I was thrilled to be on The Restaurant Prescription™ Podcast with Donald Burns, talking about the strategy around menu revamps and the importance of the menu telling your authentic brand story. Listen in here: The Restaurant Prescription™ Podcast – Menus Thanks, Donald, for the chat! OCTOBER 9, 2015 BY DONALD BURNS: This week we’re going […]
Show Some Love For Your French Fries!
So, you’ve got the best burger in town, huh? I bet it is really good. You’ve spent a lot of time perfecting the right blend, seasoning and toppings. How about your fries? Are they the best, too? Please don’t tell me they are frozen, from a bag. It might be “easier,” but they simply are […]
From our Founder, Tom Kelley – Importance of Signature Menu Items In Your Restaurant
As competition for customer dollars becomes more challenging every day, it’s always a good exercise to be sure your menu features signature items that are well merchandised on the menu and via server recommendations. These 4 or 5 items will greatly enhance your overall marketing and make your restaurant even more memorable to your […]
Tom Kelley – Save Your Restaurant – Innovation for Restaurant Owners
Time and time again we see the tell-tale signs of pending restaurant failure: coupons, daily deals, large banners offering discounts. During this time, operators (and their employees) pretty much give up on saving the restaurant. Often they dismiss assistance, thinking they just want to salvage as much as they can and then […]
Always Respond To Social Media Questions
Any restaurant or hospitality business needs to monitor and actively engage customers – if it’s too time consuming for someone internally, bring on a firm to aggregate your messages and responses. We are in the hospitality business – these days that extends to how we treat guests when they are outside our operations. You should […]
Hire a Maître D’ – The New Relationship Marketing Guru
First, a definition: Maître d’hôtel // From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The maître d’hôtel (French: “master of hotel”, head waiter, host or maître d’ ) manages the public part or front of the house of a formal restaurant. The responsibilities of a maître d’hôtel generally include supervising the wait staff, welcoming guests and assigning tables […]
It Really Is The Details
I was fortunate enough on a recent business trip to stay in a Five Diamond hotel property in Las Vegas. Overall outstanding. Really well managed and run flawlessly. Astonishing given the size of these hotel properties and the sheer number of rooms and suites. One item that gets overlooked, in all categories of hotels, […]
Expand Your Profit by Expanding Your Hours – Open earlier and don’t close mid-day
I can’t quite figure out why fast casual and casual dining restaurants open exactly at noon or close during mid-day. Given ever-increasing, longer schedules of most all of us, dining when it’s convenient for your guests matters more and more. If a restaurant has a prep team working and servers arriving, open the restaurant at […]
Be Sure Your Restaurant is “Positively Different”
You know the situation. A bunch of restaurants together in a neighborhood or city. What makes one better than the other? Sure, all (or some) may be run pretty much the same. But what makes one have a line out the door and one with a ½ empty dining room during peak hours? It’s all […]
Why Not Every Hotel Within the Brand Delivers the Same Standards
With the business and leisure travel markets coming back full force, it’s troubling that the legacy hotel brands cannot be counted on for consistency in service standards. On a recent trip to Florida, two stays at the same luxury hotel brand in two different cities resulted in two very different experiences – why would that […]
The benefits of a serious, service-focused restaurant server team
How impressive is it when you walk into a restaurant and the vibe works – the host is gracious and welcoming, the server is focused on you (and not hiding in a corner talking with co-team members) and your dining experience, and the kitchen responds well to specific requests? Very. Unfortunately, only the best of the best pass […]
Craft Cocktails vs Sub-par Well Brands – Time To Take Farm to Table To Your Bar Program
We’re loving the rise of the craft cocktail. What we’re not so fond of is the often times, unseen, unbeknownst to most: the under the counter, very sub-par well spirits! While we admit we are spirit “purists,” there is a trend that hasn’t quite evolved along with the perception of better bar programs: the well offerings. […]
Don’t let your restaurant show the signs of failure – lead and act!
We see it every day, some restaurant, some city, the tell-tale signs of possible demise. Often times owner egos reject professional offers of assistance, thinking, perhaps, it’s better to let the bills pile up and the losses continue until closure, rather than rationally seek operational or marketing assistance. The usual scenario when sales start to […]
Go ahead, blow the roof off!
First, make great impressions. Second, make such great impressions that guests go out of their way to promote your brand. As someone who loves to travel, I am often moved by those extra special restaurant and hotel experiences – so moved that I feel I should let others know about great hospitality moments (or, in […]
Front line managers can make all the difference
On a recent business trip to Chicago I had the experience of encountering two very different managers – both responsible for front desk operations, at different properties, within the same hotel company. It amazed me how opposite their responses were given that they probably went through similar training programs. The first manager could not have […]
Take a Cue from Iconic Brands – Do Something Unique
Many restaurants have a hard enough time just keeping up, let alone spending quality time thinking about the “little things” that we have, over the years, highlighted as a key driver of repeat business. On a recent flight on Virgin America http://www.virgin.com, the little things were everywhere: mood lighting; great music; entertaining safety videos; specialty food […]
Capturing your portion of the 47% of the nation’s food dollar: your brand promise
Recent research from the National Restaurant Association found that 47% of American’s food budget is spent at Restaurant Consultingrestaurants as reported by MSN Money.
This is great news for restaurant operators and anyone looking to jump into the industry. While supermarkets and specialty food retailers like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s continue to gobble up the retail food spend, restaurants are well positioned to show value to a growing market segment.
Is your restaurant brand only worth 50%?
It is truly unsettling to see so many restaurant operators in thriving demographic markets resort to heavy discounting and coupons, all the while, knowingly or unknowingly, doing severe damage to their hard work and investments building a brand – let alone the signal it sends to the community and to hard working employees. With so […]
Authenticity Is Key to Long‐Term Success
We hear story after story about organizations trying to reinvent themselves or wondering why they have lost market share or stakeholder support. Often times they are so close to the root challenge that they overlook it and try to advertise or promote their way out of slumping sales. A better approach: look deep to examine […]
A Holistic Approach to Improve the Bottom Line
The word “restaurant” comes from the Latin word for “restore”, and indeed a restaurant provides a restorative experience, a chance to enjoy good food and wine and company, to relax and forget about the outside world, to refresh, indulge, and rejuvenate whether the restaurant is a small counter service deli or a fine dining place […]
