Tweet

Restaurants in 2010 and Beyond

Guest post by: Daryl Des Marais

Article Overview: As restaurants deal with rising costs and shrinking margins due to leasing costs escalating they have to find ways to be more efficient, more productive and build a following. Nothing beats good food, except good food and good service combined with good marketing. How can you develop or expand your restaurant? What things do you need to change to make it more profitable? How can you beat rising costs?

Restaurants in 2010 and Beyond

As a consumer it used to be easier to eat out for lunches etc., when average prices were $5-7, now they are $7-$10. In the day of rising costs passed down to consumers how can you attract more customers? Larger chains have the advantage of market volume and can provide value meals and churn out large amounts of orders with well defined products. They do this by offering only select items and making margin from these large volumes. It could be duplicated but not so easily with smaller restaurants or chain restaurants of 5 or less. How can you increase profitability?

One of the biggest ways is highly trained, highly skilled workers. These days it is harder to find highly trained, highly skilled workers as it takes years of experience. Though there are schools that produce highly skilled, highly trained workers within 1-2 years. You may have to pay a few dollars more for an employee but a few dollars more an hour may be a lot less than the lost productivity you have when hiring less experienced or educated workers.

In the restaurant industry there is defined work stations and defined expectations. The level to which you define those workstations and those expectations is the level to which you can spend your time on development and marketing and promotion of your restaurant. As always there is the service area, the kitchen area and the prep area. The preparation area may be more important than in the past. Having well defined portions ready to go for the busy breakfast, lunch and dinner times may be most essential to making your business more profitable. You must define the cost of each one of your meals as well as the presentation. When the cost is added up and the value is presented how will your "diner" respond?

In today's food industry restaurants are plenty but so are types of food with the expansion of the global economy. How does this help you? You have the opportunity to make a menu of items that may not be readily available in your local area. You also have the opportunity to change the flavour or the combination of ingredients. Doing so can make your restaurant totally unique and that is what you are aiming for. You need to define why people want, or maybe even need, to go to your restaurant and then you have to get the word out.

There are many ways you can market your restaurant. A good, tried, tested and true way is a "press release" or exposure in the local media, if you're really good other restaurant magazines may pick up on this. You will have to define your menu and present it in a way that gives your restaurant a certain image. Local advertising through yellow pages, newspapers, radio, magazines and local tv is also a good place to advertise. You need to have a budget in mind and determine how many viewers this will reach and the types of consumers it will attract. Knowing these questions is a good place to start in further improving your restaurant and making it better known.

Related Articles
  Vithal Kamats South Indian Food Franchise to expand nationally
  How Many Ways Can You Calculate 2010?
  KFC to be everywhere in India
  Lite Bite intends to become Rs 500 crore brand by 2015
  Non-Traditional Sites For Franchises
  Restaurant Franchising
  Le Sutra Hospitality mulls franchise expansion
  More Restaurant Marketing Lemons
  The Silver Lining of a “Recession"
  Orchard survey shows that CEOs expect business climate to improve in 2010
  Q: Is this a bad time to start up a new restaurant with a slow economy?
  From Bowling Green to Seeing Green: The Early Years of Duncan Hines
  Effective Social Media Videos
  WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MODEL FOR THE YEAR 2010?
  Courage, Convictions and Commitment
  Ways To Make Money - My Prospective
  Wyndham Hotel Group signs four franchise agreements in India
  Lesson #4: Discipline Yourself So Your Customers Do Not Have To
  Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions
  Want to do something different?

Article Tags: profitable restaurants, restaurant success



Related Forum Posts
Re: Information about doing franchise business in China - China is moving into the global economy big time.... But their culture is so different I don't know what kind of franchises would be the most successful over there... Restaurants, of course!
Partner with them - Welcome to the Group TMR, Some ideas of people you can partner with for the Custom Napkins: - Wedding Planners - Photographers - Annual General Meetings for Corporations - Pageants - Hotels - Elite Restaurants - Elite Spas
grants for restaurants - Well friend I don’t have any idea about government grants for restaurants, but I will recommend that you may try on some banks who offer loans for small business where the government will have some guarantee. Beside that Restaurants business is very risky so some of banks who gave some Financing Loans they will look at on it if there is enough solid business plans.
Top Franchises For 2007 - Entrepreneur came out with a list of the top franchises for 2007. They are: 1. Subway 2. Dunkin' Donuts 3. Jackson Hewitt Tax Service 4. 7-Eleven Inc. 5. UPS Store, The/Mail Boxes Etc. 6. Domino's Pizza LLC 7. Jiffy Lube Int'l. Inc. 8. Sonic Drive In Restaurants 9. McDonald's 10. Papa John's Int'l. Inc. It still seems to be dominated by food companies (70% of the list!) Can non-food companies make it as a successful franchise?
re: restaurant start-up - I'm not sure about government grants for restaurants, but my recommendation would be to approach a lender that offers loans under the Canadian Small Business Financing Loan program where the government will guarantee 85% of the loan. You can borrow up to $250,000 to finance equipment and renovations under this program. Restaurants are very risky business, however some of the Chartered Banks will look at restaurants if there is enough of an initial equity investment and you have a solid business plan (experienced management team, good concept and strategic location).


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

3 Key Factors For Raising Capital

How to Sell to the Price Driven Customer

Work at home Opportunities for the Disabled

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.