to demographics and competition. It should be an important aspect to not only your start-up research, but also for the ongoing re-evaluations of your marketing plans.

A radius of 1-5 miles surrounding your location of choice can be referred to as your hyper-local area. Here are the questions you need to answer to properly analyze your hyper-local competition and give your restaurant or bar the advantages it needs to be successful today, tomorrow, and next year.

The Defining Factors

Take this opportunity to determine the exact size of your hyper-local market in terms of demographics and the number of competitors, while taking this data and measuring it against your targeted customers. Look for trends over the past 5-10 years in addition to projected growth patterns over the next 5-10 years. Determine how many food service providers there are within the specified area plus how many are chains versus independently owned, while not forgetting about grocery stores and their emerging to-go menus.

Sizing Them Up

Don’t just list your competitors, analyze them. With in-depth research, you can determine their longevity in the market, their estimated revenue, their community perception (online reviews), their employment structure (positions, quantity, salaries, turnover), and location-related advantages. Consider talking to residents and suppliers to gain as much relevant information as possible. This data is an underlying asset to your restaurant and its future.

Positioning Strategy

How is it that each of these competitors are marketing their restaurant in terms of promotions, price, experiences, and menu offerings? Do you believe they have strong brand recognition within the hyper-local area? Break down each competitor and follow it up with a summary of how you plan to position your restaurant or bar in comparison.

Filling a Gap

How are your competitors filling a gap within the market based on the hyper-local size, its demographics, and the other comparable competitors? Are they filling the demographic’s expectations in regards to food, drink, price, service, and experiences? Break down each competitor and follow it up with a summary of how your concept compares and will ultimately fit in to fill a gap.

Online Activity

With so much focus made towards online marketing, how does your competition measure up to today’s online expectations? How would you grade each of their websites, search engine results, online review site results, use of social media platforms, and online ordering or reservation-based tools? What strategies can you implement within your plans to create an opportunity and strengthen your brand, within your market?

Value Statement

How does each of your competitors deliver value to the market?  How are they informing the local demographics and their staff about the restaurant’s top priorities and what its core beliefs are? How are they connecting with their target customers and how will you add value in return? How do their value, vision, mission, and culture statements add up?

Anticipating Shifts

Does the competition have a concept that is scalable, profitable, memorable, consistent, and sustainable? Analyzing these five essential components will position you to anticipate your hyper-local competitor’s future moves and keep you a step-ahead of the game.

Equally, anticipating shifts within the industry and with growing food costs, with further in-depth research, will prepare you for changes in market demands — which should be highlighted in your restaurant’s business development plan.

In summary, you want to look for ways to gain an advantage with educated assessments, whether it is against your most direct or indirect competitors. Properly analyzing this data will assist you in developing your SWOT analysis, your marketing campaigns, customer experience strategies, and developing your core menu items; while providing a winning, memorable restaurant concept within your hyper-local community.

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9 Ways to Build Your Restaurants Opening Day Team

9 Ways to Build Your Restaurants Opening Day Team

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 09/06/2016

Your restaurant is only as strong as the team that operates it. It’s no secret — people are everything. They must get the vision and feel the passion for your concept to consistently execute on a day-to-day basis.

It’s best practice to begin interviewing and onboarding your opening day team 5-6 weeks prior to your restaurant’s official opening day so that you ensure having adequate time for administrative duties, orientation, training, and your soft opening.

Before you interview and hire your team, it’s ideal to have a strategy plan in place, along with a staff budget completed not only for training, but also for at least the first 6-12 months of operations.

This strategy plan will also help establish a positive reputation from the start.

Complete Your Value Statement

Walt Disney once said, “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier!” This couldn’t be more true during the onboarding process. What qualities and characteristics are you looking for in your team that speak to both your personal and business values? Define these values and look for them during the interviewing process to ensure you’re building a team that matches your vision.

Complete Your Culture Statement

Create a balance of education and experience within your team. Create an environment that fosters learning and being innovative. Create a system that involves your staff, rewards your staff, and creates loyalty among your staff. Define how you will recognize your team on a consistent basis and how you plan to be involved within your local community.

Design Your Staff Start-Up Kit

Save confusion, while consistently communicating the same message to all new staff, with an effective operations manual. Create expectations by outlining your training schedule, day-to-day standards, service expectations, and the restaurant’s disciplinary code.

Ensure they initial or sign each page to hold accountability in the future.

Within this kit, also include their staff performance review schedule, a copy of their application, tax forms, banking information, and a copy of any certificates, plus a signed uniform policy, social media policy, cellphone policy, and whatever else you deem necessary.

Know Your Staffing Requirements

Once you know your concept and menu, you need to outline your culinary, service, and mixology team. What positions do you need? What experience must each position hold? Does anyone in your team outline need specific education or training to execute certain product?

How many of each position will you need to deliver a consistent product throughout the week? How will you install a system for growth, innovation, and education? What will happen if someone is sick or on holidays?

Define these questions to build a fundamentally strong kitchen and front-of-house team.

Know Your Traffic Flow

Once you’ve outlined your values, understood your target market, and have defined your concept, you can begin determining your traffic needs. You need to analyze your seating capacity, take-out out-put, average transaction, and average length of stay or delivery time.

Each restaurant will be different, but analyzing your Revenue Per Available Transaction will allow you to determine how many servers, hosts, bartenders, counter staff, and/or other service staff you will need to deliver quick, friendly, consistent, and effective service.

(Note: This also applies to your kitchen team)

Complete Your Wage Structure

Now that you have identified the above, you need to determine wages for each position that correlates with your concept, menu, service style, and budget. Define what their starting wage is and their schedule for wage increments based on performance reviews. How does it correlate with your budget – do any adjustments need to be made to ensure you’re staying below industry benchmarks for staff costs.

Complete a Mock Schedule

Put together a schedule for an average week to determine how many team members you will need to hire to deliver on your service promise. Put each position’s wage into the schedule to calculate approximate staff costs.

Compare these numbers to your projected sales to determine if the percentage fits within the industry’s key performance indicators for staff.

Write Winning Ads

Making your ads stand out in a crowd of others will assist you in receiving the most qualified leads for employment. Tell a short story about the concept and the culture you’re building.

Outline the benefits of working with you and your concept. Be descriptive in the needs and requirements for specific positions. Write out an ad template for each specific position to use as a guideline now and for the future.

Bulletproof Questions

Now that you’re ready to interview, ensure you curate a list of bulletproof questions. Ask questions with meaningful answers. Don’t ask questions that the applicant is prepared for. For best results, conduct your interviews in a relaxed chat platform and look for position specifics in addition to your listed values. Take notes after each interview to cross reference, compare, and rate each applicant to build the strongest opening day team possible.

Completing this strategy plan will allow your restaurant to develop a winning culture and save on staff turnover, administrative costs, and financial hardship, all while protecting your brand from potentially negative reviews from customers.

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Executing Your Rock-Solid Restaurant Soft Opening

Executing Your Rock-Solid Restaurant Soft Opening

Originally Posted on FoodableTV – By Doug Radkey 07/26/2016

Planning, execution, consistency, adjustments, training, and timing. These are all keywords you will hear during the start-up phase of your new restaurant.

There is no better way to test your restaurant or bar on these keywords prior to “officially” opening other than what is called a “soft opening.”

What is a soft opening? It is a series of fully operational shifts over the course of 1-2 weeks prior to ‘officially’ opening, in which only pre-selected guests can enjoy your new establishment. Soft openings are essential for many reasons and need to be viewed as an integral part of your start-up strategy.

It is an opportunity to review the fine details of your service standards, communication systems, and point-of-sale systems – along with your food & beverage timing and presentation standards (expediting).

A soft opening also gives you an opportunity to review lighting, sound, signage, and any possible confusion within your menu. It gives you an opportunity to make adjustments before it truly counts.

Skipping this stage is setting yourself, your staff, your suppliers, and your investors up for failure. Imagine adjusting the above after you’ve opened and after customers have left poor reviews? Here are some tips to consider for your soft opening to make it, and your restaurant, a success!

Goals.

As with anything you do in business, it’s best to have a predetermined set of goals. What do you want to achieve with your soft opening? For example, how many hours of practice do you want your service staff to accumulate, how many platings do you want your kitchen staff to prepare, or which stations may need the most attention before you open to the general public?

Remember that this is all about training, adjusting, and monitoring the systems you should have put in place.

Pro Tip: Create a soft opening checklist with a scoring chart and then go over these benchmarks with your management team and front-line employees. Communication is essential to ensure you’re all working towards the same set of goals.

Budget.

Ensure you have developed a budget for a soft opening in your start-up expenses. Spending money here will save spending double to triple the costs after you’ve opened in needing to fix potential mistakes. Consider food and beverage costs, staff costs, special invite costs, and/or special giveaways for your invited guests.

Pro Tip: Work with community partners and suppliers to receive samples and to reduce your soft opening costs. They are often willing to assist you because they want to build a long-term relationship with you and your restaurant.

Menu. 

There are a couple of ways to look at this. You could offer limited items to test on certain days of the soft opening, or you can offer your full menu each of the days. It also depends on the size of your menu. However, let’s hope you’re already following the need for smaller, more compact menus.

Pro Tip: It’s best to offer your full menu. This is what you will be offering your customers once you open, so get the practice now for service, timing, and point-of-sale use.

Pricing.

There is no winning price-point formula for soft openings, but generally, your food options and non-alcohol related beverages should be at least 50 percent off or free, and alcohol related beverages should be full price (which may be a requirement by law, depending on your region).

Pro Tip: If properly planned & budgeted for, offer your food menu for free. In return, ask guests to leave a donation to a pre-selected charity ‘to pay’ for their meal. Then during your grand opening week, present the local charity with a cheque. This creates an immediate community relationship plus an opportunity for free media exposure!

Guests. 

Consider privately inviting your close friends and family, plus any of your employees’ immediate family members and others who have helped you through this journey, for the first 1-2 soft opening shifts. They will be the least hard on you if there are early-stage mistakes. You should also consider inviting any contractors, suppliers, city officials, and public service workers throughout your soft opening period. It’s best to have a day off in between each shift to remedy any mistakes and allow for proper preparation.

Pro Tip: You want to slowly increase the number of invites. For example, if you have a 60-seat restaurant, on the first night, host 20 guests over two hours. The next night, 30 over three hours, and the next night, 50 over two hours. Gradually build it up to ease your service staff and kitchen into it. By the final night, your team should be prepared to consistently deliver a full house.

Team Meetings.

Before each soft opening shift, brief your staff on the specifics of what you’re looking for that shift, what they should work on, and the goals for the shift. After each soft opening shift, debrief with your staff and go through the checklist scores, plus any customer reviews from that shift.

Pro Tip: Engage with your staff; ask them what challenges and successes they each endured! They will offer a different point of view from that of yourself and your invited guests.

Bonus Pro Tips: Ensure all guests receive a way to leave feedback for you, whether through a comment card or special website link. Make adjustments as you see fit during the off days in between soft opening shifts. Try to deter guests from leaving social media reviews. (Unless of course, it’s 100% positive.) 

Lastly, have a social media-only night near the end of your soft opening period for a select number of guests, such as a contest through your Facebook page. This will help generate online buzz prior to officially opening.

Following these steps and maximizing these pro-tips will undoubtedly ensure you have a rock-solid soft opening that will leave your restaurant prepared for opening day and the many days after. Remember, you don’t get a second chance for a first impression. Make it count!

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