Restaurant Competitive Price Menu Strategy
Pricing a menu is tricky business: price dishes too high, and you’ll turn off patrons. Price it too low and you’ll cut deep into your profit margins. It’s a skill to find that delicate balance, but here are some tips to help you with your restaurant competitive menu pricing strategy.
Start by Understanding Your Food Costs:
Your foundation begins by determining food costs. Each ingredient you purchase for your menu has a per-dish cost, which may vary depending on supply and demand or season. Pull your recipe apart, ingredient by ingredient. And don’t overlook anything, including a tablespoon of olive oil or a sprinkling of salt. These may seem insignificant costs, but they add up across all dishes.
If you use restaurant inventory management software, you should be able to easily see the per-dish cost, since it’s input into your system.
Take into Account Seasonality:
Watermelon doesn’t come cheap in the winter…if it can be found at all. As you’re building your menu, realize that some ingredients are seasonal. You have a decision here: offer the dish only when the produce is in season or replace that ingredient with another (risotto is a great platform for whatever is in season).
You can also factor the seasonal fluctuations in price for that ingredient into the price you set for the menu year ‘round. Rather than raising the price of that tomato salad in the winter by $1, you can offset the expected price increase for the dish throughout the year.
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Pro Tips on How to Set Up an Awe-Inspiring Buffet
It is time to set up your buffet and prepare your guests for the ultimate dining experience! How? Here are a few useful pro tips guaranteed to help you plan a professional buffet set up and impress your guests.
In this era of technology and social media usage that we live in, one source of inspiration for social media posts comes through beautiful plating and buffet presentation. The dining experience you provide will first please the eyes of your invitees and afterwards their appetite.
Here are our thoughts for an unforgettable event-
Mind the Decoration and the Theme of your Buffet:
Before you start planning your buffet, choose a theme or the kind of decoration you want to have. For example, do you want your buffet to be modern? Then choose geometrical patterns and vivid colors for the decoration. Do you want your buffet to be traditional? Then choose luxurious bronze and gold tones in combination with baroque patterns like flowers. Add some accent lighting, bows and flower decoration. However, don’t overdo it with the decoration because you want your buffet food arrangement to be the focal point. Arrange everything as one cohesive concept; your food, your decor, your buffet risers, plates and bowls so as to create a memorable experience for your guests.
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Kitchen Staff Management Tips
Today’s chef has many hats to wear including managing the budget, creating new dishes, writing recipes, costing recipes, managing cooks, dealing with HR, and so much more. But one of the most crucial roles of a chef is effective kitchen staff management and training. You might be the greatest chef in the world, but during service a chef is no better than the cooks surrounding him/her. If the kitchen staff isn’t properly trained then you will fail during service.
Following are 8 key actions which will improve your kitchen staff management effectiveness & improve the quality of your cooks (not in any specific order of importance):
- Always Give Clear, Specific Instructions Regarding Expectations & Standards
- Explain your Reasons and Why you Think the Way you Do
- Know When to Put Your Foot Down
- Always have a pre-service
- If the Shift is Going to be Ugly, Warn the Staff Early!
- Always be Mindful of the Way You Criticize/Instruct Your Staff
- Teach Self-Discipline & the Importance of Choices
- Do Your Best to Accommodate Their Life
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Kitchen Knife Care Tips- How to Prevent Knife Damage
It’s one thing having a good quality chef’s knife, it’s another ensuring that you get the best out of it. Here are my inside tips on kitchen knife care and maintenance:
- Always take your knives with you. When knives are left unattended, other chefs can use them and potentially cause damage.
- Chopping against bones or other hard objects is a common way to cause knives to chip. To prevent this, you must only chop down onto a wooden board or block.
- A lot of the kitchens that chefs work in tend to have stainless steel worktops and drawers. Knives are often thrown into these drawers, which can cause damage to the tip and blade.
- Once you have a professionally sharpened knife, you need to maintain it daily. This will just need a couple of swipes with the steel. Eventually it will wear and cannot be kept sharp, at which point it is time to go back to the sharpener to put the edge back.
- Knives are often damaged by not using a steel correctly. I sharpen most knives at 15 degrees each side, most people use a steel at about 20-25 degrees, meaning that they very quickly remove the sharp edge they have put on.
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Tips for Catering Health and Safety
Working in the catering industry can be an exciting prospect, as the limitations placed on you – as opposed to a restaurant – arguably make it a much more challenging task but that also means there’s little room for error. It’s your chance to impress and exceed expectations, and hope that the guests who have attended an event you’ve catered for will seek your quality service down the line.
However, safety is imperative in catering and one tiny mistake can trigger a domino effect and result in many more errors. Many mistakes and hazards are avoidable if given proper attention and planning, so you should take great measures to ensure not only your safety, but the safety of the staff and your guests as well. Here are some tips you should take into consideration when it comes to catering safety.
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Restaurant Text Message Marketing
SMS Text Messaging Coupons:
Mobile marketing techniques help companies engage with their customers and get people excited about your products and services. An increasing number of customers are using mobile devices to search for products, services, and restaurant text messaging coupons to help them make their dining choices. With text messaging options it is easy for them to ask questions when they find a brand they are interested in. To get started you’ll need to build a loyal customer list of fans who have “opted in” to your loyal customer program because you can’t just send out texts to the general public. Once you develop your list, it’s time to focus on coupons and deals that will improve your sales.
Be Clear with Your Offer:
If you are sending out restaurant sms coupons, make it clear how your offer is going to be redeemed. You want your customers to understand your coupon and how it is supposed to be used. Don’t use vague language when you send out coupons through text messaging, and provide your customers with a specific deal that’s easy to use.
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