No matter if you are an experienced or newbie restaurant owner, there are many factors to juggle when it comes to managing a restaurant. Your task list often includes staff management, handling finances, promoting your business, and keeping customers happy - to name just a few! It's important to stay on top of all aspects of your restaurant, but out of experience we know that it's not always easy.
Many restaurant managers find it hard to stay on top of the day-to-day tasks of managing a restaurant, let alone have time to focus on improving restaurant operations. That's why we're sharing five restaurant management tips to help you improve your operations, starting today! Let's dive in.
12. September 2022 • 5 minute read
Understanding your restaurant's finances.
One of the most important areas of restaurant management is finance. And the first step to get a handle on your restaurant's finances is understanding your operating costs. These are the costs associated with running your venue on a day-to-day basis, and they can include things like food and beverage costs, labor costs, rent, utilities, and more. Once you have a clear understanding of your operating costs, you can start to work on ways to optimise them.
One way to do this is by negotiating better prices from your suppliers, but another and more sustainable way to cut costs is by reducing waste and improving your inventory management. And last, but certainly not least, you can also save money by optimising your labor rate. By keeping an eye on the costs you spent on your staff and the revenue you generate, you get more insight into whether you're overstaffing or not. More about this in the article below.
Profitability is the name of the game in the restaurant industry. To make a profit, you need to generate more revenue than you have expenses. To do this, you need to be strategic about pricing, promotions, and marketing efforts.
It's also important to keep a close eye on your labor costs. In the restaurant industry, the cost of labor is typically one of the biggest expenses. To help control and optimise your labor costs, a workforce management system can be very useful. By using a workforce management system, you'll gain insight in your labor costs and revenue, and thus you're able to identify your ideal staffing needs. In other words, it's easy to identify overstaffing or understaffing, which allows you to cut costs and increase productivity. This way, you'll only have employees working when they're needed, and you won't have to worry about overstaffing or paying workers for the time they didn't work.
There are some general rules on how to manage your restaurant finances, but it's important to tailor these to your specific business needs. The general budget rules are the following:
Rent and utilities: approx. 5-15 %, this includes rent, electricity, water, internet, phone, systems, etc.
Marketing cost: approx. 10-20 %, which includes marketing and communication outings like advertising, social media, etc.
Labor costs: approx 25-30% of your revenue.
Food costs: approx 25-40% of food sales.
Unexpected costs: approx. 5-15% (things do break).
Get to know your staff
A big part of successful restaurant management is to get to know your staff. By knowing your staff, it's easier to understand their needs and find ways to motivate them. And, when you take the time to get to know your employees, you can provide them with the best possible experience - which will keep them motivated.
Furthermore, staff turnover is a huge problem in the restaurant industry right now. To reduce staff turnover, building a healthy work environment and a positive culture is key. This starts with hiring the right employees, but it also includes things like providing training and development opportunities, offering competitive wages and benefits, having good training programs, and showing appreciation for a job well done.
Another way to reduce your staff turnover is using the right systems. The next generation of the workforce is highly tech savvy and demands you to grow along with them. The type of system that has a huge impact on employee satisfaction, and thus turnover, is an employee scheduling system. The reason for this is that an employee scheduling system allows employees to have a say in their schedules because they can share when they can and cannot work. This way, they'll feel like they have more control over their work-life balance, and they'll be less likely to leave.
If you're not already doing so, start by holding regular staff meetings. This is a great way to keep employees up-to-date on restaurant news and to give them a chance to voice their concerns or suggestions. You can also use staff meetings as an opportunity to brainstorm new ideas for improving operations.
Individual sessions
Make your staff feel valued by taking the time to get to know them on a personal level. Find out what their interests are, and take an interest in their lives outside of work. The turnover rate in the restaurant industry is notoriously high, but proper restaurant management can help reduce it as it makes your staff feel valued.
Staff training
Investing in staff training is one of the best ways to improve your restaurant's operations. By providing your staff with the skills they need to do their jobs, you can help them work more efficiently and improve the quality of your restaurant's food and service whilst allowing them to develop themselves.
Knowing your guests is a vital part of restaurant management. By understanding their needs, you'll be able to satisfy them, which ultimately results in happy and returning customers.
When it comes to getting to know your guests, there are a few key things you can do. It all starts with providing excellent service. This includes everything from greeting them when they come in, to taking their orders and delivering the food. Secondly, take the time to get feedback from your guests - either through surveys or simply, and preferably, by talking to them. Pay attention to online reviews, do your research on Yelp, TripAdvisor and Facebook, or any other review platforms. This way you can meet demand, and also make sure that your guests are happy with the service you're delivering.
Focus on recurring guests
Show your regular guests that you value their business by offering them loyalty rewards or discounts. This could be anywhere in the form of a punch card that gives them a free meal after a certain number of visits, a free drink, or a discount on their bill if they dine during off-peak hours. And If you're not already doing so, start collecting customer contact information like email addresses and phone numbers. This will allow you to reach out to them with updates, special offers and promotions.
Finally, always be on the lookout for ways to improve the guest experience. This could mean anything from adding new menu items to making small changes to your restaurant's layout or design. By constantly striving to improve the guest experience, you'll increase the chance of recurring visits and them telling their friends about your restaurant.
Ensure that your restaurant is running smoothly with Workfeed.
Workfeed is a workforce management system that allows you to reduce the time spent on admin tasks up to 95%, so you can focus on what you desire. By making it easy to make work schedules and automating time tracking, you can focus your time on the things that matter. On top of that, Workfeed increases the degree of flexibility for your staff, which ultimately improves their work-life balance, leading to a 90% increase in staff satisfaction.
With Workfeed, you can simplify work scheduling, track employee hours with ease, automate time tracking, and export employee hours for payroll. Workfeed also offers a GPS-based punch clock, an IOS and Android app, shift swapping, holiday tracking, and group chats. With all of these features, you can be sure that your restaurant is running smoothly while saving lots of time.
Try Workfeed today to see how it can help you simplify restaurant management.
Workfeed puts all your shift scheduling and timesheets into one tidy little app that help you engage staff, automate admin and take control of your time.
