Wie ich ein Restaurant skalieren würde

0:00We need to get more profit in the business, correct? And right now it's in a tourist town, so what percentage of the business is like not locals? I mean, 65 70%. Okay. So, there's a handful of small things that we need to do from a menu perspective and pricing that can just increase just increase margins that no one really feels or objects to. So, um this is I'm going to just I'm going to just rattle some off and then you can just say like we do that or we don't do that or that's a great idea. Um the more great ideas that sounds better for me. But, uh so, I know this sounds really small, but it's like if you're at, you know, uh $16 or whatever on the menu, add the 99 cents onto every single every single transaction, number one.

0:45Um number two, uh at the bottom of your menu, you can add a plus 3% card fee, um which then adds 3% across the board, across all transactions. Um number three is we want to organize the menu, so you'll probably have to reprint menus, which is probably not that big of a deal. Um you want to organize them in order from highest gross profit to lowest gross profit on each of the subsections of the menu, rather than price. And you absolute Excuse me, absolute margin. So, you know what I'm saying? Like if you make $10 on something, make that be the highest.

1:19Okay. Um the ones that have the absolute best gross margins as a top three meals, um put a box around them as like out of counter can't miss, something like that. So, because everyone's big question is like, "Okay, what's the If I'm only here for a weekend, this is the only time I eat, like what should I have?" It's like, "Well, let's just tell them what that is." Now, each item on the menu, because liquor is where you're going to get, you know, the majority of your of your profits or has the highest gross margins, um we want to have kind of a three-pronged alcohol strategy, all right? So, number one is we want to pair each of the meals with a drink of some kind either a wine or a spirit that would go well with it. Just the fact that it'll be right there with the meal will increase the likelihood that people take it. That's number one.

2:06The second thing is we want to have a weekly basically get the the not the sommelier, the bartender, whatever. The cocktailologist. There's a mixologist. There it is. That's the term I'm looking for. Get the mixologist every week to come up with some very interesting drink of the week and have the team taste it. Cuz if the team taste it everyone like when cuz everyone's like, "Oh, what's good?" It's like they can just say, "Oh, we our you know, our mixologist makes this really cool thing every week. He experiments with a bunch of cocktails and he picks the best one and that's that's kind of our drink of the week."

2:38And so that's kind of like the drink special. That should be a solo kind of A-frame that sits on the table to let them know about it. Okay, so on the menu side number one to add 3% You just add it in fine print at the bottom of the menu and it gets tacked on. No one No one gives a [ __ ] but for you an extra 4 or 5% Yeah, makes material.

3:11Um uh highest GP to lowest GP in terms of order on the menu. Um See where all the things 4 one can't miss Oh.

3:39High GP, not low GP. All right. Five. Okay, then we add drink pairings. I'm just trying to get just my menu ones out.

4:03Okay, and then I will I'll include No, I'll leave it leave it there. Okay, that's just menu stuff. Because I'm going to give you there's obviously the big obvious which is if the food's [ __ ] awesome, the restaurant typically does well. That's the big obvious one. These are all the business oriented ones that have nothing to do with the thing that matters most which is the food. >> [laughter]

4:29>> To be clear cuz I can't tell you how to you know cook an omelet better. Um just like to get that disclaimer out of the way. If the food sucks, nothing will work. Okay. Making sure we're on the same page. Um So the next thing is kind of like I said with the um So this is increasing how much we make uh per transaction. So I'll go What am I going to say? So we'll go table {slash} server, okay?

4:58So one is going to add the A-frame with the drink pairings. Sorry, uh with the the drink of the week, drink of week. Again, have the team actually taste it so they can say with conviction that this actually really good and people liked it, whatever. Um Okay. So one is I agree with the perspective of like we should identify who's a first first time, second time. I'm sure you're familiar with the napkin thing. Do you guys do it? No. Okay.

5:32Any reason why not? Training stuff, getting the team to do it? >> Yeah. Okay, I'm going to talk about that cuz it's going to be a core a core element of this one. So I'll say first second third um customer journey which is entrée to come back to here dessert to come back to here.

6:07Okay, and so the training is basically covering these four things. These are the four conversations that have to get scripted that you have to do with the team every day. So the first one is basically the first time. It's the first interaction we're having with them. I I don't know if you've like I don't know if you've been to a restaurant before. Um many times like it's Chick-fil-A every single time you get up to the counter the interaction is the same.

6:35Great establishments work that way. Most establishments don't which is why most establishments aren't great, right? So this has to be scripted. The second is the drink special. Which right as we start it's like hey, have you noticed that's the drink special of the week? I had it people love it. Do you guys want to try that out or do you have any other drinks in mind that you want to get started? Just like cuz you all we want is that ooh that looks good and then the whole table gets one or two, right? And then like we've now cracked the the the seal of okay, we're this is a drinking table, right?

7:10>> [sighs] >> The next is that with every single the reason that the drink pairing are so important for the menu is that whenever anyone orders anything on the menu it gives the natural like oh, that goes well with this a lot of people like to drink it with this or eat it with this. Did you guys want to get one of those? It just makes it natural. Now if they already have drinks then leave it alone, but if they don't then it allows us to do that on on each of [clears throat] the things unless they say I don't drink, right?

7:43And then the last piece here is the review return, right? So, just like the deck builder thing that I was saying earlier, uh hey, the boys eat out there, they put a lot of work into this. If you could leave a five-star review, it'd mean a lot. When the manager does the walk around the table, I would try and get them to walk when the the bill is being like handled or basically post-bill being delivered.

8:08So, they could say, "Hey, you know, how was everything?" As soon as people say, "Oh, it was great." I'd say, "Hey, um I doubt, you know, Joe said this, but um if you felt so inclined to leave a review, and then at that point he can pull out a QR code that leads straight to Yelp and leave it on the table. Um you know, Josie gets a spiff. Um and it would mean a ton to her. Uh ownership does it, so. And a lot like cuz for you, the front like the reviews are everything for OpenTable and all that kind of [ __ ] And so, if this happens every day, it's like you'll you'll start like within 6 months the thing has thousands and thousands of reviews, and it'll increase your average score. There's three chunky ones that I want to go through. So, one is kind of like grand opening, even though it's still it's new management whatever. I'd say grand reopening. Um I tend to take the position like I would do as many grand openings as I can.

8:56Um because no one even knows you exist anyways, and so I just like let's just get the word out. Number one. Number two, one of my favorite kind of opening strategies is actually from Wendy's. So, I don't know if you're familiar with how they do it, but they give So, the first 500 people when they do a grand opening get a golden keychain of a Frosty. And so, people line up for like a long time to get one of these keychains. When they get that keychain, it means that they get um as many uh Frosties or like little the little cones um as they want.

9:27And so, that seems silly, but what ends up happening is that a lot of people drive with four friends, and they're all up stoned out of their mind, and one person says, "Let's go to Wendy's." because they're regular customer and get a free Frosty. When they're there, they buy fries and everyone else pays and so it's this tiny very free thing that creates 500 regulars for a new location. And so what is the what's the equivalent that we could do? Do you have like a an interesting dessert or like or just like you know what I mean? Something and I know obviously we're sit down but like That would be a margarita pizza cuz it's cheap as [ __ ] for us to make and people love it.

10:02Okay. Like a small margarita pizza, something like that. Yeah, that's kind of cool. 225 That works. Yeah, I mean [ __ ] if they just get sodas you're like you're like good to go. Um yeah, I like that. Um and again like you can limit it and if you want you can just do it for 1 year and just see how that goes. Um but again it's like so so this is um kind of like marketing. So we have to get people in the door. So these again just like all the other ones I did today like I I like to fix back end first like let's fix the monetization and the profitability and then we can drive more on the front end. So from a grand opening perspective do you have a budget right now that you're planning on spending towards promoting the fact that it's like brand new or like if you run ads like you run OpenTable right now and that's like 2,500 bucks a month?

10:52Yeah. Can you spend more on that or no? Capped. Okay, got it. Um >> [sighs] >> The best reopenings is trying to get influencers in the area to come and eat for free and then make videos. You already are doing it? We're like we're in the process of the rebrand so we're going to repaint the whole space, change menus, etc. So there will be kind of like a new Yeah. That's when we want to bring in all the people and that's when we can run the So I think so I so I do like the first first 500 pizza promo.

11:37And just say like no big guys. I'm just kidding. >> [laughter] >> Uh who take advantage of it. Um but I'm thinking about like it's like hey if you have over like 10,000 followers like we'd love to have you come out. Um it's like either you do that or you just look at the hashtag that's closest to you or the five or 10 hashtags are closest and then DM the people who are local um who made those images cuz obviously they rank high if they're high up on the hashtag.

12:04And then again it's not cuz we care about the hashtag it's just cuz it's an easy way to find people who are local. And then invite them all to the quote grand opening and then have you know kind of like a red carpet experience. They they you know they just get excited about it. They make videos. And then those videos you can then use to basically run the promotions on meta. How would you say you're running these ads? Mhm. Yeah.

12:31It's kind of like the local ambassadors. Yeah. It's like hey and like I would frame it now like I'd frame it as like hey if you're one of the locals in the area is like we want to bring you back in cuz we want to show you what we've done uh with the place and we're just looking for ambassadors, people who just who know people in this area who can spread the word with us. It just it frames it nicer than like hey if you have 10,000 followers come come promote my [ __ ] Yeah. It's it's it's a little better. Um and so when these people do this when they pick up the the pizza promo they have to leave a review which obviously should be five stars.

13:08Plus they have to make a video of them getting their their pizza or whatever with their keychain. Um and so then this gives you 500 videos that they will post and that become ads plus the reviews. And so it's not like you're just giving away like this way you going to shitload of collateral. You get a ton of organic buzz and then you obviously get the reviews boost right off the bat. And if you want you can do this and say hey you got to do it on three platforms.

13:39So, it could be like Google you know, Yelp, OpenTable, whatever. etc. Um Okay. >> [sighs] >> Now, when I run any kind of promotions for brick and mortar, I like having some A-frame that's sitting either in front of the door so like it's in the way in the sidewalk. Um are you in a heavy foot traffic? Okay, so it's not standalone.

14:06The restaurant isn't standalone. It's in a busy neighborhood so it's standalone. We get a lot of [snorts] foot But yeah, we're not on a street. But it's not Yeah, yeah, it's not like you're not getting Yeah, yeah. Um then in that situation what I would do is I'd put the A-frame on the inside of the door. So, it's almost like they walk right into it so they that way they can't miss it. And that's when I'm going to whatever my my daily specials are, I'll do it there cuz then people notice it. Just make sure it's handwritten. Print never works. Okay. Um Okay.

14:36The last very small piece which I don't know where this technically fits is that right now I think your average So, this is a carryout. Your average carryout right now is like 56 bucks or something like that. I feel like I saw that number. They didn't They basically didn't do carryout. You could only do it over the phone. They just put it on Toast. Effectively assumed takeout was zero and delivery was zero. Got it. Okay. My Okay, so what I want to do is basically have a carryout spend bonus.

15:05So, if we know and you'll find this out quickly so maybe just wait a month before you do this one. You've got enough [ __ ] to do. Uh once you find out what the average order value is I would just say okay, if let's say your average order is 60 bucks I would say if you spend over 75 you get a thing or if you spend over 80, you get a thing. Just to nudge them over that average. Um to bump it up. And usually that'll drive a significant amount of margin on the carryout side.

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