Does Your Restaurant need Rescuing?

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Monday, February 16, 2009

"Sorry sir, out of stock."

"Sorry, sir, that item is not available today."

How many times have you heard of this in restaurants? Of course, the statement comes in different versions like Sorry, it's out of stock or Sorry we just run of of ____. Somestimes, you have replaced your out-of-stock order with another one that's unavailable.

Irked guests would end up asking, "So okay which one of these is available?". When guests get to this point, that means they are just about to walk the door if the next order is unavailable. Worse, they'll tell their friends and relatives about it. Lost opportunity and ruined reputation in one transaction.

So how does a restaurant avoid getting items to be unavailable? Or how does a restaurant handle days when an item or items in the menu are not available?

First of all, there will always be a time when an ingredient will be unavailable for reasons out of your control. And it better be out of your control because guests will understand it more. Ensuring that all your offerings will be available is a long process called proper restaurant management. In short, it is just as important as making sure that the food is good and the portion consistent. When dishes are out of stock, it is a lost sale for the restaurant.

Proper inventory monitoring would be the primary factor. If your kitchen staff has a way of knowing which items are not available anymore, then they can order for this ingredient. This brings you to proper recording of stocks, identifying your order time and average consumption time. Order time is the number of days an item will be available after ordering. Checklists would come really handy.

Keeping a lean menu is also helpful. When a menu is substantial, the possibility of overlooking a dish or ingredient is higher. When you have minimal items, you can handle the stocks better.

Now, in days when the restaurant just realized they can't offer this dish today, follow these simple steps:
1. Let waiters know what item or items are not available
2. Label your menu if possible so as to cross out the menu or temporarily make unavailable.
3. Teach waiters what they can suggest to replace that dish. You cannot lose the sale altogether.

Restaurants should actually make this a commitment. NO OUT OF STOCK ITEMS. When everybody commits to this, the possiblity of an unavailable item gets smaller.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Four Steps of Menu Revision

Revising a menu is definitely not an easy task but is a MUST in every restaurant operation. Why is that? It's all because of the factor of change or the lack of constancy in this business. If at all, change happens really fast in a restaurant that every management only has the choice to cope up with it.

In a previous article, I discussed about how often you should change your menu. Today, I'll let you in on the steps on how to revise your menu.

STEP 1: DATA GATHERING. With your current menu, you should have a tally of number of orders per dish in the menu. These data should tell you which items are most popular and which items are not and so on. You will need this information to know which dishes or menu items to retain and what decision to make about the other dishes. You should also be gathering data on what other menu items your customers wish to see on the menu.

STEP 2: RECIPE TESTING. Test your new recipes if you have that you have not tested but will include in the menu. Testing the rescipe also includes having all employees involved in the kitchen and dining room service taste them. Recipe testing would, of course, require that you document every ingredient and every step whilst perfecting the taste and appearance of the dish. You may refer to a previous article on menu standardization. If you are concerned about how the market will react to it, you can do an exclusive taste testing to know how people would react to the new dishes.

STEP 4: COSTING. Costing is both a science and an art. If you follow a certain computation or multiplier or percentage, sometimes it cannot be applied to all the dishes in your menu. For example, there might be an item that has very minimal costs that you can tag a higher markup on for higher profit margin. Or there is an item that might not be totally saleable if you follow the proper markup. Costing has to be updated. Use the most current or the highest possible food cost you can use to make your selling price sound and sane. The menu engineering part needs an up-to-date food cost and an intelligent approach to yield management.

STEP 4: DRAFTING OF MENU. Drafting a menu has to follow certain standards. I'll let you in on properly doing or organizing a menu