Anyone who has opened a restaurant or is looking at doing so is faced with the high cost of occupancy. Whether you lease a space or purchase it outright, one way or another, 5% to 10% of your top line sales will go toward paying for rent, taxes, and/or maintenance. It’s inevitable. Skimp on size […]
8 Reasons Why Small “Cockpit” Kitchens Make You Money Read More »
The USDA estimates that more than 30% of all food is wasted in the US. Much of that happens in the production and distribution phases but still, the last few years have seen a huge trend in big name chefs tackling the problem of food waste in restaurants. It’s an issue that chefs and restaurant
Choose Ingredients Wisely to Reduce Food Waste Read More »
Small plates are the chef’s creative playground. Most restaurants diners expect to see steaks, roast chicken, and grilled salmon entrées. These basics will quickly fill up the entrées list because customers gravitate towards the familiar, especially when they are spending $20-$30 for an entrée. Restaurants need to sell what their customers want, so it’s less
What’s Trending in Food & Beverage: Appetizers, Tapas & Small Plates Read More »
We’ve asked our top restaurant consultants what they recommend when opening a new restaurant. They provided such great feedback that we compiled it all into this all-in-one resource for you! So, below you’ll find 12 quick tips for opening a restaurant. Enjoy! Meet Our Panel of Expert Restaurant Consultants: Ray Camillo – Founder & CEO,
12 Quick Tips for Opening a Restaurant Read More »
Originally, food trucks seemed to emerge on the scene as a way for chefs without heavy financial backing to open a small, inexpensive, mobile restaurant. Ostensibly, food trucks undermined the traditional brick-and-mortar approach to launching a restaurant business, which included heavy funding, long-term leases and personal guarantees, allowing its creator to focus on the food
Food Trucks: The Current State of Mobile Food and Beverage Read More »
With summer quickly approaching and the heat rising outside, we often recommend adding cool and colorful salads to restaurant menus to brighten things up for the season. Here’s a great, healthy summer salad recipe you can add to your menu this month. To start, I love beets for everything, but especially in a summery salad
Freshen Up Your Menu with this Healthy, Summer Salad Recipe Read More »
The holidays are coming… and holidays generally spur people to spend money in ways that they wouldn’t do otherwise. Folks are urged to buy, book, treat, reward, and otherwise gift themselves, their loved ones, and even total strangers. So what are you doing to capture dollars spent during those programmed (and predictable) buying frenzies? If
5 Brilliant Best Practices to Maximize Your Restaurant’s Sales During the Holidays Read More »
“Mango” was the code word at one of my first kitchen jobs. It signaled that the health inspector had arrived and we had to stop what we were doing and start running around the kitchen to fix every health code violation we could see. Invariably we weren’t fast enough with our sharpies and masking tape
How to Ace Your Health Inspection Every Time Read More »
Put down that 2/3 cup and walk away. When I was in fifth grade (sometime in the 80s), my class learned that the United States would soon be converting from the imperial to the metric system. I think it was supposed to happen around the same time swarms of killer bees were going to invade.
4 Undeniable Reasons Why You Should Switch Your Kitchen to the Metric System Read More »
When opening a restaurant, it seems only right to document and put in place a structured training agenda that will aid your kitchen managers and chefs in the training of themselves and their staff. Perhaps you hire a consultant, like Blue Orbit, or you have someone on your staff who loves documents, spreadsheets and calendars just
Restaurant Opening: The Essential Kitchen Training Documents Read More »
