Build your own NHS Track & Trace App in an Hour
Worried about managing all those paper forms? Will your customers even touch them? Worried about the security of third-party apps? You can build your own tracker app in a short time with this handy guide. And use it to grow your mailing list in the process. OK, I have a web design background, but I completed our own NHS Track & Trace application in about an hour using a third-party mailing list system, WordPress and a free online QR code generator (which really brings the magic). Here’s how I did it. Step 1: Mailing List I have used Campaign Monitor for many years, both when I ran my own web…
Guide to re-opening restaurants from July 4th
The government published its guidance for re-opening restaurants and hospitality businesses to open safely from 4th July in the UK. This is a revised version of the document which runs to 43 pages. You can access the full version of the document here. Businesses which are permitted to open have certain criteria which they must adhere to. I won’t go into the details for non-restaurants here, but you can check the details on the government site if you need to. There are 8 areas for restaurants to consider in the document linked above: Thinking about risk Keeping your customers and visitors safe Who should go to work Social distancing for…
Flexible Furlough Scheme – Guidance for Employers July to October
From 1st July 2020, employers will have the flexibility to bring back furloughed employees for part-time work, for any amount of time and on any shift pattern, and still claim furlough grants for any of the employee’s normal hours which are not worked. Furlough pay will be calculated according to an employee’s usual working hours in a claim period minus the hours actually worked. The final date by which an employer can furlough an employee to benefit from the CJRS was 10th June 2020, as the scheme closes to new entrants from 30th June 2020 and an employee must have had a minimum 3-week furlough period before that date if…
Building a Better Restaurant Website
A few of you may know that I come from an IT background and spent about 14 years in the web and eCommerce space before opening my first restaurant 13 years ago. I still manage all our restaurants’ web presence, marketing, social media, etc and thought I would share a few cornerstones of what makes a successful restaurant website. Start with Why This is the first question you need to ask. Why does your website exist? Why are people be visiting your website? There are two reasons people visit your website – research and to find contact details. I discuss research more in Social Media & New Customer Acquisition where…
Comparing Restaurant Delivery Partners: Deliveroo, uberEATS & Just Eat
As a summary and face-off of the big three, I summarise the good, the bad and the ugly between the three major players in the restaurant delivery partner space: Deliveroo, uberEATS and Just Eat. You can read in-depth about each of the three competitors by clicking the links. These ratings are based on my experience in Weybridge, Surrey. Area Deliveroo uberEATS Just Eat Onboarding ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ Driver Efficiency ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ ⭑ Order Workflow ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ Commission ⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ Financial Reporting ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ Online Management Panel ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ Supplied Hardware ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ Telephone Support ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ Email Support ⭑⭑⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ ⭑⭑ Overall Satisfaction ⭑⭑⭑⭑…
How does uberEATS work for restaurants?
uberEATS is one of the major players in the food delivery space. They work much as Deliveroo and Just Eat do, but they have their own version of the workflow, their own tablet to manage orders, and their own quirks. In this post, I will walk through the how their process works. This is from the view of a restaurant outside of a busy urban area (like London), so your mileage will vary in more densely-populated areas. Onboarding It was a long time ago when we did this, but I do recall there were no onboarding fees at the time. However, although they provide you with a tablet to manage…
Life on the Front Lines: A Restaurant in May 2020
COVID 19. Restaurants are closed. The only options are takeaway or delivery. Or bury your head in the sand if you have a good cash float. What follows is my experience from operating a restaurant whose focus is on quality and diversity (being Lebanese requires a broad tapas-like menu typical of the region) and switching from a predominantly dine-in venue with some takeaway to a wholly dark kitchen. Flattening the Curve Just like the intention to protect the NHS and flatten the curve, the switch to a Dark Kitchen results in a similar challenge: Customers want to eat at the same time which creates a surge in demand. On a…
UK Restaurants & The Three-Stage Lockdown Release Plan
The Government has said that businesses will begin to reopen in three steps. However, the Government is also clear that this timetable may change depending on how successful each step has been and whether the virus is under control. We need to follow the guidelines about social distancing, among others, to ensure we avoid a second surge in cases and a consequential delay in this plan. Step 1: 13 May 2020 From Wednesday people who cannot work from home are encouraged to go to work if they can. This includes restaurant staff working in kitchens making food for delivery and takeaway. While staff are encouraged to go to work, they are…
The Post-COVID Restaurant
In the UK we have just been told it would be another 6 weeks (at best) before restaurants will be permitted to have dine-in guests (July 2020). It’s been 6 weeks since the COVID ‘lockdown’ started and since then we have only been permitted to serve takeaway or delivery meals. Some restaurants closed temporarily. Some continued offering take away. Some pivoted to offer a take out option. Some have recently re-opened for takeaway and delivery (as we have since 1st May) and others have forged new paths to maintain their business offer such as converting their restaurant space to retail space offering fresh produce (we have just launched an online…
Top 5 reasons why restaurants fail in the first year
To be fair, in a restaurant, there are a million-and-one things that are likely to go wrong and you need to be the master juggler at a circus to stay on top of everything (or, better, have a good team who does). However, here are five key areas you need to focus on to ensure a better chance of success through the first year. 1 – Location Not understanding the difference between destination locations and high traffic locations, also termed A and B in the UK market. If you are looking at a location in an area classed as “A” (high traffic), it will usually be a more central location…
BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL RESTAURANT
