There are plenty of things that cause restaurants to struggle including poor location, the wrong food for the wrong area, bad lighting, uncomfortable seats, smelly beer-soaked floors, difficult parking, or even embezzlement…. to name a few. Our list below, however, focuses on things that are not so obvious that we know to be critical to […]
Top Ten Mistakes Made By Restaurants Read More »
Almost everyone we talk to that wants to open a restaurant comes to us with a shoestring budget. We do an awful lot of concept planning for folks who want to take the plunge into owning their own restaurants and the overwhelming majority have little understanding of the planning required to tip a restaurant toward
Shoestring Restaurants – Is Planning Overrated? Read More »
We found this item on a restaurant’s walk-in refrigerator shelf. Beautiful scallops, wrapped in bacon…but not iced properly. The ice melted, leaving the scallops and bacon soaking in water. The bacon absorbs the scallop water and, when cooked, becomes rubbery and flavorless…not to mention that the scallops become water-logged and flavorless. To properly refrigerate seafood,
Just Plain Gross! – No. 26 Read More »
If you Google “how to open a restaurant”, you’ll find a ton of information… much/most of it relevant and correct while STILL falling short of telling you what you need to know. I’m going to come at it from the angle of a restaurant consultant who sees concepts at all stages of their life cycle.
How to Open a Restaurant Read More »
As far as a restaurant’s profitability goes, the lowest of the low hanging fruit is often found in a poorly planned tip tracking program. Owners and operators leave money on the table when they don’t accurately plan the incomes of their support staff and schedule employees to deliver results. They also get into lots of
How to Best Manage Restaurant Tip Share Read More »
Folks often ask us to help them with “training”..but what does that mean?. Teaching someone how to do something they didn’t know how to before? Correcting a bad behavior? Conditioning the mind to do something instinctively, without hesitating or thinking? Helping someone improve an existing skill? Instinctively, most restaurateurs know “training” is important but they
Restaurant Training Read More »
Whether working in a garage, on Wall St. or in an operating room, we all need fuel when we’re away from the nest. Around, oh say 11:30, we want something fast, easy to eat, cheap, and most of all, tasty. Since I can remember, the usual hand-to-maw fare has been burgers, pizza, bar-b-que, fried chicken,
Why Hand Food (for Dinner) is Here to Stay Read More »
It’s nothing new to say that the restaurant business is hard work. The Chef’s job is particularly difficult as they are accountable for commodity procurement and receiving, end product retailing and final consumer use. In this business, “work smart, not hard” has become the battle cry for the last fifty years, but far too many
Why Kitchen Software Has Its Place Read More »
I pulled this morsel from chef Graham Duncan’s blog “From the Kitchen: Graham Duncan” and couldn’t resist throwing in my two cents. The “dine and whine” has become the new “dine and dash” except instead of sneaking out to avoid paying for a meal(which in some restaurants it becomes the obligation of the server to pay for the meal)patrons sit right
I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a planning meeting at a major corporation. They were rolling out a new training program and were already encountering big problems with the system. The team leader outlined the issues, asked for suggestions, received very few and the meeting ended with no resolutions. Later in the
A Strong Team Is One That Trusts Its Leader Read More »
