I recently attended an invitation-only “Restaurateur’s Roundtable” hosted by Cohn Reznick, a well-regarded accounting firm with a strong focus on representing restaurants. I was privileged to bring along client representatives from franchisor Seasons Pizza and from Izz, LLC, which is a Maryland franchisee of Hurricane Grill & Wings. Some tidbits of knowledge that I gleaned were:
1. Restaurants, particularly quick service franchises, are automating functions even more aggressively to decrease their employee count, both because of Affordable Care Act concerns and because of projected increases in minimum wages.
2. Tablet ordering and payment processing, at the tabletop, is growing rapidly because consumers like it and it enables restaurants to “turn tables” more rapidly. Casual dining franchise systems such as Applebee’s are among the converts.
3. The most successful operators focus on making their restaurants more efficient and effective during their busy hours, and the “shoulder hours” before and after, rather than worrying about building up slow hours.
4. If some tables are generally more popular and profitable than others, such as those by the windows, balance the servers’ stations so that each have some of the “best tables;” this will motivate the whole wait staff.
5. Consider methods to make assistant managers “take ownership” of slower nights, and reward them for improving performance. One method is encouraging the manager to learn the names of all of the “regular” customers on that night. It is sort of like a mini-franchise.
I am happy to invite other clients who operate restaurants to future editions of these quarterly Restaurateurs’ Roundtables.