O’Dell Restaurant Consulting Blog

One of the primary reasons that some businesses training programs work, and some don’t, is in the method their managers and trainers use to teach new skills. This seems to be especially true in restaurants and food services, due to the prevelance of leaders without formal educations. Sorry if that offends anyone, but it’s true.
While [...]

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Long ticket times are a common problem in restaurants, and nothing will scare a potential regular customer away like having to wait 45+ minutes to get their food.
There are many factors that can increase ticket times. In this post, I would like to cover one of those issues, overloading a kitchen station.
Part of designing a [...]

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Who are we?
What do we want our restaurant to be known for?
What style of service do we offer?
What kind of food do we cook?
What can our customers get from us that they can’t get anywhere else?
How can we make our customers FEEL?
What is our color scheme?
These are all questions you should ask yourself about your [...]

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Welcome to the new home for the O’Dell Restaurant Consulting Blog. We’ve moved our blog off of Wordpress to our own host so we can do more with it. Thank you for your continued reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon O’Dell
O’Dell Restaurant Consulting 

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Calculating how much the food you sell costs you to sell is a very important practice in running a profitable restaurant. Knowledge is power, and knowing your food cost compared to your sales and your ideal food cost is very empowering information. By figuring your food cost percentage, you have an early warning system to alert you [...]

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That’s an important question. There isn’t enough reporting and record keeping in the restaurant business. Many chain restaurant can see by the end of the week whether they made money or not. Most independents have to wait until their account returns the monthly numbers anywhere from 4 days to 4 weeks after the end of [...]

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Question:
When you work in an excuse-driven culture, how do you change the mindset and teach others to become accountable?
Answer:
Unfortunately, the most effective method for me to implement quick changes in attitude is through forcing it. That almost always requires “executing a hostage in front of the firing squad”.
Words are the first step. Accountability has to [...]

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If you don’t already have 2 to 3 primary colors you use in your logo, signage, marketing, and indoor and outdoor decor, then pick some! A color scheme will help people identify you. If you keep the same color scheme congruent in all facets of your restaurant, new customers will find you more easily, and [...]

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A great way to make your menu stand out, and to draw people to certain items, is through the use of color. When you add color to your menu, use the color scheme you’ve chosen for your restaurant. Use other colors to highlight, surround, or shade menu items you want people to notice. Color icons [...]

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Large menus have a lot of downfalls. Large menus require excessive prep, cause long ticket times, are hard to educate service staff on, need too much storage space, and generally drive down the profitability of your restaurant. Keep your menu as small as you can, focused on your concept, and easy to produce.

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