Foodservice Friends

Foodservice Distributor Electronic Reports - What to ask for & Why

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Electronic Reporting comes in many shapes and sizes. Depending on the Foodservice Distributors that you purchase from, the complexity and breadth of information that is reportable vary greatly. Large broadline distributors such as US Foods and Sysco, have the ability to provide foodservice operators with detailed information on purchases. Sysco many times refers to their usage reports as Satrak’s which simply stands for Sales Tracking. Other popular titles which for all intensive purposes mean the same are velocity reports, volume reports, usage reports, historical data reports, purchase volume reports and descending dollar (descending $) reports to name a few. These reports are easy to run and free of charge and hold a wealth of information.

What to ask for: when asking for velocity reports, it is extremely helpful to request reports in excel (.xls) or (.csv) formats. Reason being is that you can open the reports in an excel spreadsheet and manipulate the data using any and all excel functions. I find the Data-Sort function to be quite helpful in moving large sections of information around quickly and accurately. Besides format, there are also certain pieces of information to request within the report. Keep in mind that different distributors, whether broadline food distribution suppliers, vendors such as Edward Don or Dade Paper and manyother produce, meat and niche purveyors refer to the same information under different headings. For any report you will have to also ask for a specified time period. For Example: 01/01/09 to 06/15/2009

This list is what I request on reports from Vendors:

SUPC or Distributor’s Item Code #

Mfg ID – Manufacturer ID #

Vendor Name (This tells you which manufacturer is behind your Distributors Branded lines of products)

Vendor #

Brand

Item Description – Item Name

Pack Size

Case Qty – Case Quantity – Volume – Usage

Splits (Reports how many individual items you purchased from splitting open a case)

Catchweight (the amount of pounds you purchased of a product)

Total $ - Total Sales

Average Price – This is the average price you paid for each individual item over the reporting period

With this information comes the ability to uncover information within your foodservice establishment. First, from an owners perspective it is nice to view everything your staff orders from time to time. Also, having access to historical trend information with volumes and pricing information for the items in which you purchase, you are provided with accurate knowledge as to which vendors to contact in order to contract on your high use items. With this report, you simply sort into a descending $ format, take your highest use items which will inherently contain the most leverage, convert splits and catchweight items to realize the accurate Average Price Paid over a period time, and you know have the necessary information to contact vendors, brokers and or manufacturers with regards to contracting on food and non/food items.

Another nicety is being able to uncover the manufacturers behind branded labels such as Pocahontas or Sysco Imperial or Sysco Reliance products that is derived through the vendor information from the report. Pack sizes help you in converting purchases when costing out a menu or new recipes. Pack sizes used in conjunction with average prices can give you a platform when considering the Yield Value of comparable products. There are many instances where a more expensive product is less costly because of the usable portion. For instance, the “Book of Yields” CD-Rom version comes with a table of over 200 different yield amounts in Ounces for 6/#10 Cans. Splits have their own set of difficulties depending on your program with various distributors. Most distributors up charge products for splitting a case and selling it to you. However, if you have a distribution agreement specifying this does not take place than you should be okay if you have auditing capabilities. Utilizing this report will help you to figure out if you should have just purchased a case of olive oil last month or really ordered 6 individual Gallon bottles. Obviously cash flows may play a role in certain purchasing choices.

One last comparison that I personally like to watch is a price variance report at the end of each month. With the reported information from month 1, I compare the like items purchased in month 2 in a side by side comparison to see the price increase or decrease for every single like item purchased. Honestly, for those operators saying there is no time for this nonsense, with some basic excel knowledge this comparison takes under 5 minutes to generate each month. The price variance report in addition to $ increases and decreases helps to uncover trends. If your report shows that butter, eggs, milk, cream and sour cream all increased from one month to the next, then that is pretty good evidence of how the entire dairy market is reacting under certain market conditions. The information provides a good lead in to identifying market trends and increasing your foodservice education.

Electronic Usage Reports provide information which leads to knowledge. And as the old adage goes – Knowledge is Power!

Wilton Marburger

www.foodservice-friends.com

Costing Out Soda & Free Refills in Foodservice - How to Price Soda

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:04:00 +0000

A traditional box of syrup or B I B (bag in the box) holds 5 gallons of syrup. Let's say a five gallon BIB of your favorite Cola costs $50. The ratio of syrup to water is 5 to 1, meaning for every gallon of syrup served, 5 gallons of water is also used. In other words if you serve an entire BIB to Foodservice customers you have served 5 gallons of syrup + 25 gallons of water for a grand total of 30 gallons of product. As we know, there are 128 oz in a gallon. Therefore, 128 oz x 30 gallons yields 3,840 oz of product. To take this one step further, I am accustomed to getting around an 98.5% yield out of each BIB. Because I pay for 100% but only use 98.5%, my costs increase concurrently. To figure out the real usable product we will take 3,840 oz x 98.5% and the true amount of product to be sold is now = 3,782.4 oz.

To figure our soda cost we will need to uncover the $ cost per ounce and apply that to the soda sizes you offer. We will use a 20 oz beverage for this calculation. Knowing we get 3,782.4 oz out of a 5 gallon BIB we will divide into this quantity of 3,782.4 oz into our $50 BIB cost. Therefore, $50 / 3782.4 = .0132 This tells us that each oz of served product costs us $0.0132

For a 20 oz soda we will now take our pour size of 20 oz x $0.0132 and get $0.264 or basically 27 Cents per 20 oz soda. Now lets consider ICE! If you fill your 20 oz cup with ice to the brim, you will only be pouring about 8.75 oz of soda into the cup. Realistically your soda cost will only be 8.75 oz x $0.0132 or 12 cents per unit sold. To finish the cost out lets say we have a 7 cent foam cup, 1 cent lid and 1.5 cents straw to complete the package. Although these last three items will most likely be accounted on your Profit & Loss statement as paper goods, let's add them to the soda cost to realize the total cost involved with selling a 20 oz soda.

20 oz cup of soda with ice requires 8.75 oz of product or $0.12

20 oz foam cup cost $0.07

Lid for cup costs $0.01

Straw costs $0.015

Total Cost = $0.215 or rounded up $0.22 per soda

Next, take your sell price and subtract your per soda cost to realize gross profit. If you sell the 20 oz soda for $1.25 then you make $1.03 in gross profit and your attributable NA/BEV cost for the soda is $0.22 / $1.25 = 17.6% (18% to 20% is very common for Soda)

Refills

Lets assume that you see 60% of your soda-buying guests getting refills. To figure in this additional cost lets go back to the soda requirements in the first cup. We figured with ice that we would need 8.75 oz of soda in a 20 oz cup. Two cost busting scenarios will now happen. The guest will refill the cup with more product and almost always there will be less ice to take up space this time around. First, because of melting ice we will boost our soda requirement on refills to 10 oz as you can almost without fail measure this yourself and see that the requirements will be around 1.25 oz greater to fill the cup. What we have just determined is every time you sell a soda you are really selling 8.75 oz of product + (60% of guests x 10 oz) In other words 8.75 + 6 = 14.75 oz. Now we take our 14.75 oz x $0.0132 = $0.1947 or 20 cents a soda.

20 oz cup of soda with ice & free refills requires 14.75 oz of product or $0.20

20 oz foam cup cost $0.07

Lid for cup costs $0.01

Straw costs $0.015

Total Cost = $0.215 or rounded up $0.32 per soda

Refills are very popular in a number of establishments and there are certainly nothing wrong with them, many guests love it. Just make sure to reconsider your sale price to keep and ideally retrieve more gross profit and keep you soda cost around that 18% to 20% mark. If you priced your 20 oz soda with free refills at $1.75 then your gross profit would increase and you would retain $1.75 - $0.32 = $1.43 of GP$ Also, your % NA/BEV cost of goods for the soda would now be $0.32 / $1.75 = 18.3% Makes cents right!

Using Up Foodservice Inventory to Sustain Cash Flow

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:51:00 +0000

In Foodservice, inventory at it's roots are products purchased in order to prepare and sell for more money than what you paid for them. The variance between sales price and cost is gross profit. Some foodservice establishments have large inventories that become stagnant for a number of reasons. First, many catering companies purchase large quantities of products, whether it be food, beverages or disposables to serve functions with specific menu and service requests. Many times these purchases create challenges as large parties sometimes drop the number of guests or cancel functions altogether leaving the caterer with reduced cash flow and an increased inventory. This problem multiplies overtime leaving goods that were purchased 2 to 3 months prior sitting on the shelves and becoming lost and forgotten. This problem creates an opportunity as the goods sitting on the shelves from prior months have already been paid for. In other words, they can be viewed as free goods. Herein lies an opportunity to create new with old.

Steps to to use up Inventory to Sustain Cash Flow:
1) Have your team collect usage reports from vendors for the past month. This will tell you everything you bought to sustain current and upcoming business for the month period.

2) Have your team create a list of everything in your establishment that was not purchased over the last months period and how much you have on hand. This list will give you a "pantry" of goods that you need to get creative with.

3) Assess the list and challenge your team to create new menu items, presentations and sales techniques to sell the packaged "old goods" to recoup the cash sitting on your shelves.

You can use this opportunity to create an exciting challenge with possible rewards for your staff. Depending on the size of your excess inventories, it can be helpful to understand the amount of days of inventory you have on hand and also your inventory turnover ratio. More on these calculations later.

Cost Center vs. Profit Center & the Tale of Total Sales

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:38:00 +0000

With the growing importance of monitoring costs within foodservice establishments in a weak economy, the importance of understanding the methodology behind ratios is justly increasing. When going over monthly financial statements I have seen many methods in calculating food costs. Some are better than others. For the purpose of this article I am looking at a full service restaurant who sells Food, NA/Beverage, Beer, Liquor & Wine on a monthly basis with the total sales = $25,000. In the below table are two examples of the same Total Sales $ and the same COGS with very different operational results. Table A demonstrates higher food sales with a lower Cost of Food Sold than Table B, however a higher Food Cost %.

In Table A, Food Sales represent 70% of Total sales at $17,500 with a Cost of Food Sold at $6,000. Food Sales = the Profit Center as Cost of Food Sold = the Cost Center. By dividing Cost of Food Sold of $6,000 / Food Sales of $17,500 we arrive at a 34.29% which is the Food Cost %. Table B takes on a different approach. Table B Calculates Food Cost % as a percentage of Total Sales. In this scenario Food Sales are $16,500 which comprises 66% of Total Sales and has an attributable Cost of Food Sold of $6,500. In the Total Sales Ratio, the Cost of Food Sold at $6,500 is divided by Total Sales of $25,000 to realize a Food Cost of 26%. Based on these two calculations, Table B represents a scenario where the same restaurant sold less Food than Table A, purchased more Food than Table A, but realized a much lower Food Cost by 8.29% Let's take a look to see what happened.

......................................................\....TABLE..A .........................TABLE B

In tracking Cost of Goods within your establishment, the Total Sales method of calculations can lead you in the wrong direction when looking for the correct category ratios. Remember, both Table A & B had the same Total Sales $ and the same COGS $. However, the calculation method used by table B, completely hid the fact their operations became sub-par this month. The reason is that without comparing the Cost Center (Food) to it's corresponding Profit Center (Food Sales), an accurate picture as to what happened within that category is completely hidden. In benchmarking operations and tracking the variance between actual and theoretical, it is feasible to say that the manager's who are bonused on Food Cost of say "30%" would have hit their #'s in Table B erroneously because in reality their true Cost of Food Sold % would have been, $6,500 in Food Purchased / $16,500 in Food Sales = 39.4% Basically, the operations completely deteriorated however the Food Cost % looked good because the Total Sales did not vary. Without addressing the components of Total Sales by looking at each of their ratio's Cost Centers vs. Profit Centers, there is no visibility into the areas you excel in and the areas that need much more attention. Although the Gross Profit $ did not change meaning the bottom line was not affected, just wait for a month or two down the road when the "hidden" problems and masked increasing Food Costs become apparent.

Cost Center vs. Profit Center - do not forget it!

Sysco Foods Acquires Irish Broadline Distributor

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Today Sysco Foods (SYY) announced the purchase of Pallas Foods Ltd., a Broadline Foods Distribution Comany in County Limerick Ireland. Pallas Foods has 8 operating facilities in Ireland. This purchase marks Sysco's first acquisition of a Broadline Food Distribution company outside of the US. Pallas is reported to generate revenues around $200 Million per year and employees close to 500 people. Pallas Foods Ltd. began it's Foodservice operations in the early 1980's. Most senior executives working within Pallas Foods Ltd. are reported to have signed long-term contracts with Sysco Foods to sustain employment.

Front End & Back End Sales Basics

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:27:00 +0000

In general, Front End Sales refer to the acquiring of new customers and Back End Sales refer to getting those customers to keep coming back. Understanding these two principals can help identify two pivotal areas of your restaurant to focus upon to generate revenues. Restaurants as with most businesses for profit, operate to attract customers and turn them into repeat customers.

With sales declining for many restaurant's, owners are increasingly taking a magnifying glass to areas of their Profit & Loss Statement that previously were all but looked upon. This includes marketing monies. Two great questions to ask of one's business are: 1) What is the most economical way to attract new customers? & 2) What techniques can I utilize to keep them returning for more? Your goal is to be able to answer these questions and create a plan to implement the strategies necessary for success.

With Cash Flow strains and panic in many restaurants, owners need to create solutions to answer problems. Focusing on Front End Sales & Back End Sales one can foster many ideas to answer these challenges. I recommend the ideas be developed to address at least one or both of the following objectives: 1) To lower the cost of attracting new guests & 2) To increase the future value of each existing guest. Besides, restaurants serve two primary purposes, to acquire money through the sale of food and use that money to create jobs and income for others. By narrowing your focus to create cost-effective Front End Sales and an ever better experience for returning guests to realize increased Back End Sales, restaurants can position themselves for survival in a down economy and higher profits in a growth economy.

Inventory, Toothpaste & Cooks Spending Limits

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:22:00 +0000

My first foodservice job was behind the counter at a small Italian delicatessen and specialty market. The first lesson I learned at this job, besides how to keep the bathrooms clean, was that inventory is like a tube of toothpaste - Seriously!

When you first buy toothpaste, you open the cap, squeeze out the product onto your brush and start the hygiene cycle. 3 weeks later, you begin to pay attention to the amount of toothpaste left in the tube. In fact, in the beginning of week 4 you may find yourself rolling the tube to save product waste, increase the usable portion or yield% from the product and then discard the container when it is 100% empty.

Food & Beverage inventory is like toothpaste. Keep enough product on hand but never too much. A cook with an endless pantry is really a kid in a candy store. Think about it. Every time a guest orders a food item in your restaurant - you the owner/operator are really saying to the cook that a guest just ordered the salmon entree that costs $5. This means that the cook has a $5 spending limit to prepare the salmon. Okay, if there is no shopping cart or checkout procedure how to do you keep track of what your "kid in the candy store" is buying? Take away the temptation. Put only what needs to be on the shelf to sustain your busiest times and nothing extra. Monitor your cooks spending limit. The best solution is to build, implement and maintain a true Menu Theoretical Food Cost. Their are many quote "easy to use" programs and expensive software applications that sell theoretical food costing capabilities. Do not waste your money!!! Do research on the two key drivers of a true Menu Theoretical Food Cost that need to be updated every month and use this as a comparison to your actual Food Cost off of your monthly Profit & Loss statement. You will know exactly to the penny how much your cooks are spending. There will be more on Menu Theoreticals and who you can access for help in building one later.

Historical Look at GPO's by: John Lawn

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:23:00 +0000

Enjoy an article written about the historical formation of Group Purchasing Organizations in the foodservice and healthcare arenas. John Lawn provides evidence to the organic formation of Group Purchasing Organizations and their changes in Foodservice and healthcare. Distribution with large broadline food distributors including Sysco Foods and US Foodservice are discussed. Group Purchasing Organizations including Novation Inc., Consorta Inc. & Amerinet are discussed along with suppliers, vendors and distributors they use for their food and healthcare needs.

http://food-management.com/business_feature/fm_imp_7554/

Restaurant Beverage Control

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:43:00 +0000

Controlling the Pour Levels of Bartenders

Let's face it, if there was never a spill, a broken bottle, server impropriety with reusing the same check for multiple customers, mis-rang orders on the POS and all pours were at the perfect level, then we would have nothing to worry about. Two techniques I have seen are requiring all liquors to be poured into a "jigger" or shot glass before being mixed into a drink and also measured pourer caps that are designed to deliver the perfect amount of alcohol into a mixed drink. Both of ideas have merit and can work but many times frustrate bartenders and interrupt service flow. Another idea is to build a requisition system that unifies the counting of product, which typically already takes place for inventory reasons, with the time proven calculation of beginning product - sales + purchases = ending inventory. Well when product is counted at the end it should = the previous calculation without variation. The variance in this method or how much extra or missing product is calculated will identify the degree of the problem. Let's take a look at Wine poured by the glass.

Each bottle of wine has a measure, a 750 ml is roughly 25.4 ounces. So depending on your pour level you can determine how many glasses you can serve out of that bottle of wine. Lets say your pour level is 7 ounces per glass. (25.4 / 7 = 3.63) which says you will serve 3.63 glasses of wine per bottle purchased. Next comes your sales from your Point of Sale (Aloha, Digital Dining, Micros, Restaurant Manager or Revention to name a few). For the time period of counting, pull the number of glasses sold for each wine poured by the glass. If you sold 50 glasses of House Cabernet at a predetermined 7 ounce pour than you sold (50 x 7 = 350) ounces of Cabernet. Well 350 ounces sold divided by 25.4 ounces per bottle yields = 13.78 bottles of Cabernet that were sold. So you can now calculate your beginning # of bottles - 13.78 (# sold) + purchases = ending inventory. Since you count the ending inventory simple compare what you should have on hand to what you actually have on hand. I have personally implemented this into a restaurant with high volume wine sales and they typically have a variance of +/- 1 bottle of wine out of 950 glasses of wine poured and sold.

When you pay attention to alcohol, the bartenders will follow suit. This also provides an ample opportunity to create a game for your bartenders. Depending on an acceptable variance you as a manager or owner determines you can reward or discipline your bartenders based on their performance and adherence to your controls.

Margin Drivers in Foodservice Distribution

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:18:00 +0000

Utilizing Margin-Drivers in Achieving a more Profitable Distribution Agreement

Deliveries Per Week / Drop Sizes
§ The fewer deliveries and the more products you purchase per delivery provide benefit to the distributor. This monetary benefit can be capitalized on and shared by the distributor in offering you a lower margin.
§ In determining a delivery schedule pick what works for you. If your current schedule works perfectly only change it if you can combine deliveries without negatively affecting storage and organization or kitchen productivity and control over product.
o The more on the shelf the harder it is to control!

o Cost of Money – Credit Terms
· The quicker you pay the shorter the length of the loan for distributors
· Pay as quickly as you are comfortable with

o Sales Person – Marketing Associate/Account Manager
· Depending on your operations a Sales Person can be advantageous or costly.
· Down side – Sales people cost money. You will pay for them in the margin over the cost of your products. Restaurants with STATIC menus and limited or no seasonal menu changes typically will not profit from the cost associated with having a Sales Person. Electronic ordering makes an individual with a laptop obsolete. For most Broadline Distributors the cost to you for a salesperson is 1.25% to 2% of your purchase dollars.
· Up side – New concepts, restaurants’ with continually changing menus and consistently experimental chefs can benefit from having a Sales person to research and find new products.

Purchasing Better with Integrity

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:37:00 +0000

My philosophy in business is the phrase “it’s not personal, it’s business” does not apply. In my opinion anything you do in or outside of your business is a reflection of yourself and is therefore personal. There are many ways to help your bottom line. Creating a dedicated purchasing program is one. Like many businesses, purchasing has a right way to do things or “best practices.” A successful purchasing program designed to be sustainable and help carry an organization forward in a good direction, needs to use good practices. Purchasing can be plain dirty. Some areas I will comment on are the aspects of service and relationships vs. price, the bidding process and the detrimental used car-salesman approach and the necessity to keep an open mind.

Vendor Negotiations

When negotiating with a vendor whether a current supplier or a prospect, service has to be respected. Typically good service inherently builds allegiance over time and relationships are cultivated. Being comfortable with the personal contributions of a vendor in my opinion transcends price. Take your relationship with your primary vendor. There are real reasons you feel comfortable maintaining your relationship with them being your primary foodservice supplier. This respect has been earned over time from both sides. The lynch pin of a sustainable purchasing program is it has to work for all parties considered. Unfortunately, I have seen some restaurants make choices to change directions with vendors they have relationships with because given the economy, price sensitivity has started to outweigh the service and relationship aspects. I believe this is wrong. However, the business aspects do need to be addressed from time to time to reassess the relationship. Being a tenured customer with positive payment habits and one who understands the value of long term commitments should be rewarded fairly for their dedication. A great distribution relationship built over a significant period of time should accomplish certain things. 1st How strong is your relationship with your current supplier? Have you earned the right to understand the nuances of how your program works with them. If they tell you what you have can they show you what they are telling you? Can they offer you the level of comfort required for an establishment that can become increasingly educated in the realm of distribution? The answers to all questions is yes. The question is will they.

Bidding process and the used car salesman game

I have written RFP’s for distributors to bid on. The first page addresses the rules of engagement. When looking at working out a better deal with your current suppliers and the possiblilty of switching business both parties need to know that they will have one shot and one shot only to bid on the business. This part is absolutely necessary. If supplier A gave you a great proposal that beat supplier B and you went back to supplier B to try and leverage them down than you hurt your reputation. If supplier B is able to come down further from their original proposal than this tells you that they did not give you their best program the first time around. In addition you have now discredited yourself to supplier A who won the bidding process fair and square. Do you think supplier A would ever want to do business with you in the future? If you honor the commitment of your business based on the package suite of service, relationships and fair prices that are provable, then you should garner the respect of both suppliers. In other words, keeping or switching business has to be accomplished for the right reasons, always without exception. This same principle applies to every manufacturer that could be contacted to contract on high use items. By purchasing with integrity you shock most suppliers and manufacturers because this is something they encounter too infrequently.

Federal 941 Payments - EFTPS & Cash Flow

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:33:00 +0000

Federal Tax 941 payments encompass employee federal withholding and the employer and employee match for Social Security & Medicare deductions. Depending on the employer's frequency of pay (weekly, biweekly) paying the 941's on the same frequency can help manage the cash flow of a business. With payroll expenses being a prime cost for restaurants, paying this tax liability along with that of each pay cycle instead of making monthly or quarterly deposits will increase the likelihood that the cash is hand and not spent somewhere else. To make this process easier the IRS uses the EFTPS of Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. Setting up is easy and instructions and application can be found at the following link: https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/
EFTPS allows electronic filing and payment for the liability and puts all controls right at your fingertips. The best part is there is not printing of checks, filling out an envelope and buying stamps and heading to the post office. Also, if you use Online incorporating services backed by people. like Quickbooks for accounting and payroll purposes then EFTPS payments can be submitted, tracked and paid directly through the Quickbooks software from Intuit.
Electronic Federal Tax Payment Systems does have it's own nuances. Upon completion of the application, in which the TIN or Federal Tax ID # is supplied and business information entered and approved, the banking information and routing # supplied, a verification letter with the banking information is sent out. This document needs to be taken by the banking account owner to the financial institution to get an approved seal by the bank. After this information is returned and accepted by the IRS, a 4 digit PIN # is then sent to the registered address of the business not the address in which other correspondence is directed. Many times this gets lost amongst the shuffling of papers within a restaurant office. Have no fear, the PIN # can be resent to the registered business address. The IRS stipulates that this process takes 14 days. Realistically no matter how diligent or organized you are, plan on 3 weeks to get everything up and running.
To complete the process two pieces of information are required by the employer or payroll manager to pay the 941 taxes. These are the 4 digit PIN # and the Internet Password. Do not ever lose these numbers because recapturing them or creating a new Internet Password via the automated phone system and submitting for a new PIN# are another walk in the park.
Do not despair, the EFTPS was designed to get the Government it's money faster, but it does help regulate cash flow from payroll expenses and simplify the 941 filing and tax liability payments. Incorporation

Food Safety Accredidation & Certification

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Link to food safety requirements per state: http://www.servsafe.com/sra/state_rest_associate.aspx

Links to food safety

http://www.professionalfoodsafety.com/

http://www.foodsafety.gov/~lrd/haccp.html

Links to Servsafe main page & CLASS FINDER:

http://www.servsafe.com/

http://www.servsafe.com/TrainingSearch.aspx

Food Cost % vs. Gross Profit $

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Would you rather have a 20% or 40% food cost %? The answer is - "I need more infomation!" Suppose you purchased a $2 food item and sold it as an entree for $10. Well you realize a 20% food cost and $8 in gross profit. Now imagine you purchased an $8 food item and sold it for $20. Well you now realize a 40% food cost but reap $12 in gross profit. I would rather receive an extra $4 in profit each time I sold a food item. Food Costs are important as they can be used to benchmark your operations, however gross profit $ help to identify the profitability of your menu while allowing a monetary method to dial in and engineer each menu item for the greatest profits. In the example above, if an operator only looking at food cost % swapped out the $8 menu item at 40% cost for the $2 item at 20% cost then he was a hero. Well at least until the owner reviewed the P&L and realized his bottom line shrunk along with the food cost %.

New Hire Reporting

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:02:00 +0000

Most states require that employer's report each new employee they hire. With the turnover rate in restaurants this can be a repetitive process. Payroll companies know this. Many Payroll companies charge a "per employee" fee for registering new hires. What the payroll companies do not tell you is that the process takes no longer than signing onto your States main web site, finding the appropriate link for reporting new hires, and entering the information right off the employees W4. After getting signed up with a username and password for the company you can save the link for timely registering in the future. It is indeed feasible to register your own employees with the state in under 1 minute for each employee. It is also feasible to pay between $4 and $9 per new hire to many payroll companies. If you hire 10 new employees this year you can spend 10 minutes registering thier info or $40 to $90 paying someone else. You make the call.

State of Florida Link for New Hire Reporting: http://newhire-reporting.com/FL-Newhire/default.aspx

How to Design an Effective Logo

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:07:00 +0000

by: Brandon O'dell

March 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments

In order to effectively convey what it takes to create an effective logo, I think it is important to outline the qualities of an effective logo.

An effective logo is easy to recognize, even at a glance or at a distance
An effective logo is easy to remember
An effective logo tells people who you are
An effective logo tells people what you do
An effective logo suggests your service style

An effective logo may also have one “bonus” attribute that can make it not only effective, but outstanding. Your logo may also convey your unique selling point.

Knowing what it is that an effective logo conveys, we can start to look at some design qualities an effective logo has and doesn’t have, and why they are important.

Color scheme

Hopefully, your restaurant has a color scheme. Your scheme helps identify you and should consist of two contrasting colors. From those two colors, you can also find complimentary colors to use in the interior and exterior decoration of your restaurant. Often, the color black or another third color can be used to make the primary colors “pop”. It’s also good to know that certain colors have distinct psychological effects on how people behave. You may have noticed that many large chain restaurants use the colors red and yellow in their restaurant designs. These two colors make people feel “excited”. Research has shown that this excitement leads customers to eat more inside the restaurants they are used in.

Gradients

A gradient is the resulting color pattern when one color fades into another color. This effect may look artistic and interesting, but it muddles your logo and makes it harder to recognize at a glance or distance. It also makes reproducing your logo more expensive or even impossible with some reproduction methods, like embroidery. Stay away from gradients if you want a logo that is easy to recognize and easy to remember.

Bevels and highlights

Effects such as beveling, which makes the center of an object look raised while the edge appears to “drop down”, and highlighting serve to muddle an images appearance just as gradients do. While the effects look artistic and make the logo more interesting, it also makes the logo more difficult to see at a glance or distance, and harder to commit to memory. In logo design, too much detail results in a bad logo.

Shadows

After the last two paragraphs, I hope you don’t need much detail on why shadows, especially drop shadows, are bad for a logo. They add artsy detail that only serves to confuse the image. It’s extra detail that is there more for the logo artists ego than to make the logo more effective. Remember, “attractive” doesn’t equal “effective”.

Fonts

One of the most common logo design mistakes is using a font that is too hard to read, or putting a font on a background whose color does not contrast enough with the color of the font, resulting in lettering that doesn’t stand out enough. If the words on your logo are lost because they are too hard to read, you don’t have an effective logo.

Wording

What words you use in your logo and how they are emphasized based on the font size and color will greatly affect your logo’s ability to be recognized and remembered easily. More importantly, a poorly worded logo will not communicate to your potential customers who you are and what you do. Without communicating your identity and your message, your logo might as well be a blue dot with no words. An example would be a restaurant that just calls itself “Ralph’s” and has a logo consisting of the name “Ralph’s” over a plain background, like a circle, with no other words. This logo could easily convey what the business does by adding the word “restaurant” to the logo. It could communicate even better by including words that says what Ralph’s Restaurant sells, like “Ralph’s Sub Sandwiches”. Another approach would be to not have the extra words, but to use an image or background that infers “restaurant” or “sub sandwiches”. For example, Ralph’s could be spelled out between two hoagie bun images with a lettuce leaf on top and a tomato on bottom. This would leave no doubt that Ralph’s is selling sub sandwiches.

Shape

An effective logo doesn’t just need an easy to recognize color scheme, and words that effectively convey what the business sells. An effective logo also needs to utilize a basic geometric shape that helps identify the logo when someone is too far away to read the words. Along with a basic two color scheme, a shape in a logo makes that logo very easy to recognize. Think of McDonalds big yellow “M” or Burger King’s split yellow sphere (probably a bun) with a blue swoosh around the name and sphere. They create basic shapes and color patterns that are easy to recognize as soon as the sign comes into view, long before you are close enough to read the words.

Overall, you can summarize these design points by just reminding yourself to “keep it simple”. Too much detail may win some “oohs” and “aahs” from your friends, or make you feel better about your design prowess, but it won’t result in a logo that accomplishes the most basic task a logo is intended for, making people remember you and what you do.

Brandon O’Dell

O’Dell Restaurant Consulting

http://www.bodellconsulting.com/

blog.bodellconsulting.com

brandon@bodellconsulting.com

Office: (888) 571-9068

A History of US Foodservice

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:47:00 +0000

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U.S. Foodservice

The name "US Foodservice" comes from US Foodservice Inc, a broadline distributor based in Wilkes-Barre, PA. US Foodservice Inc was formed in March 1992 by Unifax Inc specifically to acquire the White Swan Inc, a Dallas-based distributor.^[2] The merger with White Swan Inc was completed in October 1993. Via a share exchange (shares of White Swan were swapped for shares of US Foodservice), it created one of the largest broadline distributors in the country.

The resulting combined entity had five operating subsidiaries: White Swan, Bevaco Food Service, Kings Foodservice Inc., Roanoke Restaurant Service and Biggers Brothers Inc, thus operating foodservice distribution centers in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Florida. Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co., owned a controlling ownership in both White Swan and US Foodservice, by virtue of its funding each company's leveraged buyouts – White Swan in 1988 and Unifax Inc in 1992. The US Foodservice management team will include Frank Bevevino, president and chief executive; Thomas G. McMullen and Peter Smith, vice presidents; David F. McAnally, vice president and chief financial officer; and William Griffin, vice president of administration.

In 1995, US Foodservice of Wilkes Barre, PA was the 4th largest broadline foodservice distributor, according to Institutional Distributor Magazine, behind Sysco (#1), S.E. Rykoff/John Sexton (d.b.a. Rykoff-Sexton) (#2), and Kraft Foodservice (#3), and just ahead of JP Foodservice (#5), and PYA/Monarch (#6).

Within the next 12–24 months, S.E. Rykoff/John Sexton would establish a solid hold of this #2 spot by acquiring Continental Foods of Baltimore, MD, H&O Foods of Las Vegas, NV, and US Foodservice. Rykoff-Sexton management created the Rykoff-Sexton Funding Corporation to finance the acquisition of their near competitor US Foodservice, and by the end of 1996 the newly renamed and much larger corporation was now trading on the New York Exchange as Rykoff-Sexton Inc.

US Foodservice had now become a division of Rykoff-Sexton Inc. The Rykoff-Sexton Inc. parent corporation was now operating a handful of divisions, a broadline foodservice distribution division (d.b.a. "US Foodservice" after combining with the S.E. Rykoff and John Sexton & Co distribution divisions), a private label manufacturing division (historical foodservice brands like John Sexton and SERCO), a foodservice contract and design division (historically known as Finegolds), and foodservice equipment and supply (2nd in size at the time to only Edward Don & Company).

Rykoff-Sexton Inc management was not done yet, negotiations were already underway in 1997 to combine with JP Foodservice. Mark Van Stekelenburg, then Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Rykoff-Sexton Inc, and the former President and Chief Executive Officer of G.V.A., Inc, the largest food service distributor in the Netherlands and a subsidiary of Royal Ahold N.V., had led the 2nd largest food distributor Rykoff-Sexton Inc. into the combination of the industry's #2, #4, and #5 largest corporations in less than 24 months. In early 1997, Mark Van Stekelenburg said, "Rykoff-Sexton Inc./U.S. Foodservice will be the number 1, number 2, or number 3 player in every market in which it serves the broadline foodservice distribution business."

In late 1997, JP Foodservice ($1.7 billion in revenues) jumped into second place among foodservice distributors with the consummation of a merger with rival Rykoff-Sexton Inc (with just under $5 billion in revenues) for $1.4 billion. Unlike previous acquisitions that JP Foodservice had undertaken, the merger with Rykoff-Sexton was much bigger. Sales were expected to triple, to $6 billion, and the number of JP Foodservice customers ballooned to 130,000. As a result, Standard & Poor's added JPF to the S&P MidCap 400 Index. The merger also changed JP Foodservice from a major distributor in the East and Midwest into one operating coast to coast. New territories included the Southeast, the Sun Belt, and the West Coast.

[edit] The reemergence of U.S. Foodservice

Mark Van Stekelenburg in early 1998, now a Director on the JP Foodservice Board, Vice Chairman of the JP Foodservice Board, and President of JP Foodservice, gave the reins of the corporation to Jim Miller, and returned to Royal Ahold N.V., (NYSE: AHO [ADR]), the leading international food provider with major operations in the US, Europe and Latin America. Shortly after the departure of Mark Van Stekelenburg, JP Foodservice changed its name to U.S. Foodservice. Thus the reemergence of the U.S. Foodservice corporation, previously privately held in 1995, as of Monday, March 2, 1998, the trading symbol was changed from "JPF" to "UFS" and was now being traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange.

Acquisitions continued even as the new U.S. Foodservice (NYSE: UFS) worked to assimilate the Rykoff-Sexton operations, adding Sorrento Food Service, Inc., of Buffalo, Westlund, a Minnesota custom cut meat specialist and a number of other smaller foodservice companies.

By mid-1998, Chairman and CEO Jim Miller was justifiably proud of the accomplishments, telling the Baltimore Sun, "We not only successfully completed the largest merger ever in our industry, tripling the size of our company, we did so achieving record earnings and meeting or exceeding virtually every goal set out in our merger plan." In the 3rd quarter of the calendar year 1998, U.S. Foodservice announced it was selling the assets of its Rykoff-Sexton manufacturing division as part of its plan to shed its non-core operations.

The successful integration of the larger Rykoff-Sexton company made U.S. Foodservice a favorite among analysts, and the company itself indicated it was still on the lookout for purchases in the highly fragmented foodservice industry.

One year later, 1999, fiscal 2000, U.S. Foodservice is generating sales that exceed $7 billion and has caught the attention of Royal Ahold N.V. (NYSE: AHO [ADR]). Within the first quarter of calendar year 2000, Royal Ahold has filed a tender offer, filed by Ahold Acquisition, Inc. and Koninklijke Ahold N.V. with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to purchase all outstanding shares of U.S. Foodservice.

[edit] Post 2000

[edit] U.S. Foodservice becomes division of Royal Ahold NV

March 20, 2000, U.S. Foodservice agreed to be acquired by Royal Ahold for $26 per share or $3.6 billion.

To strengthen its presence in the southeastern United States, U.S. Foodservice acquired former sister company PYA/Monarch for $1.57 billion on December 5, 2000. The acquisition meant U.S. Foodservice's sales would now reach $12 billion annually.

In November 2001, the U.S. Foodservice division of Ahold, acquired Alliant Exchange Inc., parent company of Alliant Foodservice. This greatly expanded the geographical range of its activities. In fact, U.S. Foodservice said Alliant would give it access to 21 new U.S. markets. This $2.2 billion purchase gives U.S. Foodservice distribution centers and food processing facilities in areas that are serving 100,000 customers--including independent and multiunit restaurant operations, hotels, contract foodservice operations and healthcare facilities. In 2000, Alliant Foodservice reported revenues of $6.6 billion. (Kraft Foodservice became Alliant Foodservice in 1996 after Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc. purchased the Kraft Foodservice division from the Philip Morris Corporation).

After the Alliant acquisition, U.S. Foodservice was now generating combined total revenues of approaching $14 billion. U.S. Foodservice growth was 600% over the last 6 years, from about $2 billion in revenues in 1995, to $14 billion in late 2001.

The making of U.S. Foodservice reflects the trends of its industry: from retail to institutional customers; from specific products to a broadline of offerings; from single distribution centers to multi-unit branches; increased professionalism and customer service; and, most pronounced, the continuing and aggressive expansion through acquisition.

[edit] U.S. Foodservice taken private by investment funds

During 2006 there was much speculation as to which equity firm would acquire U.S. Foodservice from Royal Ahold. Ahold had refused to consider a spinoff of the subsidiary to the capital markets, and appeared to be headed toward an auction that JP Morgan would manage.

This was consistent with many larger going concerns in the United States that appeared to be headed away from being publicly traded in what many believed was an attempt to avoid the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. After the internal accounting controls and procedures struggles that U.S. Foodservice had gone through over the past 3 years--the very same that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was designed to address--one had to wonder if U.S. Foodservice being privately held was the proper path toward a transparent valuation of the company.

On May 2, 2007, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc. (CD&R) and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (KKR) announced a definitive agreement to acquire U.S. Foodservice from Royal Ahold. Funds affiliated with CD&R and KKR are equal partners in the transaction, valued at $7.1 billion. The Washington Post quoted Robert S. Goldin, an executive vice president at Technomic, a food consulting firm in Chicago, as saying, "When Ahold acquired U.S. Foodservice, the industry consensus was that it overpaid." Industry analysts had previously estimated U.S. Foodservice could be worth $5.1 billion to $5.7 billion, the Post reported, adding that industry experts now agreed that Ahold got top dollar.

"For Ahold this is a reasonably good end to what's been a pretty unsuccessful foray into U.S. food distribution," Goldin continued. "It's been a sore spot for them. They overpaid for the business and never rationalized it. I would imagine they are pretty happy to put this one behind them."

The Post added that "Ahold was forced to restate more than $800 million in earnings after it came to light that U.S. Foodservice executives had inflated promotional rebates from suppliers to meet earnings targets. The scandal caused the parent company's shares to plunge."

"Ahold settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission two years ago and agreed to pay $1.1 billion to resolve shareholder lawsuits."

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Who is the Target Market for your Restaurant?

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:05:00 +0000

by: Brandon O'dell

October 17th, 2008 · No Comments

This may be the most important question you can answer when designing a restaurant concept. It is definitely the most important question to answer when creating a marketing plan.

One of the biggest mistakes restaurants make is trying to appeal to everyone. If you think that your target market includes everyone, you are setting yourself up to fail. If you want to be successful in any business, especially the restaurant business, then you need to define who it is that is most likely to buy your products, and focus your concept to appeal to that defined market.

First off, let me tell you what a target market or target demographic is and what it isn’t.

A target market IS the portion of the population most likely to buy what you are selling.

A target market ISN’T the portion of the population you want to sell your food to.

Do you see the difference? You must realize that your target market picks you, you don’t pick it.

When creating a plan to market your restaurant, focus on these points.

1. Realistically define what type of person is most likely to enjoy what you want to offer.

2. Assess whether that particular demographic works or lives in large enough numbers within 3 miles of your location to support your concept.

3. Make sure your marketing is communicated in a manner that demographic can understand, and broadcast via a medium that demographic uses.

Here is how you use those points to build your marketing plan.

Point 1: Realistically define what type of person is most likely to enjoy what you want to offer.

This isn’t the time to be politically correct. You need to examine gender, age, race, religion, income, background, prejudices and sexual orientation among other things if you want to get a clear picture of who you should be marketing to. No matter who you want as a customer, kosher Jews and Muslims aren’t going to eat at your BBQ joint. Lower income Asian families aren’t going to eat at your bistro, and upper income, white yuppies aren’t likely to visit your diner in the hood. If you have a “quiet” atmosphere, don’t expect to attract families of any type. If you have a “noisy” atmosphere, don’t expect seniors.

Until you throw political correctness out the window and truly define exactly who is most likely to eat what you offer, in the atmosphere you are offering it, at the price you are charging for it, you aren’t ready to move on to the next step.

Point 2: Assess whether that particular demographic works or lives in large enough numbers within 3 miles of your location to support your concept.

Once you know who it is that is truly most likely to buy your food, you’ll need to consider whether or not they live or work in large enough numbers in your area to support your business. This is a feasibility exercise. With this point, you are determining whether or not it is even possible for your idea of a restaurant to make it in the location you are considering.

If your concept appeals to low income seniors on a fixed budget, you shouldn’t be putting it in an upscale shopping center surrounded by neighborhoods full of high income families. You also don’t want to open a bistro appealing to high income white people in the ghetto. While these examples seem obvious, I’ve seen many restaurant make the mistake of putting their concept in an area where their target market does not live or work in great numbers.

A good rule of thumb is to only consider the initial 1-mile and 3-miles radius around your restaurant when evaluating the presence of your target market. Whatever the sex, age and income of the persons most likely to eat your food, those persons need to be living or working in great numbers within a 1 to 3 mile radius of your restaurant. The closer the better.

On to the next point.

Point 3: Make sure your marketing is communicated in a manner that demographic can understand, and broadcast via a medium that demographic uses.

Email marketing isn’t going to produce customers for a breakfast diner appealing to seniors. Radio ads on an easy listening radio station aren’t going to bring in 20 and 30 year old hipsters. If you haven’t defined who it is most likely to buy your food, it’s not likely you are using marketing mediums most likely seen/heard by your most likely customers.

In marketing, you must use the language your target market understands. Speak your target market’s language and only create offers that target market values. $10 off a meal isn’t going to attract high income middle aged married couples, but a complimentary bottle of wine with any food ticket over $50 might. While any demographic appreciates a good deal, each demographic has a different set of values. What is valued by middle class high school kids won’t be the same as what is valued by humble German country folk. The language each of these groups understands will also be different.

Communication with your potential customers is just as important as communication with your employees. If you are speaking a language your customers don’t understand, or designing offers your target demographic doesn’t value, then your marketing will be a big waste of money. If your current marketing isn’t working, there is a good chance you’re doing one of these two things.

I hope I’ve driven home the importance of defining your target market. Marketing can be an expensive undertaking, but if you define exactly who it is you should be marketing to, you can greatly reduce the cost involved in reaching the customers most likely to eat at your restaurant. With the right approach, you can not only compete with chain restaurants with big marketing budgets, you can beat them.

Brandon O’Dell
O’Dell Restaurant Consulting
http://www.bodellconsulting.com/
blog.bodellconsulting.com
brandon@bodellconsulting.com
Office: (888) 571-9068

Who's In Charge of your Restaurant?

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:05:00 +0000

by: Brandon O'dell

October 14th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Charlie said….. Marla said….. Patrice said…..

He said, she said. It’s a game that gets played in a lot of businesses. Not having a defined “pecking order” that is understood by every person in your organization can lead to a lot of unnecessary headaches. Here’s a quick lesson about avoiding this business pitfall.

Who is in charge when you’re not in your restaurant? Who is your second when you are/aren’t there?

Every good business structure includes a management tree. At the top is the owner(s). Just below, the CEO or General Manager. Underneath may be assistant managers, shift supervisors, trainers, tenured employees and new employees. Any which way the hierarchy of your restaurant shakes out, it’s very important that your entire staff understands who is in charge at any given time.

Not having a set chain of command leads to confusion. To a new employee, any person in your business is someone to be obeyed and learned from. As I’m sure you know, different employees of yours have different methods for doing the same thing. One may be better, one may be worse. Either way, the only way things should be getting done is yours. This is only possible with accountability through creating a chain of command that allows you to police your systems and correct errors within the system.

When creating a system of hierarchy, avoid this one common mistake; do NOT give equal, shared authority to two different employees. Sharing authority equally creates stalemates and sets you up to lose track of who is accountable when the wrong decisions are made. He said, she said.

Create a management tree. Don’t split authority. Hold your staff accountable.

Brandon O’Dell
O’Dell Restaurant Consulting
http://www.bodellconsulting.com/
blog.bodellconsulting.com
brandon@bodellconsulting.com
Office: (888) 571-9068

Keeping it simple: How to create a restaurant concept that can succeed

noreply@blogger.com (wsm190) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0000

by: Brandon O'dell

September 23rd, 2008 · 1 Comment

High failure rates for restaurants. Yes they’re exaggerated, but they’re still high. According to recent studies from Cornell and Ohio State universities, 59-60% of restaurants fail within the first three years. As many as 75% may fail within the first five. Why are they so high? For a list of the six biggest reasons, see The biggest mistakes restaurants make, and why they have a high failure rate.

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to talk about a key fundamental in restaurant concept design, keeping it simple.

Big menus with too many items, oversized dining rooms, multi-ingredient dishes, huge liquor selections and wine lists and over decorating. They’re all symptoms of the same problem, overcomplicating your concept.

As a restaurateur, you may find yourself getting bored with traditional menu items. For you, eating in a restaurant might need to be an adventure. You may have to see or try something you’ve never seen before to be impressed. Very well. I’m the same way.

This may be the underlying factor in why restaurant owners routinely go overboard when designing their concepts. They push their own sensibilities on the general public, not realizing that their tastes are the exception to the rule, and not indicative of the tastes of the public at large. Restaurateurs think they need to present every dish possible to make out of the ingredients they already carry. They think carrying 15 scotches instead of 5 will earn them more customers. If you have a larger selection, you’ll appeal to more people, right? Wrong.

Trying to please everyone leaves you unable to be defined. When you have too many colors in your decor, too many styles of fixtures and furniture, and menu items that represent too many styles of cuisine, your customers find it harder to describe you and recommend you. You find it harder to manage your business effectively and market your brand. You’re trying to stand for too many things at once. Cut out all the extras and keep it simple.

Here’s a short list of things you can do to keep your concept simple.

Choose two contrasting but complementary colors to design your concept around. You may use a third neutral color for accenting, but stay away from unneeded detail and too many extra colors in your scheme. To create a solid brand, you need to be more than attractive, you need to be memorable, and that means keeping your color scheme simple. Use these colors to design your logo, signage, marketing, and to decorate the inside and outside of your restaurant.

Keep your menu small. This serves many purposes, some of which are outlined in my article, Creating a manageable menu. A small menu is easier to control costs on, easier to prepare and order for, and easier to provide consistency with. By having a small menu, your service will be faster, your food quality will be better, and you’ll make more money. Keep your menu simple.

Keep your dining room simple. Smaller dining rooms are easier to manage. If you’re thinking of opening your first restaurant, don’t build a huge dining room with 200 seats. A large dining room takes a large management staff and lots of employees to run. If you find that your 80 seat restaurant gets full every night, then build another one. Don’t worry that you’re not building it big enough.

Keep your market simple. Don’t convince yourself that you want all people of all demographics to like your business. It’s not going to happen. By going after “everyone”, you’ll end up with no one. Even if your style of cooking has mass appeal, your location will determine who is most likely to come into your restaurant. Identify those person’s age, income level, sex, marital status and religion. They are your target market whether you like it or not. If your concept doesn’t appeal to the people in your area, then you don’t have a feasible concept and you aren’t likely to succeed. Keep your demographic simple and focused. For more on identifying your target market, read this article.

Keep your menu dishes simple. When you have too many ingredients, and/or too many touches that need to be made to the dish after it’s ordered, before it goes out, you slow down the production of your food. A ticket will only go out as fast as it’s slowest dish. Keep your food simple and easy to produce. Let the ingredients be the stars and don’t lose them in a mish mash of flavors.

Don’t try to carry every liquor any possible customer could want. If you don’t have Glen Fiddich, but you do have five other single malt scotches, any reasonable customer is not going to overlook your restaurant next time because you don’t carry their particular brand, and for the one in 1000 customers who will, so what. It is more important for you to have a manageable inventory and a selection small enough for your staff to become knowledgeable on than it is to try and please every customer’s sense of taste. I’ve got a secret for you. Even if you carry 30 different vodkas, you’ll still end up with someone requesting one you don’t have. Keep your liquor and wine selection simple.

While this is the end of this short list, it’s not the end of the application of this fundamental philosophy of restaurant concept design. Any time you have the opportunity to simplify your concept, take it. You’ll end up with something that is simpler to manage, simpler to market, and simpler to turn a profit with.

Brandon O’Dell
O’Dell Restaurant Consulting
http://www.bodellconsulting.com/
blog.bodellconsulting.com
brandon@bodellconsulting.com
Office: (888) 571-9068