Seven Rules to Write Engaging Restaurant Brochures

A restaurant brochure is more than just a two-to-three fold piece of paper describing your dishes and offers. Above all, it’s a solid reflection of your theme, brand and quality. The restaurant brochure has become a strategic method of influencing customers into choosing your restaurant as their next dinner place. This thin piece of paper has turned into a legitimate source of profit.

Here are seven must-dos to write the perfect restaurant brochure:

Keep Your Brochures Short

Long menus with too many pages can confuse people, and soon enough, they’ll get tired of having to make a choice. It would be more effective to narrow down your restaurant’s best offerings, highlight the best dishes and show off your most-popular items. This helps your customer make easier decisions and make them go for the menu item that you want them to buy.

Ideally, brochures for cafes and bistros should be one to two pages, while catering services are usually longer. Remember, this isn’t a restaurant menu you’re writing. You’re writing a brochure and only need to showcase the best food from each category. Listing all of the dishes on your menu will make your brochure look crowded, unorganized and cheap.

Keep Your Audience in Mind

It’s import to learn about your customer demographics so you can get an idea of who your customers are and should be. Understanding your customer base lets you know their preference, which should affect how you write your restaurant brochure.

If your restaurant serves set meals for families with young children, your restaurant brochure – as well as your dishes – should be easy to understand even for a child. For instance, you could write “yummy” instead of “delectable” so that the youngest one in the family can decide for themselves. On the other hand, if your restaurant is tailored to suit the more expensive taste of an elite crowd, you should opt to write in a polished manner. 

Be Aware of Placement

An effective restaurant brochure is nothing without proper placement and design. This is where you’re going to need a professional layout artist to design a theme-appropriate brochure. When writing the content of your brochure, you should already be aware of how much space you’re going to work with. To give you an idea of text placement, here are two things to keep in mind:

• Items placed on the right side of a menu usually sell more than items on the left.

• The first and the last dish on a page are typically the most ordered dishes.

Stick to Your Restaurant’s Identity

Do you know your restaurant’s overall concept? Your restaurant’s concept is its general idea. Basically, its identity. The concept is inspired by personal taste, experience and local ingredient availability. Whatever it is, your identity should reflect on how you describe the dishes on the menu. For example, if you own a French-inspired restaurant, you wouldn’t write coffee with milk, but instead cafe au lait. What this accomplishes is elevate the dining experience, immersing your customers in your concept.

Highlight Your Best

Highlighting a restaurant special or a limited time offer is a clever way of seeing how the dish will be received by your customers. But, you shouldn’t highlight too many things. Highlighting too many dishes makes each dish lose its “special” value. If everything seems exclusive, then nothing truly is exclusive.

In your restaurant brochure, dedicate one whole page to showcase your special or your limited time offer. With the right images, you’ll have customers flocking to your restaurant just to order the highlighted dish in no time.

Make Your Customers’ Mouths Water

This is where you need to unleash the creative writer in you. While you should make sure that your writing style isn’t too complicated, you should also use some tantalizing terms that will tickle your customers’ taste buds. The goal is to make your customers hungry even when they aren’t.

These tantalizing words should play on your customer’s senses. The following are some examples of effective words you can use to describe dishes:

• Crisp
• Delicate
• Succulent
• Smoky
• Tender
• Zesty
• Savory
• Rich
• Locally-sourced

If your restaurant is more high end, you could throw in some pretentious-sounding terms in there, as well. But, if you’re having trouble making your restaurant brochure dishes sound appetizing, there are professional writing services that specialize in description writing.

Write Cleverly About Money

It may seem like no big deal, but how you write and where you place the cost of a dish will affect your customer’s choice. There are some restaurants that take away the dollar sign from the price to make people forget that they’re spending money. Others choose to spell out the price because it was found to encourage diners to spend more. For instance, $12 is written as twelve dollars. Another tactic is using nested pricing which places the price at the end of the dish’s description.

Conclusion

A properly-written restaurant brochure does more than just showcase your restaurant’s products and services. Ultimately, it establishes your brand and shows off the degree of dedication the owner has toward building their business. With a well-designed and well-written restaurant brochure, you get to attract potential customers and keep loyal customers coming back for more.

 

Seven Rules to Write Engaging Restaurant Brochures posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Case Study: The Floor Really Pulls the Room Together

The Challenge: to transform circa 1818 space formerly home to the country’s second-ever chartered savings bank into a fine-dining restaurant featuring menu items inspired by 19th century New England culinary methods, particularly live-fire cooking.

 

The Solution: Prior to opening Ledger, a one-of-a-kind  restaurant and bar in the former Salem Savings Bank in downtown Salem, Massachusetts a year ago, chef-owner Matt O’Neil tapped the design team at Assembly Design Studio. He selected the Boston-based firm due to its extensive resume in restaurant design — particularly its work in renovating a 1945 building, once home to an old Family Dollar store, into Capo Restaurant  in South Boston.

 

Renovation of the former  bank building involved  multiple challenges. Not  only did the space feature  the original plaster ceiling,  original brick walls and extremely  tall windows, but it also included a  large safe that the design team would have  to somehow incorporate within the interior design  approach. Another challenge, according to lead designer Erica Diskin, was that the interior space consisted of a massive amount of concrete slab flooring, a difficult flooring substrate to work with, especially considering concerns with budget.

 

“It  was a huge undertaking,” said Diskin.

 

She and  her team were  able to transform the site  into a lively and inviting dining establishment  showcasing a 30-seat bar, a chef’s table, a six-seat  oyster bar and a private dining room  that can accommodate  up to 60 people. Additionally,  the Assembly team was able to incorporate  the bank’s old safe deposit boxes into the  restaurant design by creating a privacy wall.

 

 

When working with a difficult flooring  substrate, having a skilled flooring contractor is crucial. This is where REM Flooring  came in; with help from Ralph Massa of REM, the substrate at Ledger was properly prepped then allowing for an easy installation of the chosen flooring product.

 

Having  used Parterre’s  flooring in previous  design projects, Diskin  said she pitched the luxury  vinyl flooring  right off  the bat. Diskin  and the design team  selected Parterre’s Harbor Oak, a wood-looking flooring  product from the InGrained Resilient  Plank collection, for the private dining  area.

 

“I thought it would be the perfect  application,” said Diskin. “It has that real  wood look, can be easily applied, and it wasn’t  going to cost a crazy amount of money in terms of  installation and labor costs.”

 

Another attractive attribute of the vinyl flooring was its color and design versatility, which Diskin said turned out to be “perfect” for the particular design approach  chosen for the new restaurant space. Ironically enough, the design of Harbor  Oak comes directly from an old pier in nearby Boston Harbor, which gives it a  rustic, coastal feel that’s fitting for Salem. In addition to Harbor Oak, Diskin  and her team selected Starry Oak, another wood-looking flooring option, for the main  dining room areas on either side of the bar. Pairing well with Harbor Oak, Starry Oak from  the Vertu Luxury Vinyl Plank collection is another rustic oak look with tints of blue in its  design. Additional luxury vinyl designs used were Parterre’s Ornamental Onyx, an elegant black stone  look, and a white and gray marble design, Classique Pure. 

 

 

Diskin said her  team was able to preserve and reuse  some of the old elements of the building, such  as the original ceiling, in creating a fresh yet  historic look for the restaurant. Parterre’s flooring, according  to Diskin, only enhanced that look. 

 

“It was something new, but it looked like it could be an old floor. It went along nicely with the idea that we were trying to refresh this old space with a fresh and modern feel.”

 

 

Diskin recommends Parterre products for hospitality projects for a variety of reasons.

 

“The flooring is not only visually appealing but also incredibly durable and allows for installation, she said. “The price point is also very appealing to many of our clients as well.”

 

Case Study: The Floor Really Pulls the Room Together posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Preventing Back-of-the-House Injuries (Infographic)

Thousands of slips and falls, burns and scalds, and cuts and punctures happen on a daily basis in restaurants. Safe back-of-house practices are paramount to running a smooth operation so that your business can operate efficiently and profitably.

Restaurant Technologies breaks down the dangers and resulting costs restaurant employers and employees face back-of-house so that you can be on the lookout for what to avoid, and how you can operate a safer workplace for your team.  

For more on this and other helpful tips, click here.

Preventing Back-of-the-House Injuries (Infographic) posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Think Twice Before Making Supply Chain Changes

What do consumers want? That question plagues many marketing officers across the food & beverage industry. The answer may be only slightly easier to decipher than the other age-old conundrum: what do women want.

Joking aside, restaurants and retailers are being approached by activist groups who claim to represent consumer interests, and who want companies to make changes to their practices. Do these activists represent your customers interests?

Consider the recent campaigns from animal rights activists that have exposed some contradictions in the marketplace.

These activists have been pushing restaurants and retailers to only buy higher-cost cage-free eggs by 2025. A number of companies have acceded to this demand. But do consumers want cage-free eggs? Their wallets say no. USDA data shows that about 85 percent of the eggs sold in this country come from hens housed in cages. Consumers are given the choice to buy cage-free or free-range eggs at supermarkets across the country. They choose not to.

Anecdotal evidence backs this up. CNBC recently visited a cage-free egg farm in California, where a state law banned farmers from using conventional cages to house hens. The farm has plenty of eggs but can’t sell them at a premium because of low demand, so it has to take a loss.

That is not a sustainable food system.

The “cage-free” pledges are playing a game of chicken with agricultural economics. An Iowa State University egg industry expert estimates that 72 percent of chickens would have to be cage-free by 2025 to meet current pledges. Only about 15 percent of the industry is cage-free today, and the cost of construction and retrofitting barns to be cage-free extends into billions of dollars.

That’s not the only pressure on businesses, either. The same animal activists who are pushing for cage-free pledges are also not satisfied with cage-free eggs. They’d prefer people not eat eggs at all.

The group Direct Action Everywhere has been conducting undercover investigations at cage-free egg farms. The group’s position is that people shouldn’t use animals for food, and that cage-free is just “humane-washing.” (Direct Action Everywhere became famous after a viral film of one of its representatives berating restaurants guests for eating chicken.)

Others share this view. A vice president with the Humane Society of the United States has said: “Are we saying that cage-free eggs are the way to go? No, that’s not what we’re saying. But we’re saying it’s a step in the right direction” toward totally vegan diets. The food policy director of HSUS also has compared egg farms to Nazi concentration camps. (Seriously.)

Consider how the activists reacted to Cargill’s new $22 million investment. The meat processor is changing its London, Ontario chicken processing plant to a stunning system called Controlled Atmosphere Stunning (CAS).

For at least 15 years, groups such as PETA have asked companies to change from electric-bath stunning to CAS. So Cargill was met with applause for its investment, right?

Wrong. Protestors of the Ontario plant were quick to downplay Cargill’s $22 million expenditure. “[A}ny upgrades to the method of slaughter doesn’t change the fact that it is wrong and unnecessary,” said a spokesperson for the protest group. “We don’t need to eat animals to be healthy.”

Restaurants and retailers don’t want to face brand attacks from animal rights activists. But wise people also don’t cut deals with people who can’t take yes for an answer or who plan on reneging on the deal with more demands.

Here’s a thought: Require any activist group that wants you to make a specific change to endorse your food products. Better yet, have them cater it to their board of directors or organization holiday party. Then, have them sign a promise that they won’t be back for 10 years with any more demands.

Will the Mercy for Animals and Greenpeaces of the world agree to a fair deal?  They are in the conflict industry. They raise money off continually creating adversaries. Chances are they won’t sign. And that’s all you need to know. 

Think Twice Before Making Supply Chain Changes posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

What’s Next in Online Ordering

Recent advances in technology have completely changed how the restaurant industry does business. The rise of online ordering — first through a website and more recently through mobile apps — has quickly led to a revolution in how customers connect with and order from a particular establishment.

Technology moves so fast that as soon as one platform becomes well-established, there are already three more up-and-coming platforms to adopt. Not adapting to these changes can cause your business to become stagnant and lose customers. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some predictions for what’s going to be hot in online ordering systems over the next few years.

Targeted Ads

Using advertisements targeted to specific customers isn’t a new thing, but it’s certainly something you can expect to become an even bigger player in the next few years. As algorithms become more fine-tuned and exact, a quick search and click history will make it even more possible to zero in on customers’ specific preferences. Instead of wasting advertising dollars trying to reach a large segment of the population, specific targeting lets you spend money focusing on customers who are actively searching for your type of restaurant.

PPC ads

Another advertising model that results in fewer wasted ad dollars and more specific targeting is the PPC (pay-per-click) model. PPC works on the premise that, instead of paying for advertising up front that may or may not be effective, it makes more sense to pay for advertisements that have already worked. Advertisement space is procured on a website that potential customers might visit. However, if nothing happens and no ads are clicked, no money gets sent out. After all, why pay websites that aren’t working for you?

When an ad does gets clicked and the customer is brought to your restaurant’s landing page or website, the host site gets a little kickback. The more clickthroughs from that website, the more money they earn. This creates a mutually beneficial relationship where the host site plays an active role in displaying your ad, and where you only have to continue to do business with the sites that result in more orders.

Retargeting Customers

Frequently, customers visit a website, begin the process of placing an order, and then abandon it at some point. For many sites, that’s the end of the story. However, in the coming years look for an upswing in the amount of technology available to keep track of these customers, even if they didn’t enter any contact information. This doesn’t mean you want to harass them, but sending them a gentle nudge or reminder now and then might make a difference and result in a sale down the road.

Third-Party Delivery Services

One of the more exciting innovations to come about in the past few years are third-party delivery services. These companies give every restaurant a delivery option by contracting with services (such as UberEats). When an order is placed for delivery, notifications are sent to the restaurant to make the food, as well as to the delivery service, to pick up and deliver the food. The customer pays a little more for this service, and gladly so, while more and more restaurants become available to customers who would rather just stay at home.

Originally tested in a handful of markets, these services are now making their way to every corner of the country.

A More Refined Use of Data

Another piece of technology that isn’t new, but is constantly being improved, is the use of data. Customer information is key — and when that information is used to target customers with sales and promotions, online orders can’t help but increase. This also makes customers happier as they are given a more customer-centric experience that’s tailored to their specific needs and wants. It’s like having a personal restaurant, built just for each customer.

Greater Competition with Social Media

While this all spells more success for online ordering, it’s also important to realize that others are trying to break into this field. Maybe the newest innovation to know about — and one that could really change the game — is that now you don’t even have to own a physical restaurant to compete in the online restaurant sales market. Social media companies like Facebook have recently started to roll out food-ordering options to their customers, so users can order meals and have them delivered without ever even visiting a restaurant’s website or using their mobile app. While having customers order your food that quickly and effortlessly could be a good thing, it could also spell trouble for restaurants that aren’t included in the social media’s offerings. Because of the future implications, this is definitely one development that everyone should keep an eye on.

So, while much of what’s new in online ordering isn’t new technology, development and innovation has helped to deliver a much more refined and personal use of the technology. These breakthroughs enhance the customer experience, and new services have made the process of finding, ordering and getting food quicker, easier and more convenient for all involved. As online ordering increases even further, you can be sure that more innovation will serve to drive this new and exciting facet of the restaurant industry to new and greater heights.

What’s Next in Online Ordering posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Greene Turtle Goes Straw Free and the Sani Awards

Why Do I Have to Pay for Credit Card Processing?

While there is little doubt that accepting credit cards can boost sales, many small businesses still refuse to accept them. The most common reason most merchants give for refusing to take credit cards is the fees. 

How Credit Card Processing Works

In order to understand why processing credit card transactions cost money, it is important to understand how the actual process works. There are actually four parties involved in the entire process. The money involved in the transaction is loaned to the customer by the bank issuing the credit card. The customer will either pay off that loan within 30 days or will add the amount to a balance and then pay interest on the total balance. In addition, the merchant receives a loan from the acquiring bank. Both the acquiring and the issuing banks deduct fees. This means that the amount that finally makes its way into the merchant’s account is less than the amount paid by the customer. 

The fee charged by the issuing bank is referred to as the interchange fee, while the fee charged by the acquiring bank is known as the discount rate. Both fees are represented by a percentage of the total transaction in most instances. 

Numerous banks issue credit cards and thus act as an issuing bank, although the cards are issued under brands, such as MasterCard, Visa, and Discover. One element that sets American Express apart from other credit card brands is that it serves as an issuing and an acquiring bank. Interchange rates are always published, but it should be noted that the precise interchange rate charged is based on a number of factors, for instance, the type of card that is used and even whether the card is physically present at the time of the transaction. The type of merchant can also affect the rate. 

Your Business Affects Your Processing Fees

The type of business in which you are involved can affect your fees, because the issuing bank wants to ensure it is compensated for the risk of chargebacks. This occurs when a customer is successful in disputing a charge. Due to the fact that some businesses are considered more likely to instigate chargebacks, those businesses are usually charged higher rates. For instance, transactions that are conducted online and over the phone are typically considered the riskiest of transactions.

In the past, it could often be difficult for many merchants to offer credit card processing if their daily volume was not high enough or if they were not able to qualify for a merchant account. Fortunately, technology is making it much easier today for businesses of all sizes to accept credit cards without feeling as though doing so is taking too much of a bite from their profits. 

Point-of-sale systems have also eliminated the need for bulky machinery that takes up too much space and dedicated dialup lines. Whether you are just starting out or you are looking to expand your business operations, a point-of-sale system can give you the flexibility you need.

Why Do I Have to Pay for Credit Card Processing? posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Maintaining a Five-Star Restaurant Restroom

When eating at a restaurant, the most significant moment that a customer experiences isn’t at the table – it’s in the restroom. Too often, there is a stark divide between the welcoming atmosphere of a dining area and an unkempt bathroom. Visiting a dirty restroom can have a longer lasting impression on a guest than their meal, so it’s crucial to take hand drying options, paper products and regular cleaning tips into consideration. Maintaining spotless, hygienic restaurant bathrooms will impress guests and help ensure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Paper Towels vs. Hand Dryers

Most public restrooms provide either paper towels or automatic hand dryers, with some offering both options. If pressed for time, a customer may reach for a paper towel, while the hands-free convenience of a hand dryer may appeal to others. But according to a 2017 Harris Poll, the majority of Americans (69 percent) actually prefer to use paper towels over air dryers when drying their hands in public restrooms. Studies even suggest that bacteria is more easily transmitted from wet skin than from dry skin, so a thorough hand drying option is necessary for preventing the spread of germs. Furthermore, a research team recently discovered 18 to 60 different bacteria colonies, including fecal matter, on plates placed under hand dryers in a study of 36 bathrooms. Paper towels can dry hands and remove bacteria efficiently and effectively without the risk of spreading bacteria through the air.

If restaurants provide paper towels to customers in lieu of hand dryers, it’s important that the paper towel dispensers support the clean image of the restroom. Facilities should look for durable and sleek dispensers that are abrasion-resistant. Sturdy plastic construction helps the dispensers hold up over time, decreasing maintenance and labor costs associated with repairs. Large, flat surfaces with rounded corners make these assets easy to keep clean while the minimalist design ensures cohesion with the restroom’s style.  

Clog-Reducing Paper Technology

A recent Harris Poll found that a strong majority of Americans (71 percent) say a clogged toilet at a restaurant would negatively impact their perception of the business. To keep patrons from leaving the establishment and sharing their displeasure with family, friends and other potential customers, restaurant managers should consider purchasing paper products that can help reduce clogs.

Today, advanced biodegradable toilet paper exists that eats away dirt in pipes. When the paper makes contact with water, non-pathogenic microorganisms are activated and reproduce to multiply their cleaning effect. When the job is done, the enzymes biodegrade and flush away without leaving behind any residue or odor. Paper towels that dissolve in water also exist to reduce the opportunity for clogs if this paper is flushed down the toilet.

These paper products help businesses avoid costly plumbing issues. In a busy, fast-paced restaurant environment, closing one bathroom or even a stall due to maintenance problems can frustrate customers and result in loss of business. The downtime required for toilet repairs results in decreased sales, on top of the labor costs associated with professional repair. By investing in smartly designed, clog-fighting paper products, restaurants can protect their brand and bottom line.

A Clean Reputation

An unusable or poorly maintained restroom can upset guests and may even indicate to patrons that the kitchen is also dirty, potentially tarnishing the reputation of a restaurant.

Restaurant managers should consider the following restroom maintenance tips to impress guests:

• Adhere to a daily cleaning schedule.Engaging employees in a regular routine will improve productivity and ensure constant cleanliness. Managers should communicate what tasks are expected to be carried out on a daily basis, such as mopping floors and restocking toilet paper, and conduct checks at the end of each day.
• Keep a time sheet.Restroom logs keep track of key tasks like cleaning toilets, wiping down floors and emptying trash receptacles. Employees should sign off each time the tasks are completed, specifying the date and time of each assignment.
• Conduct thorough training. Managers should clearly articulate what is expected so all staff clean the facility to the same high standard. Training should highlight best practices and which products should be used for each area, as well as which tools are reserved for restroom cleaning to avoid cross contamination.
• Restock paper supplies frequently. Managers should thoughtfully select products, such as biodegradable paper towels and toilet paper, that will help reduce clogs and costly repairs. With paper towels also comes the opportunity for them to end up on the floor. Restaurants should provide a large trash receptacle and make sure it is regularly emptied so that guests can dispose of used paper towels.

Customers appreciate cleanliness, especially in restrooms. Yet too often, restaurants don’t maintain these areas and put their reputation at risk. Today, many patrons appreciate when paper towels are available, as well as soft but durable toilet paper, functioning dispensers, faucets and stall locks and floors and countertops free of pools of water and trash. By providing high-quality paper products and implementing a thorough restroom maintenance plan, restaurants are sure to give customers a five-star experience.

Maintaining a Five-Star Restaurant Restroom posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Winning Streak: Roy Rogers Teams with Cal Ripken Jr.

Recruiting and Retention Are the Number One Issues Troubling Business Leaders Today

The number one issue troubling business leaders today is the increasing difficulty of recruiting and retaining qualified talent. There is a talent shortage at every level, in every industry. The talent wars are back on and more heated than ever.

We at RainmakerThinking have been tracking this trend since the mid-1990s, basing our findings on hundreds of thousands of interviews, survey responses, and consulting sessions with business leaders, managers, and rank-and-file employees from hundreds of companies. Hiring managers report – at every level, in every industry, in organizations small and mid-size and large-scale alike – that hiring and retaining top talent is more difficult today than at any time in recent memory.

Make no mistake, the talent wars are affecting organizations of every shape and size:

• Average durations of employment are decreasing
• Voluntary unplanned turnover rates are increasing
• Departure demand (number of those employed but seeking other employment) is increasing
• Open-position rates and time-to-hire rates are increasing
• Early voluntary departure of new hires is increasing

And the talent wars are not going away any time soon:

Supply and Demand

The rising demand for effective workers promises to outpace supply for the foreseeable future in nearly every field. For jobs that require technical training and certification, whether through a professional degree or apprenticeship to a skilled tradesperson, the pipeline is not keeping up with market needs. For service jobs that do not require training and certification, there are shortages of candidates with the soft skills necessary for optimum performance. 

Demographics

By 2020, individuals born 1990 and later will comprise greater than 28% of the US workforce, with similar figures for Western Europe and Japan and an even higher percentage in parts of South America, Africa, and Asia. On the other end of the age spectrum, organizations with significant “age bubbles” in their workforce will feel the greatest effects as the oldest, most experienced employees retire. Those retirees take with them the skill, knowledge, wisdom, institutional memory, and relationships developed with the organization over time. Organizations with a large contingent of young workers will face the challenges of an increasingly free-agent, transactional workforce. The most valuable young employees will not hesitate to request greater flexibility in their working arrangements, and they expect to be rewarded appropriately for the great work they do.

Shifting Mindset

High-talent young employees are not the only ones who have become more demanding. Today, employees on any end of the age range are much less likely to buy into or be motivated by promises of long-term rewards. After years of increasingly fast-paced change and uncertainty, employers can no longer guarantee long-term rewards for their employees. Sudden, unexpected loss of employment is part of the landscape for today’s workforce. Most employees try to get what they can from their employers, one day at a time. People are embracing the free-agent, transactional mindset because they have no other choice. But this also means that employees have more negotiating power: if employees no longer expect to pay their dues for years on end, then employers have to do more to retain them. The free agent, transactional mindset can appear high-maintenance, but it is actually the result of increased power to ask for more. And if employers get on board, the most valuable employees are the ones who will reap the most benefits in terms of flexible working arrangements and other rewards. This leaves business leaders asking how they can possibly square their business needs with widespread expectations for greater flexibility in work conditions and career paths.

The challenges of attraction and retention are clear. The question is, “What can you do about it?” At the highest level, the goal must be to build a winning culture. Corporate cultures are either cultures “by design” or cultures “by default.” Winning cultures are intentionally built, with a clear and compelling mission, reliable communication alignment, strong and supportive leadership, collaborative high-performance teams, real accountability, flexibility, and recognition for high performers.

If you want to win the talent wars, you need to build a winning culture. The latest white paper from Bruce Tulgan and RainmakerThinking can help: Winning the Talent Wars: Build a Culture of Attraction, High-Performance & Retention.

 

Recruiting and Retention Are the Number One Issues Troubling Business Leaders Today posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Strategies to Optimize Your Restaurant Repair and Maintenance Spend

Do you know just how much businesses are spending on repair and maintenance? Among the 2 million-plus multi-site US businesses that require repair and maintenance work, total spend is about $100 billion each year. That’s a lot of money, and, unfortunately, it’s spent fairly inefficiently across the board—estimates place unnecessary repair and maintenance spend throughout the country at more than $20 billion.

Now, what if you could reclaim your piece of that $20+ billion? The key is to improve repair and maintenance efficiency and ultimately reduce spend – while not sacrificing quality or customer experience. For the restaurant industry, reducing repair and maintenance spend is especially vital, since less resources devoted to facilities management means more can be devoted to the most important aspect of your business — creating excellent customer experiences.

Restaurants need the right strategy in place to successfully reduce facilities management (FM) costs. I’ve highlighted a few specific tactics restaurant managers can use to recapture wasted repair and maintenance spend below:

Track Assets Carefully

Restaurants not only have to manage the upkeep of standard commercial business equipment like light fixtures, floors, roofs, and HVAC units, but they’re also tasked with keeping vital kitchen equipment like walk-in freezers, refrigerators, and ovens functioning optimally. Some of these kitchen assets can add complexity to your repair and maintenance processes; for example, you have to make sure refrigerators always meet EPA compliance standards and you submit your EPA-required leak record requests.  

Tracking the warranties, statuses, and work histories of each restaurant asset accurately — especially complex ones like refrigerators—is vital to keeping your repair and maintenance spend low. The more data you have, the better you can plan your spend strategically.

Say one of your refrigerators is beginning to leak. Looking at historical refrigerator repair information, you realize you’ve had to service this specific fridge three times in the last two years. With this in mind, you can make the data-backed decision to order a replacement fridge because that will save you repair and maintenance dollars in the long run. 

Prioritize Preventive Maintenance

Planned maintenance is work done regularly to prevent complete breakdowns and keep equipment in optimal health. With properly managed planned maintenance, you reduce the chances of complete equipment failure, which is often extremely expensive. It is much more cost-effective to perform minor maintenance over time, rather than to pay for full equipment repair or replacements when failures occur.  

In order to limit the disruption to diners, planned maintenance should be scheduled strategically to avoid peak business hours. This may be during less busy months or a time when that specific piece of equipment is not needed. For example, planned air conditioning maintenance can be scheduled for winter months when it’s not typically used, making sure the work doesn’t affect your customer experience.

Utilize Modern FM Data Analytics

As discussed above, restaurants have a lot of complex assets to keep track of, especially if you have multiple locations. While data analytics are a key tool for any business looking to reduce repair and maintenance spend, it’s even more important for restaurants. With all the repair and maintenance work needed to keep up with this equipment, it’s easy for costs to pile up.

Take advantage of an analytics solution to evaluate all of your spend data. With data insights, managers can easily pick out trends, create goals, and forecast future FM spend. Most importantly, use analytics to identify where you’re spending unnecessarily.

Identifying extraneous FM spend gives you an opportunity to make repair and maintenance strategy changes that improve efficiency. Successful cost-saving strategies often include changing which service providers you’re using to those with less expensive rates, scheduling more planned maintenance to reduce total repair costs, and replacing assets that are inefficiently eating up spend, typically for more fuel-efficient versions.

Automate Contractor Invoicing Processes

Historically, many restaurants have done invoicing for repair and maintenance work manually. Not only is this method inefficient, but it also leaves the door wide open for human errors and high processing costs.

Automating your invoicing processes is another strategy to reduce your overall FM spend. Automatic invoices can be grouped, scheduled, and sent directly to service providers, reducing accounting errors, mitigating processing costs, and improving efficiency.

Final Thoughts

Leveraging these cost-reducing strategies is proven to be effective; one major restaurant chain reduced their invoice costs by 12 percent, saved $1.7 million, and showed ROI in less than two months using many of these tactics.

In addition to implementing new strategies and solutions, an important component of reducing repair and maintenance spend is updating your reactive workflow. This means looking at the ways your restaurant currently works through repair and maintenance challenges – for example, what happens when a facilities management issue arises? Who handles it? How are you currently hiring contractors? Who is involved in cost decisions? – and optimizing them to fit your new cost-savings strategies.

What strategies has your restaurant used to reduce FM costs?

Strategies to Optimize Your Restaurant Repair and Maintenance Spend posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

How Your Restaurant Can Get a Piece of the Experience Economy

Avoiding Running Afoul of Pay-to-Play Alcohol Regulations at Your Restaurant

Restaurant owners and operators face a question each time a producer or distributor of an alcoholic beverage comes to them with a financial offer: Are we about to break state and federal rules and open ourselves to fines and license suspensions?

The danger has become more tangible in the past year because the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has received $5 million in special funding for investigations. The TTB is working hand in hand with state alcohol regulators to identify and penalize not just those that offer illegal enticements but those that accept them.

These prohibited trade practices are also known as pay-to-play or tied-house violations. As the names imply, a restaurant or other seller of alcoholic beverages provides exclusivity or some other form of preference for a producer or distributor’s products in exchange for payments, gifts, equipment, chargebacks or other unlawful form of financial reward.

Any arrangement, whether written or verbal (or even an unspoken understanding), that limits a restaurant’s ability to purchase varying and competing products is likely illegal. 

Various suppliers and distributors have been charged in at least three states over a two-year period with improper practices. In 2016, Washington state regulators accused wholesalers of setting up exclusive arrangements to sell only specified brands at two Seattle concert venues. The state sought a $150,000 fine.

The next year, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) charged wholesalers with breaking the law because of alleged impermissible gifts to retailers including the cost of, or partially financed, refrigeration units, television sets and draught systems at retailers in Southern California.

At the time, wholesalers were fined $400,000, one of the largest amounts in California history, and another distributor was assessed $10,000. More important to note for restaurant owners and managers, over 30 establishments received disciplinary sanctions levied against their ABC licenses.

Such practices can result in hefty financial penalties. In 2016, Massachusetts officials found that the commonwealth’s largest distributor of craft beers was paying Boston bars tens of thousands of dollars to stock one brand of beer and not those of competitors. The agency imposed a record-setting $2.6 million fine. The restaurants were called before the state commission to defend their actions.

Restaurants in other states face scrutiny as the TTB steps up its efforts. The agency is partnering with the Illinois Liquor Control Commission to uncover illegal practices in that state. TTB also announced last July that it was coordinating with the Miami office of the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco to uncover suspected wrongdoing in its territory.

What practices get restaurants into trouble and how can they prevent them?

Tied-house rules prohibit sales arrangements that can bind them to a supplier through exclusive bar and menu arrangements, purchasing incentives, commercial bribery and even indebtedness. A restaurant cannot purchase products from a supplier to the exclusion, in whole or in part, of other suppliers’ products based on prohibited arrangements or agreements.

As frequently stated, any arrangement, whether written or verbal (or even an unspoken understanding), that limits a restaurant’s ability to purchase varying and competing products is likely illegal. 

Similarly, an alcohol beverage producer or distributor cannot give anything of value to a restaurant owner or operator unless the gift is expressly permitted by federal or state law. In California and Massachusetts, refrigerators sold at reduced or no cost have been found to constitute illegal gifts in the eyes of regulators.

When a restaurant gives tap or menu preferences to a supplier or distributor in exchange for unlawful gifts, equipment or charge backs, it can be charged with violating laws that prohibit slotting fees. The term is most often associated with illegal practices at beer, wine and liquor stores, but the same rules apply to restaurants and bars.

Sales inducements from producers and distributors such as prizes and gifts can be considered bribes, and those accepting them can be charged. That can be hard for a food-and-beverage manager to comprehend when rewards that are legal for non-alcoholic products are illegal for alcoholic beverages.

Clearing that confusion starts with an understanding of the law. Restaurant owners need to educate themselves, their managers and their employees on federal and state restrictions and exemptions that impact how they buy, display and promote alcohol products. Compliance efforts should include internal audits such as reviewing current purchasing, sales and promotions practices.

Restaurateurs should also develop internal policies as well as training and educating sales, marketing and staff on prohibited practices. Regulators encourage and often embed these education programs into their penalties. In various cases, distributors have been able to mitigate penalties by agreeing to train and monitor its representatives, and to report regularly on their sales practices to regulators.

When restaurant owners implement instruction, they not only reduce the likelihood that their employees will break the law, they increase their chance of having fines mitigated when violations occur. Regulators including the TTB may recognize good-faith efforts to comply with regulations and adjust their penalties as permitted by law.

Establishments need to start training programs now. The TTB and state agencies are committed to enforcement and prosecution. Education and compliance offer the best shields against liability. 

 

 

Avoiding Running Afoul of Pay-to-Play Alcohol Regulations at Your Restaurant posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Five Ways You’re Running Your Bar Into the Ground

You thought adding a bar to your business was going to be fun.

 

Maybe even easy.

 

A bar is a great spot for customers to enjoy a new cocktail, wait for a table, watch the game, and even meet new people.

 

And hey, maybe your bar is doing very well. But is it running as efficiently as it could?

 

You realized pretty quickly that running a bar is definitely NOT easy – and it’s a totally different beast than running a restaurant.

 

When you’re running a bar, there are a lot of new things to focus on. And that means even more room for slip-ups and bad habits.

 

If you aren’t careful, the bar can drain your cash faster than your regulars can drain their glasses.

 

Get a handle on your bar business with the 5 Ways You’re Running Your Bar Into the Ground, or it will be last call…permanently.

 

Weak Links in Your Staff

 

You’ve got too much going on to check every detail, but you’ve noticed that your bottles are running dry faster than usual, and your sales don’t show why.

 

The problem could be your staff.

 

But how can you spot a weak link in your team?

 

First, check your training program. Are you helping your new hires with ample training to avoid unnecessary slip-ups? Haphazard pours can lead to spillage, overuse, and wasted inventory.

 

Or maybe a veteran bartender is making some heavy-handed pours, blowing through your booze and drying up your profits.

 

It may seem like a few ounces here and there is no big deal. But those slip-ups can add up big time.

 

For vets, it’s a bit less about training and bit more about sticking to the proper drink proportions.

 

Another question: Are your bartenders giving away too many free drinks?

 

A drink or two on the house isn’t a bad thing. But on a regular basis? You’ve got a problem.

 

Your POS numbers will be totally out of whack, so you’re ordering more bottles without the dollars to back it up.

 

On top of all this? There’s a chance your staff might simply be stealing from you.

 

SOLUTION: Maintain a constant, ongoing training program.

 

• Don’t just send a bartender into the jungle without at least 1-2 days of training. Build a program that teaches proper techniques and tricks.

 

• Train on pours and randomly test bartenders to keep good habits in check. Keep it fun, though, and offer some rewards to sweeten the deal. This will keep your staff involved, smiling, and pouring correctly.

 

• Keep your company policies updated, and stress the importance of accurate numbers and consistent pours.

 

• Make your staff feel like a part of the business. Engaged employees are way more likely to stay honest.

 

Your Marketing…May Not Be As Effective As You Thought

 

So, you’ve got a happy hour. Great! So does every other bar in town.

 

Sure, it’ll work sometimes.Enough to keep the business flowing.

 

But, happy hours don’t showcase what makes your bar special or unique.  It’s just a discount, which means less cash per customer.

 

You’ve probably also got a website and some social media pages.

 

When’s the last time you updated them? Have you ever done any advertising?

 

If the answer is no, you’ve got some changes to make.

 

 

SOLUTION: Get creative.

 

• Try putting a triangle board outside with witty sayings that make you stand out. People will remember it and start to look forward to reading them.

 

• Create special menus and host special events. Try establishing partnerships with local companies and sports leagues.

 

• It’s the 21st century. Update your website and your social media pages. Post your specials, take photos, share your events, and create a hashtag for your brand.

 

You’re Disorganized

 

Bars love to show off their wide array of bottles behind the bar – most have almost 120 different liquors. Sure, it looks cool to color-coordinate, but is there a method behind the madness?

 

If your bottles aren’t organized well, it makes life brutal when it’s time to do a count.

 

Plus, when the bar is busy, your bartenders might have a hard time finding what they need quickly.

 

When time means money, why are you keeping customers waiting?

 

 

SOLUTION: Organize your liquors by volume.

 

• Keep your 10-12 “highest volume” liquors in one easy-to-access place. They’re going to account for 60-80% of your spend, so it’s good to know where they are. Plus, if you want to know your usage, you’ll have to count ‘em every week.

 

• Keep your 60+ “mid-volume” bottles in another spot. These you order about every other week, and they should be pretty easy to spot.

 

• Find a home for your 40 or so “low volume” drinks. They’re more expensive, and you’re only ordering them about twice a year… And not serving them often, either

 

Price-blindness on Booze

 

Are you tracking the costs of allyour booze?

 

Blindly buying liquor, beer, and wine can be a costly bad habit.

 

It’s a pain to keep track of all the numbers, but, keeping tabs on your costs can make a world of difference.  

 

Unfortunately, suppliers sometimes take advantage of the fact that you’re ignoring your pricing.

 

And when you ignore the costs on a regular basis, how will you know if you’re being taken for a ride?

 

Look our for price creep.

 

You negotiated with a vendor to get a better cost. Before long, that cost starts to rise back up to where it was…maybe even higher.

The rise is slow enough that vendors are banking on you not noticing it at all.

 

There are also price spikes.

 

Out of nowhere, you’re paying 15% more than you were a month ago. And your supplier didn’t call you up to tell you about that increase…

 

When you aren’t keeping tabs of your spend, you run the risk of getting stiffed.

 

SOLUTION: Follow price trends, keep track of your costs, or just get technology that does it for you.

 

You’re working crazy hours and your to-do list is endless.

 

Between training bartenders, ordering new barstools, and making purchases, you don’t have a lot of room to monitor your costs, even though it’s extremely important.

 

You can’t do it all…and you don’t have to.

 

That’s where technology comes in. Find a solution that does the work for you so you can call the shots, not your suppliers.

 

Not Paying Attention to Your Variance

 

Variance is the difference between what you actuallyhave in stock and what you thoughtyou had.

 

It’s related to your portions and your loss. Just like in your restaurant, you need to know what ingredients to check so you can figure out individual problems.

 

Managing variance is crucial to profitability.

 

Focus on alcohol usage to size up your variance, especially for your key, high-volume ingredients. That’s right, you don’t have to measure EVERYTHING every time.

 

Also, keep in mind that liquor and beer are totally different. 

 

For liquor, pay close attention to the portioning, or how much your bartenders are pouring. This is where you can find those heavy-handed bartenders we talked about.

 

For beer, it’s all about the loss. Sloppy pours can lead to too many spills. Or maybe your problem is too many free pints. If you’re going through more kegs without the sales to support it, you’ll have to do some investigating. 

 

SOLUTION: Pay attention to those high-usage items.

 

Worrying about counting a liquor you only order twice a year is a waste of your time. It just doesn’t make sense.

 

Instead, target your popular drinks – your well vodkas, basic bourbons, and light beers. That’s where the big impact to your revenues can lie.

 

It’s called Pareto’s Law, or the 80/20 rule. You consistently count 20% of your inventory (those  items), because they account for 80% of your costs.

 

Pareto’s Law helps you focus on a smaller amount of booze that takes up more of your spending costs.

 

But don’t forget you’re still managing an entire bar. You can’t completely ignore those expensive liquors… Give them a count every now and then.

 

Another tip? Keep them locked up to protect your high-spend spirits from theft, breakage, or spillage.

 

Conclusion: Save your Money and Save Your Bar

 

Like we said…managing a bar isn’t all fun. It’s a tough business.

 

The good news is, there are some simple solutions to all the ways a bar can fail. And technology can help with almost all of them.

 

Software and apps can’t write your next marketing slogan…or train your bartenders on mixology. But they canprovide the tools to make your bar pay off.

 

Every restaurant bar is different. So do your research and find a solution that works for you.  

 

But you shouldn’t just continue to ignore your bar costs. You simply can’t afford to.

 

Five Ways You’re Running Your Bar Into the Ground posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Taking Back Lunch and Dashing Success for Project DASH

Thank the Millennials for Reshaping the Way We Eat

Today’s headlines are full of articles blaming millennials for soft restaurant sales. As I read articles and watch videos like “Millennials are Killing Lunch” (Fortune, March 2017) and “Millennials are Killing Chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebee’s”(Business Insider, June 2017), I immediately think of the Mike and Mechanics song, “The Living Years” and the opening line, “Every generation blames the one before.” I can’t get that song out of my head as I am bombarded with article after article.

It is true that with more than 80 million millennials in the United States and a buying power of $200 billion, they can demand change. But is killing restaurants the change they really want? Millennials actually spend an average of 10.6 percent more at restaurants than any other generation but when it comes to eating out, they expect convenience and value (lower cost).1  If restaurants don’t provide, will millennials be stuck with the proverbial question, “who moved my cheese?”

Convenience

The convenience that millennials seek may contribute to the stereotype that they are lazy, but can you blame them for not wanting to spend their time waiting in line? Grocery store pre-made meals, kiosks, meal delivery kits and delivery/off-premise are ways to save valuable time and everyone benefits. According to The NPD Group, delivery now represents 1.7 billion foodservice visits annually and young adults are the heaviest users. To compare generations, 29 percent of millennials ordered restaurant foods/beverages via delivery in the last week while nearly 50 percent of boomers and older, use delivery service less than once a month.2 

Delivering both food and alcohol could be the much need game changer for casual dining.

Delivery and off-premise food is booming and savvy eateries are capitalizing on this new revenue stream which is driven by millennials. Unexpected players in the game include The Honey Baked Ham Company® which is now testing delivery during key holiday periods.

In addition, TGI Fridays has begun testing the food and alcohol delivery service in Dallas and Houston and they hope to expand nationwide in 2018. To-go and delivery sales continue to grow and Friday’s has seen takeout sales grow by 30 percent since launching online ordering last summer.3 Delivering both food and alcohol could be the much need game changer for casual dining. I can only hope that they start delivering their signature drinks in my area soon. 

With more convenient options and delivery booming, the real question should be, “are millennials changing the way we order food?”

Value

Millennials want value and they want it big! Part of this generation graduated college during the recession and struggled to find a job while others watched their parents struggle, change buying behaviors or start to save. Millennials are mindful of their paychecks and technology makes it easy for them. According to Nielsen, 97 percent of 18-34 year olds own a smart phone thus providing them easy access to sites and apps with digital coupons. And according to an Acosta survey, 58 percent of millennials reported using the internet to “find the best restaurant deals,” compared with 47 percent for Gen X and 23 percent of boomers.3But millennials aren’t just looking for deals online.

According to the 2018 Valassis Awareness-to-Activation Study, 55 percent of millennial parents said even if they see an interesting restaurant ad on TV, they will only visit that restaurant if they also have a print coupon.5 This is a meaningful statistic because it’s 20 points, or 57 percent higher than all consumers. While TV drives brand awareness, restaurants that want to attract and activate the millennial community need to have a balanced media plan that includes both print and digital coupons. Restaurant brands like Darden are recognizing this generation’s need for value and are acting strategically to gain their attention. Gene Lee, CEO of Darden, stated during an earnings call:

“Contrary to popular belief, millennials still like going to restaurants, millennials still want to come to casual dining. Thirty percent of our guests are millennials, compared to 24 percent of the overall population. So we over-index with millennials… we made the strategic choice to underprice to inflation, so we’re underpricing our competitors.”

Consumers across generations value saving money but due to the sheer size, millennials have the buying power to demand these incentives. If restaurants don’t deliver on savings they’ll miss out on this large population of cross-generation value seekers.

Conclusion

Millennials aren’t killing restaurants but they are reshaping the way Americans eat. As I conclude my thoughts on this generation’s early contributions to the restaurant industry, I still wonder why they have a negative stereotype? Could it be us? What other areas will millennials impact?  Will they demand equal pay? Work/life balance?  Less expensive organic food? Will free Wi-Fi be the new normal for restaurants?

Millennials are actively seeking restaurant coupons both on and offline and they are the driving force in mainstreaming delivery. It’s important for restaurants to remain relevant in these areas and it’s equally important they use multiple platforms to communicate these initiatives. 

As the tune from the song, “The Living Years,” “Every Generation Blames the One Before,” still plays in the back of my mind, I’m reminded that even if we’re not ready to stop blaming the millennials, they’ll soon get a reprieve when Gen Z comes of age.

Sources

1 3 Tips for Serving Millennial Consumers, QSRweb.com, Sept. 11, 2017

2  Delivery is Bright Spot for U.S. Foodservice Industry, NPD, April, 2017

3Yes, Millennials Dine Out a Lot. But They Use Coupons, emarketer, June 6, 2017

4TGI Fridays brings the party home with alcohol and food delivery service, Today, Sept. 2017

5Valassis Awareness-to-Activation Study, 2018

 

Thank the Millennials for Reshaping the Way We Eat posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

Not Just Beef: Better Ideas Fuel B.I. Foods’ Brand Evolution

Bowlero’s Instagrammable Menu

What Can a Restaurant Teach Us About Innovation?

When Chef Ferran Adrià shuttered his famed elBulli restaurant in 2011, foodie circles were stunned. elBulli was at the peak of its fame: it had three Michelin stars and a waiting list of two million diners. Adrià—widely considered one of the most imaginative culinary minds of the world—operated in an elite class of chefs. He kept his restaurant open just six months a year and served one meal a day, never offering the same dish twice.

Rumors circulated that the closure was due to a family feud or money problems. But the truth was that Adrià was petrified of repeating himself. (“Can you imagine this pressure?” he told The New York Times. “You cannot.”)

In 2014 Adrià reopened elBulli not as a restaurant, but as a foundation dedicated to studying and understanding the nature of creativity. It’s a subject in which Adrià has passionate expertise. When he arrived at elBulli in the early 80s, it was a French restaurant. By the 1990s Adrià was head chef and elBulli was transformed as a test kitchen for gastronomic invention.

But while he became known for dreaming up dishes like Escoffier’s classic peach melba and smoke foam, Adrià was engaged in a far more ambitious project—achieving and sustaining a culture of innovation. He and his team established a set of best practices for organizational creativity and systematic invention. The result: processes and structures that are applicable not just to restaurants but other organizations as well. Here are some elements of elBulli’s, ahem, secret sauce:

They Built a Specialized Language of Creativity

Over the years, Adrià and his team devised new words, terms, and phrases to expand the language of gastronomy. Their new language captured and classified the elements of each new dish they created and helped codify the cutting-edge techniques and technologies they employed. Their new vocabulary was used as a toolkit that aimed to revolutionize cooking through every bite.

Establishing this Language had a Big Impact

first, it helped make the creative process more efficient. ElBulli’s kitchen, located in Catalonia, Spain, hosted chefs from all over the world and many spoke different languages. Giving them a lingua franca allowed them to reach a common understanding and coordinate their cooking in faster and smarter ways. Second, the creative language allowed Adrià and his team to stay laser-focused on their goal: bold breakthroughs. A precise language helped them identify and analyze the extent to which they were truly doing something new and different, versus merely reproducing past successes and refining on the margins.

They Were Open and Willing to Share

Everyone who worked in Adrià’s kitchen understood that experimenting with food and flavors was only a part of elBulli’s mission; documenting and sharing what they learned from that testing was its true purpose. Adrià and his team recognized that advancing the culinary movement required that they communicate with the wider community. (Later in elBulli’s history, Adrià founded a publishing house to disseminate recipes and information.) This level of transparency and openness allowed other chefs to not only learn from elBulli’s practices and processes, but also apply them in new and exciting ways. For instance, elBulli was the first restaurant to open a culinary lab that worked alongside its kitchen; today that is a standard practice among avant-garde chefs.

Adrià’s openness seems counterintuitive in a business environment in which trade secrets are considered a competitive advantage. But transparency worked to elBulli’s benefit. It cultivated a network of devoted followers—disciples if you will—who created a virtuous circle around the organization. This heightened the restaurant’s influence and helped it become a dominant force in the food industry.

They weren’t afraid of radical reinvention. If ever Chef Adrià felt that elBulli was getting tired or stale, he’d make a dramatic change. He’d reconfigure his cooking team; he’d swap summer ingredients for winter ones; or he’d recruit new apprentices from different parts of the world. Once he even built a new kitchen. Adrià knew that change is integral to maintaining an artistic edge. His desire to stay innovative was a driving reason he converted elBulli into a foundation. Today he and his team collaborate with top chefs, computer scientists, chemists, authors, philosophers, and designers to transform haute cuisine.

Reinvention at this scale is expensive, radical, and risky. But it is also necessary to inspire innovation at the organizational level and even worldwide. By constantly deconstructing the system that supported creativity, Adria was able to shift the rules of the game and, ultimately, to maintain a strategic position in the restaurant industry.

Other firms should take note. After all, innovation today is not just an advantage for organizations but a requirement.

Opazo’s book, Appetite for Innovation: Creativity and Change at elBulli, explores the many ways in which Adrià and his team pioneered new ingredients, flavor combinations, and cutting-edge culinary techniques in a quest to revolutionize haute cuisine. Part business analysis, part restaurant history, the book is a critical examination of how organizational creativity can be achieved and sustained over time.

Opazo’s book cites examples from other fields, including art, science, music, theatre, and literature to inform practices of innovation and creativity in multiple kinds of organizations and industries. Each chapter of her book opens with an iconic recipe created in elBulli’s kitchen. 

Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine is hosting a giveaway for a hard copy of Opazo’s Appetite for Innovation: Creativity and Change at elBulli. To learn more, click here.

 

 

What Can a Restaurant Teach Us About Innovation? posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

OpenTable’s Business Intelligence, More Live Más and Munchies Menu

Supply Chain Planning for a New Restaurant Opening

MRM’s “Ask the Expert” features advice from Consolidated Concepts Inc.

Please send questions for this column to Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine Executive Editor Barbara Castiglia at bcastiglia@modernrestaurantmanagement.com.

Q: What is a basic supply-chain checklist for a new restaurant opening? 

A: Opening new locations means your brand is growing. It’s an exciting time, but there is a tremendous amount of planning required from a supply chain standpoint to support the growth. The location of a restaurant isn’t just important from a customer count and sales standpoint; it’s also critical to make sure products can be delivered efficiently from the appropriate distributors. This means supplies get delivered at the right time and at cost-effective prices. 

Most restaurant chains have a list of proprietary products that must be available to all locations. These are the products that identify their brand and separate them from their competition. If a distribution center only services one or two locations, stocking those items may a challenge due to low usage, minimum order requirements, shelf life challenges, higher freight costs, etc.  When possible, the number of distributors should be limited to maximize the volume, costs and efficiencies.  However, if a location is too far away from the distribution center, additional costs will likely be incurred due to the extra miles involved, especially if the location is outside the distributors normal ‘delivery zone.’ Order lead times are longer and the ability to recover from mis-picks, missing items, or damaged products are much more challenging.  In this situation, it might make sense to set up a new distribution center.  Both scenarios should be reviewed to determine which option is most suitable.

There is an extensive checklist of items that should be considered for a new restaurant opening.  Here are some of the big ones from a supply chain perspective.

Distribution

Have your distributors identified well in advance. Determine if a ‘broadline’ distributor will be able to supply all products or if additional distributors are needed for specialty categories such as produce, meat, seafood, dairy, etc.  Distributors will be key to the success of any restaurant.  They can make or break you so it’s critical to partner with the right distributors.  It’s important to have accounts established in advance to avoid any issues with credit and confirm that everything you need to run your restaurant can be supplied by the chosen distributors.

Product List / Order Guide

Have all necessary products, specifications, and supplier contracts identified with the appropriate distributors.  If you are using the same distributor from existing locations, this is an easier process since the items needed are already being supplied.  However, if a new distribution center is going to be used, the process to match the products, load any established contracts, and bring the proprietary items into stock can have an extensive lead time.  A cost analysis should be conducted that considers any pack size variances on alternative items; make sure the cost per unit (i.e. pound, ounce, each) is being compared, not just the cost per case.  A minimum of 90 days should be dedicated to getting a new distribution center set up.

Deliveries

Identify delivery restrictions and make sure any necessary accommodations are made to ensure deliveries can be made.  Some restrictions may include special equipment for deliveries, dock height/length, stairs, security clearance, hours allowed for deliveries, etc.  It is strongly recommended that distributors make a “dry run” to identify and avoid any potential issues that might take place on the routing and initial delivery.  Another important factor is to have a consistent delivery driver.  Consistent drivers will know the idiosyncrasies related to the deliveries.  If the delivery drivers change frequently, there will be relative problems and delays which is never good for the time-sensitive restaurant industry.

Equipment Installations

For larger chains the construction team usually coordinates the installation of the major pieces of equipment, but supply chain commonly helps coordinate the installation of soda fountain machines, tea brewers, and possibly coffee brewing equipment.  Suppliers should be contacted and provided with the appropriate dates for installation of this equipment which needs to be coordinated with construction since electricity and water are required.  And don’t just assume that the suppliers just have equipment readily available on the shelf.  Be sure to give them as much notice as possible so they can reserve the appropriate models in the appropriate quantities for the required dates.  All equipment should be properly tested & calibrated, and training should be provided to all employees that may be involved in the use of the equipment.

Items required for Health Inspection

Prior to opening a new location, specific items will be needed from your suppliers & distributors to pass the health inspection.  Nothing can stop progress of a restaurant opening than failing a health inspection.  It is critical to know what is needed, when they are needed, and the quantities required to meet the inspection requirements.  Outside of the construction responsibilities, typical items needed from supply chain include hand soap, hand towels, dispensers, cleaners/sanitizers and a first-aid kit.  These items can be delivered by the appropriate distributor; however, based on the timeline and the limited number of items it might make more sense just to have these items shipped directly to the restaurants via UPS/FedEx from the manufacturers.

Initial Orders

Most products will be needed prior to the actual opening for staff training purposes.  Unless perishability is a concern, the distributors should have all required products in stock at least one week before the initial order, preferably farther in advance to give more time to recover from any issues or delays in the supply chain.   To avoid any items being missed for the opening order, the order should be placed several days in advance with a specified delivery date and time.

Distributors should pick and palletize the order and stage it for delivery to make sure all items on the order are reserved for the shipment to the restaurant.  By placing and picking the order several days in advance, distributors have time to recover if anything is missing which is critical to the opening of the restaurant.

There are many unknowns for a restaurant opening. Challenges are inevitable. However, with proper planning and supply chain strategies there will be less opportunity for the unknowns to ruin opening day of your restaurant.

Supply Chain Planning for a New Restaurant Opening posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

The Brave New World of Restaurant Marketing

As detailed in the revealing New York Times story titled “To Survive in Tough Times, Restaurants Turn to Data-Mining,” restaurants are increasingly turning to Big Data for fix problems and predict patron preferences and behaviors so as to enhance the overall customer experience, and bottom lines in kind.

However, one of the biggest challenges restaurant owners and marketers face today is customer acquisition and retention. The key to both acquiring new customers and retaining current customers is possessing the critical data that can help you, one, communicate effectively with the highest qualified contact possible and, two, further identify the needs of your current customers to foster long-term loyalty. Unfortunately, the today’s data industry is both far too complicated and highly fragmented, offering a confusing glut of choices that are overwhelming marketers who are in desperate need of this mission-critical information. The existing data marketing ecosystem of data and direct marketing list owners, managers and brokers is wildly inefficient and often ineffective, costing businesses untold millions in unnecessary time and money, and untold more in opportunity loss.

Five ways merging Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technology is rectifying restaurant marketing gap.

Even so, given the fundamental truth that data is the backbone of both digital advertising and marketing and traditional direct marketing, marketers have just struggled along with what the market has been able to provide, for better or for worse. Global advertising revenue for 2017 was $591 billion with $209 billion of it dedicated to digital advertising. A conundrum as effective data sources are becoming even rarer as the need for—and actual dependency upon—data becomes more essential. The escalating demand for big data sources that provide quality and complete data has skyrocketed in today’s digital age.

Unfortunately, it’s the fundamental big data sources that have been the very crux of the problem for marketers. Today, an individual, entity or brand looking to acquire a specific data set will have to spend extensive time and resources locating sources that meet its target audience, negotiate costs, and establish privacy standards for the transferring of the data. This leads to a decrease in quality and data record duplication. These three challenges not only make it extremely cost prohibitive to identify and acquire the various parameters required to compile the exact dataset that is needed but, for small and medium sized businesses, it creates a actual barrier to enter the data marketplace.

As problematic, attempting to generate revenue today from existing datasets brings its own unique set of challenges. The first is the time and money it takes to create data cards and collateral for the data owner to monetize. At the same time, they need to identify the right organization or marketplace with the widest reach—one that represents the highest demand for their data. The second major challenge is integrity and accountability. Data owners do not trust outside organizations to properly store, manage and monetize their data. The last major concern surrounds the security of the storage environment. Data abuse and lack of transparency in the revenue share business model are underlying fears that will ultimately prevent a list owner from making his/her unique data set available for purchase.

So with all of problems running rampant in the big data industry, what is needed to put this key facet on course? Below are 5 reasons why merging big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will revolutionize data-driven marketing worldwide, across all industries:

Empowerment

A blockchain-based system empowers data source providers to monetize their data and better capitalize demand, allowing data source providers to access the large global marketplace. In the same way that eBay provides a marketplace for vendors of physical products, a blockchain-based digital marketplace can create growth potential for data source providers of all sizes, while also reducing barriers to entry into the industry.

Transparency

 A blockchain approach provides data providers with full transparency, traceability and auditability, overcoming many of the hurdles data providers currently face in the existing marketplace.Anyone who has operated in the big data space knows that duplicate data, false data, and questionable sourcing are unfortunate industry truths. However, a blockchain-based approach provides complete transparency, allowing buyers to see where the data has been and where it came from prior to purchasing.

Confidence

A more transparent vetting and grading system for data will improve confidence building between the end user and data sources. Currently, most data purchases are practically blind transactions, whereby buyers won’t really know what kind of data they’re receiving until they actually buy it, because no vendor would ever reveal the data prior to money changing hands. Once you have the data, it’s then up to you to determine its quality but by then the money has been spent. Rather than this archaic process leaving much to be desired, having a 3^rd party scoring system improves quality and increases trust in the marketplace, facilitating more transactions and leading to overall higher levels of confidence in the industry as a whole. Giving business and consumers quality and verified data that’s vetted and scored externally allows for the reduction, if not elimination, of false or outdated data—a significant problem currently plaguing the industry.

Simplification

By simplifying and aggregating world data transactions into a single point of sale, the result will be an “Amazon” like marketplace, where economies of scale and data aggregation will facilitate a smoother, cleaner and simply better checkout process; creating more data trade worldwide. Giving end users a simplified, easy-to-use and robust interface with a quick and secure payment system between the business or individual and data sources is a requisite means toward this end.

Artificial Intelligence

“Smart Indexing” Engines are now utilizing predictive analytics (a type of artificial intelligence using data analysis and machine learning) for “Confidence Scoring” to provide continual real-time accurate data.Based on immediate business conditions, this will allow for record sets that can be a single individual that matches all parameters or millions of records that match desired parameters.

Ultimately, democratizing big data levels the data playing field by providing the most comprehensive marketing data solution to all businesses and individuals. It will provide a robust interface between the business or individual and the data sources. The backend systems will ensure full confidence in data quality for the end user as well as transactional finality for the data providers.

The Brave New World of Restaurant Marketing posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

According to a Recent Study/Survey … Mid-May 2018 Edition

This edition of Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine’s “According to …” research roundup features exclusive research on a McDonald’s LTO from the experts at Sense360 as well as a noted increase in online reviews, top foodservice trends, popular loyalty apps, clean label lovers and the wine echo chamber.

Dramatic Increase in Online Reviews

Yet-to-be-published research from Xenial and Merchant Centric that shows a dramatic increase in the amount of online reviews for U.S. businesses. From March 2017 to 2018 company reviews online increased by a staggering 66 percent to over 610 million total reviews, according to analysis of 27 million U.S. businesses. (See graph images below).

The restaurant industry also saw a sharp increase in both guest engagement and restaurants actively engaging reviewers online.  Restaurant reviews from the 10 most reviewed categories jumped from 86 million in 2017 to 141 million in 2018—a 64 percent increase year-over-year.

The data also delved into the top ten restaurant categories and their frequency of guest engagement* by category:

Most engagement

1. Steakhouses
2. Seafood
3. American

Least engagement

1. Chinese
2. Pizza
3. Mexican

* Guest engagement is relative to guests leaving reviews, relative to other categories, not the rate at which these businesses are responding. 

Restaurants are ahead of other industries in leveraging this guest outreach. According to the data, the restaurant industry is far more proactive in responding to guests’ online reviews. From March 2017 – March 2018 alone, there was a 29 percent increase in restaurants responding to online reviews; and overall they respond to guests at a higher rate than all other business (see bottom graph below).

With so much importance being placed on how businesses engage with restaurant guests to keep them coming back and attracting new guests, both Xenial and Merchant Centric are excellent resources in providing insight as to how businesses are managing their reputation online and using guest feedback to improve experience and drive sales.

McDonald’s 2 for $4 Mix & Match Breakfast Deal

A new report from Sense360 explores the effects of  McDonald’s 2 for $4 Mix & Match Breakfast Deal on visitation by observing visit patterns both before and during the campaign and highlighting the differences between the two periods. The deal includes a choice of any two breakfast sandwiches from a select menu of three items: the Sausage McMuffin with Egg, Bacon, Egg & Cheese McGriddle, and Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit. We looked at visit trends for that week and compared to the same week last year.

Top Five Foodservice Trends

A new report from Restaurant Technologies, which provides cooking oil management and exhaust cleaning solutions for more than 26,000 foodservice providers, shares the top five foodservice trends for 2018 that operators should have an eye on to not only survive, but thrive in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace.

The report covers:

1. Technological innovations: Appliances such as smart refrigerators can detail inventory, and smart ovens can now guide staff through step-by-step dish preparation. Continued cleaning support for grill and fryer hoods/flues can also be automated and simplified with AutoMist.
2. Safer work environments: According to the National Safety Council, more than 25,000 slips and falls occur every day in the foodservice industry, many of them preventable. This report shares simple tips for training and prevention guidelines to help protect the operator’s bottom line from costly claims, and to care for employees and their morale.
3. Effective food waste management: As Americans push for more eco-friendly options in their everyday choices, restaurant operators would do well to reduce waste and cut overspending, says this report. According to ReFED, restaurants generate 11.4M tons of food waste, amounting to approximately $25B in wasted funds – a shocking number given how slim restaurant margins are. Digital solutions such as the app Karma allow restaurants, grocery stores and other foodservice vendors the opportunity to sell excess food at a reduced price.
4. Solving space concerns: The back of house is shrinking. Restaurant Technologies shares tips to capitalize on smaller spaces such as using a combi oven, prep coolers, planetary mixers and vertical solutions.
5. An emphasis on experience: With the restaurant industry becoming more and more competitive, operators are looking to experiential opportunities to bring in business. Some restaurants now have extravagant themes, while foodservice concepts within higher education and corporate settings are upping the ante hiring executive chefs, and offering more than the typical soup, salad and sandwich menu.

Starbucks’ Loyalty App Is User Favorite

 Starbucks’ app is the most popular among several well-known restaurant loyalty rewards apps, a new survey finds. Nearly half (48 percent) of app users surveyed regularly use the Starbucks loyalty app, compared to 34 percent who use the Domino’s app and 30 percent who use the Pizza Hut app.

The survey of more than 500 smartphone owners indicates how customers use food delivery and restaurant loyalty apps and how restaurants can potentially increase customer engagement by delivering food through an app or launching a loyalty rewards app. 
 
The user experience (UX) of Starbucks’ app contributes to its popularity, say experts who point out UX elements the app does well. Users must, for example, pre-load money onto the Starbucks app to pay with it. Since the money is on there and can’t be spent elsewhere, it entices users to visit Starbucks more.

“You’ve already pre-spent the money,” said Chris Hobbs, president of Two Tall Totems, a Vancouver-based mobile app and software development firm. “I think that’s what makes it so sticky.”

The Starbucks app also clearly communicates to users how they can earn rewards, and it offers real value — not only through free food and drinks, but also by offering free music, games and other goodies.

Successful Loyalty Apps Capitalize on Love of Winning

Loyalty rewards apps are popular; 50 percent of smartphone owners regularly use them and are incentivized to do so through gamification, or the idea of turning the brand’s experience into a game. When a Starbucks user earns points towards a reward with every cappuccino he or she buys they’re more likely to keep purchasing.
 
 “Gamification makes users return to the app,” said Olexandr Leuschenko, head of mobile stack at Ciklum, a digital solutions company. “Gamification revolves around social actions and receiving awards — badges, likes, leaderboards, and other things that give the user a special status. People like to be the best in something almost as much as they like to get a free product.”

Food Delivery App Users Want Options

Food delivery apps such as Postmates and Uber Eats are also popular among app users. A significant number of food delivery app users surveyed (20 percent) say they use their preferred app because it has “better restaurant options.”

Some food delivery apps create exclusive partnerships with popular restaurant chains. For example, DoorDash partnered with fast-food chain Wendy’s to deliver its food. Experts recommend that restaurants exploring delivery of their food through an app should ensure the apps they work with have a wide variety of restaurant options and a large user base.

The Manifest’s 2018 Consumer App Survey included 511 U.S. smartphone owners. To read the full report, click here.

State of Local Restaurants

Womply, the leader in front office software for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), unveiled the State of Local Restaurants report, which charts consumer spending patterns at small, independent restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia during all 365 days of the year.

The report, which is available for public use on Womply.com, reveals a wide range of trends in consumer spending at local restaurants, including how sales trend during the days of the week, months of the year, and on major holidays. The report includes a national view and localized findings for each state, powered by analysis of tens of thousands of restaurants in every corner of America during every day of the 2017 calendar year.

“One of the most difficult aspects of running a local restaurant is not knowing where you stand,” says Womply Founder Toby Scammell. “By launching the State of Local Restaurants report, we’re giving unprecedented visibility to restaurateurs so they can understand how their sales patterns and seasonality compare to national and regional baselines.”

Nationally, local restaurants see 48 transactions at $35 per ticket for average daily revenue of just over $1,700. Based on average monthly revenue, the top 10 states last year were:

1. Washington, D.C., $115,000 monthly
2. Hawaii, $80,000
3. Florida, $71,000
4. California, $71,000
5. Illinois, $68,000
6. Utah, $65,000
7. New York, $64,000
8. South Carolina, $63,000
9. Nevada, $63,000
10. Maryland, $63,000

The report uncovered highly consistent sales patterns for local restaurants, with very little seasonality. In general, revenue as a percentage of annual sales doesn’t change much from month to month, and the average weekend is bigger than most prominent holidays.

While no particular day accounts for more than a half-percent of annual sales, the report highlighted some surprising findings about top revenue days:

• Mother’s Day weekend rules all, with 44 percent of all restaurants reporting Mother’s Day as their top day of the year. The Saturday before Mother’s Day was the No. 2 day of the year, as well.
• Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day rank No. 36 and No. 48, respectively, and are the top sales days among all prominent holidays behind Mother’s Day.
• Valentine’s Day, while typically associated with dining out, is not in the top 100, ranking No. 107 nationally for restaurant sales.

“The more we study sales patterns on Main Street, the more we learn that consumer spending tends to defy conventional wisdom,” Scammell says. “This kind of analysis illustrates how dangerous it is to rely on assumptions when running a thin-margin business. Our goal with the State of Local Restaurants report, as with all our data analysis efforts, is to better inform the small business owners who keep our local and national economies humming.”

Serving Up Success

The latest report from YouGov  titled “Dining Out: Who’s Serving Up Success,” is an analysis of dining brands in the U.S. and provides insights and infographics into:

• Dining brands in the fast food and steakhouse categories
• Three case studies of successful brands – Little Caesars, Chick-fil-a, and Texas Roadhouse
• Americans who eat out at least once a week for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner

 Here are some of the findings regarding top brands. 

April Brings Good News for Restaurant Recovery

The restaurant industry produced encouraging top-line results in April. The 1.5 percent same-store sales growth is the strongest in the last 31 months. For perspective, the industry hasn’t recorded seven consecutive weeks of positive sales growth since December of 2015. These insights come fromBlack Box Intelligence™, a TDn2K™ company, data through The Restaurant Industry Snapshot™, based on weekly sales from over 30,000 restaurant units, 170+ brands and represent over $69 billion dollars in annual revenue.

“We are seeing an uptick in restaurant revenue beginning with the fourth quarter of last year,” stated Victor Fernandez, vice president of insights and knowledge for TDn2K. “Stronger economic conditions and high consumer confidence are certainly factors. However, this performance has to be considered against last year’s soft sales. A longer view suggests there are still significant challenges for the industry.”

However, with same-store sales positive over a two-year period in April, it could be an early signal that the industry is more vibrant and is showing signs of returning to consistent positive comp performance.

As for bad news, it is impossible to ignore the fact that positive sales come from increases in average check while guest counts continue to slide. Same-store traffic was down -1.4 percent in April. Even though this was the best month based on traffic in over two years, it highlights the fact that stopping the erosion in guest traffic remains the industry’s number one priority.

Restaurants Should Continue to Get Fair Share of Tax Cuts

“Though first quarter growth was somewhat disappointing, the reality is that the economy is growing solidly and should continue to do so,” explained Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors and TDn2K economist. “While wage increases are still not robust, they have been improving and the gains from the tax cuts will continue to trickle through to households for the rest of the year.”

“That personal income is rising modestly, rather than surging, could help the restaurant industry. Households have enough additional funds to spend on a night out, but not enough buy big-ticket items. Thus, we are seeing a slowdown in vehicle purchases while demand for soft-goods and eating out is holding up well. Restaurants should continue to get their fair share, if not more, of the tax cuts. However, the limited portion of the tax cuts going to low and middle-income households points to only a moderate rise in demand going forward.”

Check Growth Continues to Accelerate

Beginning in mid-2017 and continuing into 2018, we’ve observed an increase in average check. Year-over-year growth in average check was 3 percent or higher during the last two months compared with 2.4 percent for the last quarter of 2017.

TDn2K research has shown that top performing restaurant brands grow average checks at a higher rate than underperformers. There is evidence that top performers have established a value proposition that allows them to pass along cost increases associated with higher operating expenses, especially labor.

Opportunity Areas for Restaurants: Off-Premise and Beverage Sales

Another consistent trend is off-premise consumption outpacing dine-in sales. In April, to-go, delivery, catering and banquet sales each outperformed sales growth for dine-in sales. Across industry segments, the percentage of total restaurant sales represented by these off-premise food categories has been growing. Consumers behavior is shifting and “on-the-go” has become an extremely important component of restaurant demand.

Also noteworthy during April was the robust growth in same-store beverage sales. This month’s beverage sales growth was the highest in over 30 months. This is another important metric to follow in the near future. TDn2K studies have revealed guests of both full-service and limited service restaurants really value beverages (either alcoholic for full-service restaurants or soft drinks for limited service brands) as part of their restaurant experience. According to TDn2K’s White Box Social Intelligence data, top performing brands based on sales growth tend to have a much more positive guest sentiment based on beverages than underperforming brands.

Recovery Continues for Casual Dining and Fast Casual

Fast casual, casual dining and upscale casual were top performers in the month. Fast casual and casual dining continue to see a resurgence after years of underperformance. Both of these segments have year-to-date positive same-store sales growth and are the segments with the biggest improvement in sales growth so far in 2018 compared with the previous year.

Soaring Turnover Rates May Have Peaked

The national unemployment rate fell under 4.0 percent for the first time since 2000, reminding restaurant operators of how challenging the current environment is. But recent results published by TDn2K’s People Report™ reveal that the skyrocketing turnover rates may have reached their peak and now have started to stabilize and even drop slightly. “As with sales growth, these drops in the turnover rate have to be taken in context,” said Fernandez. “Turnover falling a few percentage points does not necessarily mean we’ve reached an inflection point. Turnover rates for both management and non-management employees are still the highest we’ve seen in well over a decade. We expect turnover rates to remain extremely high in today’s low-unemployment environment. Vacancy rates also remain historically high.”

“There is definitely a reward for getting better-staffed restaurants,” continued Fernandez. “Our data shows in the first quarter of 2018, guests’ online mentions revealed that service is a more important differentiator than food. Nowadays, consumers can get a meal from many different sources. But they are saying that service is a key driver of their experience.”

Top 250 Fast-Casual Chain Restaurants

The fast-casual segment has rebounded since 2016, but experienced a consecutive year of single-digit sales growth performance in 2017. Unit growth decreased for the third consecutive year, dropping from 9.8 percent in 2015 to 6.1 percent in 2017. These findings and more can be found in Technomic’s recently released Top 250 Fast-Casual Chain Restaurant Report, now available for purchase here.

“Although the segment shows signs of slowing, fast casual is still a bright spot in the industry,” said Dave Henkes, Technomic senior principal. “There are a lot of exciting things happening on fast-casual menus and, as the U.S. market becomes increasingly crowded, we can expect many of these brands to look internationally to further bolster their brand.”

Key themes from the report include:

• Total sales growth in 2017 was at 9 percent for the top 250 restaurant chains
• Chicken was the hot protein of 2017 and fast casuals capitalized on its popularity
• Fast-casual chains with impressive triple-digit unit growth included CoreLife Eatery and Wahlburgers
• Despite being the smallest fast-casual menu category by sales, the pizza segment continued to outshine the others, with a 27.3 percent year-over-year increase

Looking forward, expect to see fast casuals featuring a larger focus on clean-eating initiatives and planet-friendly changes to align with growing concerns among consumers. Ethnic flavors and ingredients will also thrive in the coming year with the rise of Middle Eastern concepts, touting exotic yet healthful menu items. Chains looking for more exponential growth will look to unpenetrated global markets, including Australia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Spain, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

Inside the Wine Echo Chamber

As the season of rosé draws near, a new survey* from digital wine platform CorkGuru confirms drinkers typically default to the wines and beverages they know when dining out. Sixty-seven percent avoid asking staff for recommendations for a variety of reasons, including not wanting to bother anyone and fear of looking uninformed.”

“The average mid-size restaurant could have dozens of varietals on their wine list, but only 15 percent of restaurant-goers say they look to try something new,” said Danielle Gillespie, CEO and founder of CorkGuru. “That’s a lot of wasted inventory, and a missed opportunity to deliver more exciting wine experiences to guests.

CorkGuru helps restaurants manage wine inventory, while offering pairing and exploration suggestions to diners. Gillespie, a wine lover herself, developed the platform after years of playing the wine guide to friends and family, realizing restaurants were missing out on the opportunity to connect with guests and improve their dining experience.

“You don’t have to spend a lot for a good glass of wine, but if you don’t know what to look for or are afraid to ask, you’re probably not getting the value you want,” said Gillespie.

Coupled with the use of CorkGuru, Gillespie advises diners to:

• Choose wine from largest section of the menu; it’s an indication of what the wine director cares about most.
• If something is in French/Italian, ask the server for clarification versus guessing.
• Steer clear of young big, bold and tannic red varietals. Some things are truly better with age.
• When looking for good value, avoid the second-cheapest wine in a section. Restaurants know people will choose it to avoid the cheapest option so it may be overpriced.
• Still not sure? Stick to regions known for producing quality varietals like Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and Super-Tuscan red blends.

The CorkGuru survey also found 27 percent of diners tend to order what they recognize and trust, while only nine percent typically ask the staff for a recommendation.

“The fact people aren’t asking questions is why money is being left on the table for restaurants, and people are getting stuck with what they already know or what they had last time,” said Gillespie. “Life’s too short for boring choices!”

Clean Label Consumers

The belief that natural, organic, and humane agricultural practices produce foods that are healthier, tastier, or more nutritious is widespread among the general adult population. These convictions, especially among consumers who seek out clean label products, combined with rising concerns over food safety have caused a notable shift in behavior when purchasing foods and beverages. Market research firm Packaged Facts in the report Organic and Clean Label Food Consumer in the U.S. revealed that more than half (53 percent) of adults say they are buying more natural and organic foods than ever before, and nearly half are buying more organic foods through standard supermarkets as organic selections have expanded.

“Many consumers ascribe positive attributes to clean label foods, even if they don’t personally partake,” says David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts. “The food industry has seen a rise in adults who believe that various food products that are natural, boast organic or animal-welfare credentials, or make other claims to clean label status taste better, are healthier, are more nutritious, or are better for the environment.”

In painting a picture of the archetypal clean label consumer, Packaged Facts’ research found that the organic/clean label consumer tends to be informed, curious, and engaged, as well as active in the management of his or her own health and wellness, and often highly educated and accomplished professionally. However, it is also true that there is a powerful emotional component to clean label consumerism. It’s personal. It means connecting to the community and to the world; making choices that are possibly values driven, or perhaps inspired by nostalgia for a simpler time; and advocating for the well-being of animals raised for food, of growers in developing countries, or of the planet. It can be empowering to those with this mentality, notes Sprinkle.

Further, Packaged Facts found that the demographic features disproportionately seen in organic and clean label consumers also include:

• being Millennials and younger Generation Xers
• being of Hispanic and Asian ethnicities
• residence in the Northeast and Pacific regions of the U.S.
• possession of an advanced academic degree (beyond college)
• presence of children in the household, particularly younger children
• an annual household income of $100,000 or more

Organic Eating Trends

Last month’s release of the Environmental Working Group’s report that pesticide levels in organically grown foods is equal to that of conventionally grown foods generated a lot of publicity, and raised the question of whether or not consumers of organic foods will switch to all natural or conventionally grown foods. It’s not likely, says The NPD Group, a leading global information company, since organic consumers hold a strong belief in their nutritional knowledge and healthy lifestyle and won’t let it be undermined.

Consumption of organic beverages and foods has been growing for a variety of reasons including increased availability, more affordable organic options than in the past, and a growing number of health- and nutritionally-conscious consumers. The percentage of eating occasions where foods with organic labels were consumed increased from 7.5 percent to 9.7 percent in the past three years. Over a seven day period about 10 percent of the population consumes all organic foods, 19 percent consume all natural and organic foods, 20 percent all natural only foods, and 51 percent of the population are non-users of organic and all natural foods, according to NPD’s National Eating Trends®, which continually tracks all aspects of how U.S. consumers eat.

Organic only consumers, who tend to be female, ages 35-44 and 55 to 64, live on the west coast, and have a household income of $75,000 plus, have strong convictions when it comes to their healthy lifestyle. They feel they know more about nutrition than most people and frequently check labels. The demographics of those who consume both all natural and organic foods skew towards children under the age of 6, females, ages 18-54, and Hispanics. Similar to organic only consumers, they maintain a healthy lifestyle and consider themselves knowledgeable about nutrition and the foods they eat. Although one might assume consumers of all-natural have the similar profile to organic only and those who consume both organic and all natural foods, all-natural consumers are remarkably average in their attitudes toward healthful eating and put greater importance on taste and convenience.

“Organic consumers will hold steadfast to their beliefs and continue to seek organic foods despite negative reporting, and all natural consumers will continue to place convenience and taste first,” says Darren Seifer, NPD food and beverage industry analyst. “For food manufacturers, grocers, and producers, it’s a matter of understanding the attitudes and behaviors of each group and responding to their unique needs and wants.”

Nuts are in Demand

US demand for nuts and seeds is forecast to reach $7.1 billion in 2022, according to Nuts & Seeds: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. Suppliers will benefit from rising population and disposable personal incomes, and an ongoing consumer trend toward healthier snacks.

More information about the report is available here.

Almond demand in value terms is projected to represent the fastest-growing and largest product segment in 2022. In volume terms, almond sales are also projected to register the most rapid gains among discrete segments. The healthy profile of almonds will contribute to gains and their presence in various recipes and derivative products, such as almond butter, flour, and milk, will continue to support sales.

This report forecasts to 2022 US nut and seed demand in nominal US dollars valued at the prices received by US suppliers at the point of first sale (i.e., farmer or processor level) and in pounds on a shelled (i.e., without shells) basis. Total demand in nominal US dollars and pounds is segmented by product in terms of:

• cashews
• almonds
• peanuts
• pecans
• pistachios
• walnuts
• other nuts such as hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts, and pine nuts
• seeds, consisting of sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, and sesame seeds

To illustrate historical trends, total demand in value and volume terms, total production in value and volume terms, the various demand segments, and prices are provided in annual series from 2007 to 2017.

Farmers Go Tech

IoT is used in agriculture to control remote instruments and sensors in order to optimize farm work. IoT solutions enable farmers to use different tools, such as smart sensors (measuring light, temperature, soil moisture, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, pest infestation, soil content or nutrients, location, etc.), applications and systems that save time, money and energy.

A study conducted by the Ag-Tech market research company, Alpha Brown, which included an extensive survey among more than 1600 farmers and ranchers in the U.S., indicates that IoT solutions are currently being used by 250000 farmers in the U.S. mainly for livestock and cereals crops(grains). The technology is also utilized on a smaller scale in other farming operations, such as dairy, vegetable, fruits and greenhouses.

Furthermore, the study reveals that more than half of U.S farmers have an interest in buying such solutions, which reflects a market potential of 1.1 million farmers and market size of $ 4 billion a year.

“We believe that in order to develop a profitable product or to make smart investments, a broad and detailed understanding of the potential customers’ (farmers) demand is needed,” said Gil Rabinovich, the CEO of Alpha-Brown. “IoT is still a developing market in the Ag-Tech world, and it is important for suppliers to fully understand the farmers’ interests and expectations of the emerging technologies. Our research indicates that the market has much room for growth and that is certainly encouraging.”

The study presents information on farmers awareness, the current market size, the market potential, and the leading companies in the market today.

Office Coffee Trends

American businesses seeking to improve productivity should consider investing more in employer provided, higher-quality coffee options, according to Office Coffee Service in the U.S.: Market Trends and Opportunities, 3rd Edition, a new report by market research firm Packaged Facts. While the average employee does not expect an employer to provide coffee that significantly outshines their usual coffee beverage purchased or made outside the office, they do expect their employer to deliver coffee and coffee drinks that can reasonably compete with it.

“Office coffee is a thriving industry that’s expected to continue to see sales growth through 2021,” says David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts. “Among the market’s key growth factors is the increasing realization that companies need to provide higher-quality coffee and related benefits as part of broader employee retention and loyalty strategies that ultimately help enhance employee productivity. Not only will great coffee keep employees onsite at work, but it could also provide extra incentive to get to the office in the first place.”

For office coffee service providers, it comes down to business economics based on employer cost-benefit analysis that weighs employee time spent away to get coffee against lost productivity. The key is to show employers that investing in office coffee services will help their bottom lines. As Packaged Facts discusses in the report, when coffee successfully is integrated as a productivity tool it often translates to growing a company’s bottom line.

Packaged Facts research reveals that 68 percent of at-work coffee drinkers usually drink coffee made or dispensed onsite at their workplace. This underscores the fundamental utility to having at-work coffee options—employees do use them. Meanwhile, 51 percent usually drink coffee from outside of work (not home) and 46 percent bring it from home. Ultimately, the issue again is whether at-work coffee options can be improved and/or offered as a perk, making them more appealing to employees.

While employed coffee drinkers are more likely to be satisfied than dissatisfied with their workplace coffee options, they are not generally enthusiastic about them. Packaged Facts survey data found that given the importance they place on various coffee-related attributes, employed coffee drinkers’ satisfaction with those attributes falls short when applied to their workplace. For example:

• Coffee drinkers responded they are heavily inclined to give both coffee quality and coffee flavor high importance. However, when asked if they are satisfied with these attributes at their workplace, the response was lukewarm.
• Positive responses were likewise underwhelming in regards to employee satisfaction about the type of coffee roast (dark, light, etc.) and coffee selection/variety that employers made available to them.

Office coffee service providers can use this information to their advantage. Providing high-quality coffee that delivers on flavor via just two varieties that communicate clear distinctions that matter to the target audience could make most employees happy while keeping product assortment manageable. For example, offering a light roast and a dark roast leverages a longstanding and still important distinction that cuts across the spectrum of coffee drinkers. Integrating brand choice into this straightforward approach maintains control over product assortment while leveraging a brand’s qualities to better meet a target audience’s needs and expectations.

Dining in Decibels

The Baltimore food scene now has another factor to consider when choosing where to dine: noise level. SoundPrint, known as the “Yelp for noise,” is a New York-based mobile application that partnered with Baltimore’s Hearing and Speech Agency (HASA) to launch the app’s data collection. The partnership seeks to serve the greater Baltimore community by providing the average decibel levels of a restaurant so customers can determine the best spots for conversation. Following a soft launch, the app is officially live.

“Many people don’t have a concept of healthy noise levels,” said Greg Scott, founder SoundPrint. “This can be a problem both for conversation, and for hearing health.”

Scott was inspired to create the app after finding other consumer review sites to lack accuracy in sound readings, which made it difficult at times to hear and connect with his dates in New York.

“We are huge supporters of the Baltimore foodie scene, and want to enhance and support its growth by providing another resource for diners who may be hard of hearing, or simply want an environment that’s conducive to conversation,” said Erin Stauder, executive director of HASA. “There is a tendency for people who are hard of hearing to simply avoid going out to restaurants; we see this as a way for these individuals to still enjoy the social event of dining out, without having to worry about noise level,” she said.

The app allows customers to use a real-time sound meter to take a 15-second reading of the decibel level of a restaurant or bar. The crowdsourced readings make up a sound profile for each venue. Users can filter restaurants based on how loud or quiet they are, much like you’d use filters to search for a restaurant on Yelp.

Several hundred sound readings were taken across neighborhoods in Baltimore in April following the app’s soft launch. This data makes up Baltimore’s “Quiet List” and “Loud List,” of individual restaurants, as well as the quietest and loudest neighborhoods. These lists follow below.

To download the app, search for SoundPrint in the Apple app store. To learn more about hearing health, visit http://www.hasa.org.

The following lists were curated using several hundred SoundPrint data captures taken during peak restaurant hours, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

The Quiet List – Quietest Restaurants in Baltimore

1. Ban Thai Restaurant (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)
2. Dalesio’s (Little Italy)
3. Himalayan Bistro (South Baltimore)
4. Kiku Sushi (South Baltimore)
5. Da Mimmo (Little Italy)
6. Lumbini Restaurant (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)
7. La Tavola (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)
8. Ikaros (Greektown)
9. Charleston Restaurant (Fells Point)
10. Dooby’s (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)

The Loud List – Loudest Restaurants in Baltimore

1. R. House (Hampden)
2. Holy Frijoles (Hampden)
3. Homeslyce (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)
4. Rye Street Tavern (South Baltimore)
5. Mick O’Shea’s (N. Charles/Mt. Vernon)
6. Alexander’s Tavern (Fells Point)
7. Papi’s Tacos (Fells Point)
8. Clavel (Hampden)
9. The Brewer’s Art (N. Charles/Mt Vernon)
10. The Boathouse Canton Waterfront Grill (Canton)

Quietest Neighborhood for Dining in Baltimore: Little Italy (Quiet, avg. 63 dBA)

Loudest Neighborhood for Dining in Baltimore: S. Baltimore – Riverside/Fed Hill/Locust Point (Very Loud, avg. 81 dBA)

Other insights: 

• Restaurants in Baltimore generally have Moderate noise-level until 8 p.m. when it transitions into Loud based on average dBA. 
• Initial data indicates Baltimore may be one of the most noise-friendly restaurant cities, but more robust data is needed to verify. 

Decibel Guidelines 

• Quiet = 70 dBA or below (safe for hearing health, conducive to conversation)
• Moderate = 71 – 75 dBA (safe for hearing health, manageable for conversation)
• Loud = 76 – 80 dBA (likely safe for hearing health, conversation is difficult)
• Very Loud = 81+ dBA (unsafe for hearing health, conversation is very difficult)

According to a Recent Study/Survey … Mid-May 2018 Edition posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com