Restaurant Trappers

Organisations in the private and public sectors outsource food service and restaurant operations. These include business and industry, education, healthcare, event venues, heritage and leisure attractions and increasingly hotels.

But research shows that outsourcing food service and restaurant operations leaves many businesses wishing they hadn’t bothered, but why?

Could this be down to widespread service partner inability to perform? Or does the cause of the problem lay elsewhere?

The ink on the contract is dry. All the hard work has paid off with a great financial deal that also promises improved quality and happy customers.

Your work is done. Or is it?

Most businesses involved in outsourcing are vague about spelling out at the beginning what’s expected, performance expectations are explored but not always addressed, and often performance measurements are not put in place.

Could the root cause simply be a mismatch of expectations, both the service partner’s and the client’s?

The absence of such performance measurements in service contracts and the means to capture them in place has lead to far too many outsourcing relationships failing.

Research shows that ultimate success with outsourced food service and restaurant operations begins with initial contract discussions.

When outsourcing, remember that although the service provider takes responsibility for the process, it’s still your business and you need to manage the relationship actively. So think carefully about the following during your contract discussions:

1.Take your time in making decisions, and make sure you are clear about the terms on which you and the service provider are working.

2.Make the effort to establish a good relationship – this requires constant communication and flexibility.

3.Choose a member of your team to take responsibility for the relationship with your service provider.

4.Staff may have concerns about their own jobs, so keep them informed.

5.Check on employment legislation and your responsibilities for staff that may transfer.

6.If you can stay with your service provider for several years, you are likely to get the best results, but make sure you objectively check performance and don’t take things for granted!

7.You may need to renegotiate the contract before the end of the term. A flexible contract helps both parties; allowing the service provider to innovate and you to deal with changing circumstances.

8.Aim for a smooth transition. Even with good planning, it’s a steep learning curve for everyone, so seek independent advice and use the opportunity to put in place a solid service level agreement for the future,or better still use a “business value agreement”.

9.There should be financial benefits, but other reasons for outsourcing are harder to quantify. These could be a higher profile for your business, more credibility, improved quality or fewer problems and the key thing is measure results!

10.The relationship might prematurely end or may simply have run its course. Either way, make ensure your agreement contains a clear exit strategy.

Far too many people still work on the basis of out of sight, out of mind. But to make outsourcing a success, it can’t be emphasized enough, that it’s still your business, you don’t need to manage the process, but you do need to manage the relationship.

All good relationships need to be worked at – don’t they!

Before you venture out and buy a restaurant, you should consider finding out the important facts. Restaurants may be the most sought after businesses for sale. You may find yourself in the position of buying a restaurant that is already doing quite well with a solid customer base. However, make sure you know the full story behind the business before signing on the dotted line.



What is The Real Story?



There is a real story behind every attempt to sell a restaurant. The answer can be right on the surface, on the other hand, finding the real reason may take some probing. If the customers stopped coming, it will benefit you to know why. When organizing the plans to buy a restaurant, you need to know if there are any pending legal or financial issues surrounding the need to sell.



Make Sure You Check All the Books



Your plan to buy an existing restaurant business should hopefully contain elements that will make you a tidy profit. If so, put on your detective hat and make it a point to carefully examine recent expenses and sales to ensure the restaurant you have your sights set on is in the black. This means taking the books to your accountant to see if anything looks suspicious on the surface. Are all the payments going where they should? Does the restaurant have a healthy bank account? Are there any hidden expenses that will show up when you least expect it?



Is the Restaurant’s Reputation Sterling?



Restaurants draw clientele base on reputation as much as anything else. A great way to get the inside scoop when buying a restaurant, is to ask the restaurant’s vendors if the business has been paying its bills on time. If your potential vendors are unhappy with payment performance, this should send up the red flag in a hurry. It is also a great idea to spend time in the restaurant you plan to buy as an actual customer. There is no better way to measure customer service and obtain on overall feel than to sit at the table and be served.

Whether the restaurant is one-of-a-kind or an existing restaurant that is part of a business chain, there are principles to consider that will give your venture a better shot at success. A restaurant concept that is well-defined stands a much better chance of long term success—and after buying a restaurant, it is wise to set specific goals from the very beginning that will define and measure your restaurant’s success.





Longevity



For the adventurous at heart that plan to buy an exiting restaurant business, it is prudent to know that business conditions can change over night, and your success may depend on being able to meet the changing demands and buying habits of the customer. And, you can bet on your customer base changing periodically. “Winning” is essential, and means maintaining success over a long period. Aspects of your business will change over time—it is simply the nature of how things are. Staying on top of trends without veering away from the loyal customers may prove to be a winning combination.



Market Appeal



If you want your restaurant to be busy, an appealing concept will be the thing that wins the day. Restaurants that have a broad and well-developed “theme” enable them to form and dominate a market niche. People will frequent a restaurant that has good appeal—and the more familiar you are with the demographics of your potential customers—the greater your chances will be of running a smooth and successful operation. A restaurant with solid appeal makes a person “feel” good about being there, and the word of mouth endorsements that will surely follow can prove to be a great benefit.



Thing in Terms of Expandability



After successfully buying a restaurant, you can never tell what direction your venture will take. If you have a winning business plan, it can be a good platform for securing a lease or going to a money source to obtain funding. Also, a good business plan will help you to develop systems and procedures required to maintain a state of consistency. Who knows, opening that second restaurant might become a viable option! And before long, you may be looking at a chain of restaurants opening across the states.



Fully Examine the Assets



You should have full access to the assets listed for the restaurant business. This means taking a close look at the age of the equipment. How old is the stove, and are any of the rest of the assets outdated? Is the location of the restaurant up to existing building codes? Even the name of a restaurant can be considered an asset. What does the name imply, and is it in step with the customer base you want to attract? How to buy a restaurant and reap the benefits is best realized when you have a comprehensive action plan in place.

Overwhelming Requests for Restaurants to Donate, Donate, Donate: Finally a Tracking System Worth Implementing.

Systems have been put in place at restaurants to make their everyday operations run smoothly, ones they often wondered what they ever did without.  Systems that can make and track reservations, such as Open Table, have transformed the way a restaurant can run its business.

There is another piece of technology hitting restaurants promising to make their everyday operations more efficient while offering benefits such as good community relations, professionalism, and a tracking service bound to help their bottom line.

Restaurants, like hotels and Spas, are often hit up for free donated dinners for the sake of non-profit fundraising, some receiving hundreds of requests a month for donated items.  If you are a restaurant handling these types of requests, there are some important questions to be asked. How much exposure will you get in return for your donation? How much time do you spend handling all these requests?  Are you on or off your donations budget for the year? How much is actually being given away?  How much business is being generated by these donated items?   Tracking this type of information can be time consuming and is normally is put on a forever backburner.

Cutting edge restaurants have started using the latest technology offered by cMarket to explore this untapped arena.   cMarket/BiddingForGood, the leading online auction platform connecting charity auctions, consumers, and commercial item donors is offering a FREE implementation of their interactive Auction Item Request System (AIRS) to companies’ websites to better manage their item donor program.  This allows for item requests to be handled directly through the restaurant’s website, with significantly reduced administrative resources, all while giving a professional experience to the item donor (often an influential member of the local community).

One Example;

UpStairs on the Square, a nationally recognized restaurant located in Cambridge, MA, has been one of the first to implement the system and has started to track the amount of requests they receive, the requests that have been approved or declined, what type of request, what type of organizations have requested items and what percentage of the items donated are being used for specific purposes.  They have a dashboard of all their request information, including monthly tracking charts all in one place.

“We are so pleased at the way our item/donor request system through cMarket/BiddingForGood is working for us and our management team. Not only does the system give us an organized view of evaluating donation requests and fulfilling them in an orderly and timely way, but it also helps us to keep track over the year how much and what we have donated and to whom. We have gone from an anecdotal and disorganized system of donations to one we feel in control of. It also sends inquiring minds to our website—always a good thing. We recommend it highly for all those restaurateurs who often felt, as we did, overwhelmed by the number of requests, and how to handle them” says Mary-Catherine Deibel, owner of Upstairs on the Square.

As easy as it is for the restaurants to use the system, it is just as user friendly for the person making the request.  Organizations can visit the restaurant’s website, click on the item request link, and this will bring them to a form where they can easily complete their type of request.  The system immediately sends the organization an email acknowledging the request and telling them when they will be back in touch avoiding the problem of organizations feeling like they don’t know where they stand. “The professionalism is a key part of the value”, says Chris Parsons, owner of Catch, another nationally recognized Boston restaurant that uses the system.

The system notifies the restaurant of the request and then allows them an approval letter or letter of decline, in a timely fashion.  For those requests which are denied, not all is lost. Within the response letter is an offer from BiddingForGood to find donated items for them.  The organization will then have an opportunity to run an online auction with BiddingForGood, using supplied donated items, including many luxury brands, in efforts to raise funds for their organization.

The program has had a welcomed reception by all those using the system as of date.  The system literally takes moments to set up and offers tracking that would normally take hours to do on a weekly basis. “Charity auction requests are one of the most inefficient parts of my job. I’m glad a system has come along to make this administrative headache go away” says Sean Reardon, VP Marketing, Liberty Hotel, currently using the AIRS system.

Finally, an efficient way to handle requests with real metrics being tracked.