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Opening your own restaurant is a major accomplishment. For many, restaurant ownership is a lifelong dream and for others, it’s a newfound business venture. Either way, starting a restaurant is no simple feat, requiring copious amounts of market research, menu curation, financial analysis, and plenty of planning.
While starting any business means getting into, well, the business side of things, starting a restaurant is unique in its own way. To stand out from the competition and to establish and grow a loyal customer base, there are numerous strategies and tactics that you can implement at your new restaurant. Read further for five restaurant-specific tips that will lead you to success.
1. Test Your Menu
Creating a killer menu is one of your first steps toward starting a successful new restaurant. Do lots of recipe testing and get as much feedback as possible from as many different people as possible before settling on menu items and recipes. Testing your menu and recipes will also help you create standard recipes for each item, which in turn will help you price dishes strategically.
Pricing your menu well is crucial for your success since your menu is your main source of income. Keep impeccable financial records and keep note of customer trends to decide on prices that will help you profit. When just starting out, it’s a good idea to set aside time to analyze your income and re-assess your prices. As you grow and learn more about your market, you’ll likely make price changes, so plan ahead for this.
Aside from perfecting your recipes and prices, you’ll want to design your menu in a way that benefits your business and promotes your unique brand. When customers look at your menu, they should instantly get a feel for what kind of restaurant and brand you are — refined and elegant, casual and unpretentious, lively and fun, etc. They should also never feel confused or frustrated by a strange layout or small text. Use brand colors and voice, quality photos, and a strategic layout to create a menu that benefits both the customer and your business.
To create a stunning menu, you don’t need to spend a fortune. MustHaveMenus offers 20,000+ design templates for you to choose from. With low monthly subscription costs, you’ll be able to create the menu of your dreams quickly and without breaking the bank.
Lastly, make sure to have both physical and online versions of your menus. These menus should be easily accessible for users who search for you on the web and passersby who stop in for a peek. Keep an updated version of your online menu pinned to your social media pages and make it easy to find on your website. Print takeout menus and place them near the front door, or paste a QR code on the front door itself.
2. Focus on the Customer Experience
When starting a new restaurant, you’ll want to create a top-notch menu and an unbeatable dining experience. Each and every aspect of your restaurant should be created with the customer in mind, and when it comes to spending, there’s (almost) no price too high to make your customers happy. You don’t want your restaurant to be just another place to buy burgers. Make it a place people come to step outside their regular life to enjoy a totally unique dining experience with an incredible burger they truly won’t find elsewhere.
This can all be accomplished by garnering (and taking heed of) tons of feedback, designing an enjoyable interior space, making user-friendly technology available, providing impeccable customer service, and more.
Keep your restaurant technology updated and research your market to best understand your customer’s preferences and behaviors. Read online reviews, keep feedback cards on tables, or directly ask diners how their experiences were to tweak as needed.
3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage
If you’re starting a new restaurant, you should absolutely have a social media page for it. Create accounts on popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram to reach bigger audiences. Accurately portray your brand and include pertinent business information clearly on your page for prospective customers to find.
While social media is a good tool for sharing your restaurant menu, website, contact info, and business updates, it’s also a great place to share about new dishes, specials, and events, and it’s where you should advertise your opening! Uploading eye-catching posts (free from MustHaveMenus) on social media is one of the best ways to spread the word about your restaurant.
Social media is also a great tool for building a loyal customer base. Posting quality content helps you gain followers and spread awareness, but there are also opportunities to directly interact with customers on social media. You can reshare pictures that people took at your place, respond to comments or reviews of your restaurant, and even hold exciting social media contests to start building strong, lasting relationships with your customer base.
4. Put Plenty of Time and Effort into Hiring and Training
A restaurant is really only as good as its staff is. Hiring and retaining quality employees is one of the major hurdles to overcome when starting a new restaurant, so it’s best to get started early. Even if it takes you a little longer, it’s better to seek out quality hires rather than taking whatever you can get.
Be sure to hire employees who are able to appreciate your restaurant’s values and who hope to grow along with your business. Take the time to interview candidates well, and have a solid training process planned out. From technically-trained chefs to quick-thinking servers to friendly front-of-house faces, each position should be filled by someone with the appropriate skills.
Don’t forget that in order to create a strong, loyal team of workers who have your business’s best interest in mind, you’ll have to do your part. Show appreciation, patience, and care for your employees and it will encourage them to want to return the sentiment.
As a restaurant owner, customer service should be one of your highest priorities. If your food is great, it still won’t outweigh bad customer service. Ensure that your staff is trained to provide service of the utmost quality, going the extra mile for diners and helping out fellow coworkers so that the entire restaurant works together as a team. A reliable, well-trained staff will help you provide great customer service and benefit your restaurant overall.
5. Be Adaptable
The one predictable thing about restaurant ownership is this: the restaurant industry can be entirely unpredictable. Thanks to the pandemic, most restaurant owners have been recently reminded of the sometimes-scary volatility of the restaurant industry. While many businesses have suffered, we are now all a bit more well-equipped, informed, and prepared for such drastic and unexpected measures.
As a restaurant owner, this is necessary. From food and diet trends to supply chain operations to labor and employment laws, there are countless societal and economic factors that directly affect the restaurant industry, and having a backup plan for various challenges or emergencies is key. Whether it’s a last-minute staff shortage or a looming economic disaster, try your best to get prepared.
Keep impeccable financial records, track your inventory, update your technologies, and stay in touch with your customers and their preferences. It also helps to keep an eye on economic trends, media trends, overall consumer behavior activity, industry news, and more. Expect the unexpected, and plan ahead as best you can.
Set Your Restaurant up for Success
It’s no secret that starting your own restaurant takes a ton of work. You’ve got to be business savvy, financially educated, smart about marketing, detail-oriented, and a culinary pro. By using tools like MustHaveMenus, you’ll be setting yourself up for success from the beginning.
Make sure that all of your hard work pays off by creating an awesome menu and dining experience for the customer, staying updated on industry trends, and being prepared for just about anything. If you can accomplish owning a restaurant, you’ve certainly got the power to make it great.
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