Through the coordinated effort of a food service friend and veteran, and others who have donated time and resources, a program has been started to send portion control packaged condiments to our brave soldiers fighting in Afganistan and Iraq. While I haven’t had the pleasure of tasting the MRE’s made for our soldiers to eat, I’m told that as good as they are, a little ketchup can make it taste much much better for one of our soldiers.
To bring a little comfort to our soldiers, Steve Armstrong is collecting case lots of the following condiments to send overseas to our soldiers:
- Mayo
- Mustard
- Ketchup
- Tartar sauce
- Horseradish cream
- Hot sauce
- Pickle relish
- Creamers (dried or liquid)
- Sugar
- Sugar substitutes
Please visit Steve’s website at http://www.operationflavor.com/ and find out how to send them a case of whatever you can spare. It would really put a smile on the faces of some of our countries bravest men and women.
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 the month. In my opinion, this is too late. If you don’t know how you did in the first week until the end of the month, you’re not managing proactively in my opinion. You need to be on top of a problem as close to when it happens as possible to solve it.
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Minimum reports I suggest for every restaurant owner:
Sales by item – day/week/period
Purchases & Expenses – week
Inventory – week
Ideal cost of sales – week
Prime cost – week
Budget – week/period
Preliminary P&L – week/period
Actual P&L – period/year
Guest counts – day/week/period
Gross profit per customer/item – week
Labor – day/week/period
Cash reconciliation report – server/shift/day
Each of these reports should include the necessary comparisons to sales, budgets, etc. Reports have to be designed properly, and include all the information needed. With just the budget, labor, purchases, inventory and sales reports, you can generate about anything you need, most importantly a preliminary P&L. If your reports aren’t enough to build a preliminary weekly P&L or cash flow statement out of, most POS software don’t, they aren’t enough in my opinion.
Of course there are other useful reports to have, but most I think can be ran on an “as needed” basis. There are also shift reports that are necessary to the operation of your business, but those aren’t included here.
Posted in Questions
Tagged emotion marketing, financial reporting for restaurants, food service, gross profit pricing, restaurant cash flow, restaurant cash reconciliation, restaurant consultant, restaurant consulting, restaurant food inventory, restaurant P&L, restaurant reports
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 are more likely to remember you. The colors red and yellow are popular in quick service restaurants, as studies have shown them to elicit excitement in people who see them, making them eat more on average.
Posted in Quick Tips
Tagged restaurant consulting, gross profit pricing, emotion marketing, food service, restaurant marketing, quick tips for restaurant, color scheme for restaurant, restaurant decor, restaurant logo, restaurant signage, restaurant consutant
Do:
Concentrate your marketing efforts and dollars on people who already know you.
Don’t:
Try to be all things to all people. Find your niche.
Do:
Incorporate a few “signature” items into your menu. Having items that your competitors don’t have gives your customers a reason to come to you instead of them.
Don’t:
Depend solely on word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing only works AFTER a lot of people know who you are.
Do:
Update your prices at least 3 times per year. Small, incremental price increases are likely to go unseen by your customers. Wait too long, and you’ll have to significantly increase all your prices at once, which WILL be noticed. Those frequent small increases are better for cash flow than occasional big increases.
