These are articles or other print pieces that contain information I deem very important to independent restaurant owners and other food service operators. They may be written by myself or others.
Scanning pattern
I would like to know more about the study though before considering it definitive, like how large was the study group, how often was the study repeated with different test subjects to see if the results were the same, and were the subjects interviewed for subjective analysis to make sure that knowing they were being studied wasn’t affecting how they scanned the menus? Has this study been peer reviewed?
An article about restaurant consumer demographic data from the National Restaurant Association’s Annual Report. Make sure to read all the pages…
Bringing this article back around. It’s a good read.
One thing I’ll never forgive formal culinary schools for, is teaching new impressionable would-be chefs to use a budgeted cost percentage to price food menus. Chain restaurants share an equal responsibility for perpetuating this bad practice by focusing their managers on food cost percentages without letting them in on the secret that the cost percentage is a management tool, not a pricing tool.
Though most culinary programs teach many different methods for pricing food, every culinary student seems to emerge from the Culinary Institute of America or Le Cordon Bleu believing in the world of restaurants, all they have to do to be profitable is serve great food and deliver a 33% food cost, or is it 25%, or 35% or 30% or 19%? The truth is, hitting a budgeted food cost does nothing to guarantee there will be enough money left over from the sale to pay…
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You won’t be able to find the answer as to what it is exactly that makes a restaurant successful in any forum. Without experiencing it for yourself, it’s tough to imagine that a restaurant is one of the most complicated businesses you can run. Most businesses are pretty simple. You buy a product, mark it up enough to cover your overhead, and hire people who can sell it effectively and count change, or you manage a warehouse, a sales team, a manufacturing line or a specific service your business offers.
A restaurant is so much more complicated than that. First, you are more than a retailer. You are running a warehouse. You have to have the same skills a good warehouse manager has, including a system for checking everything in and out of inventory, protecting your product from theft, knowing how to keep your vendors honest in their pricing and…
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What are you doing in your restaurant to incorporate local ingredients?
McCormick & Schmick’s highlights local fare | Nation's Restaurant News.
Check out this article from Restaurant Management magazine about the new trend in bar snacks.
Make sure to keep abreast on what the chain quick service restaurants are doing this year. They are who your customers are comparing you to if you’re a QSR.
Monthly menu check: Analyst breaks down QSR trends | Nation's Restaurant News.
Great article by Roy Bergold via QSRMagazine.com
There’s no better time than now to remember the old adage that the customer is always right.
O'Dell Restaurant Consulting's Blog 