How does Just Eat work for Restaurants?
In my last post, I talked about how the Deliveroo ordering process works from the point of view of a restaurant. In this post, I will walk through the newest entrant in the delivery space – Just Eat – and contrast how the 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. Just Eat Onboarding Just Eat take care of the whole process for you and send you what is basically a hefty piece of hardware about the size of a stack of dinner plates (or an EPOS system with cash drawer).…
How does Deliveroo work for Restaurants?
Deliveroo is one of the market giants in the food delivery sector. The delivery market hasn’t changed massively over the last couple of years and has been more about consolidation with the ‘Big 3‘ taking the lead: Deliveroo, UberEATS and now Just Eat. Amazon Restaurants came and went (and then invested in Deliveroo in Series G). But I digress. Restaurant Set-Up When we first joined Deliveroo 5 years ago, there was no set-up fee and they sent you a printer and ordering tablet for you to receive orders. However, times have changed and Deliveroo wants a large wedge of your cash as a set-up fee to onboard you, input your…
Delivery Fail: The Problem with a Gig Economy
What do you think a delivery company like Deliveroo, Just Eat or uberEATS should be good at? That’s right – delivery. In my personal experience (outside of London), this – sadly – does not hold true with high enough certainty. I can’t speak for UberEATS as I have no direct experience of their service outside of London, but both Delieroo and Just Eat suffer from the same issue – ‘not enough drivers’ to quote their system. Tip of the Iceberg The problem actually runs much deeper than simply one of having enough drivers; it’s about how those resources are deployed. In the early days, the fleet of riders were employees…
Merchant’s Heart Mixers
One of the upsides of being a restaurateur is that suppliers are always plying you with free samples to try to get you to buy their products. Last week, a rep from Merchant’s Heart popped into Meejana Windsor and dropped off these little bottles so I thought I’d post my initial thoughts on the product. Yet another premium mixer (although Merchant’s Heart calls it a “spirit enhancer”), this time from Japan and made with Bikan Yuso. I thought this was an exotic ingredient until I checked their website where it actually means “A sense of beauty and playful imagination.” Sadly there were no supporting marketing materials left by the rep…
Restaurant Reservations; Why Timing is Everything
Have you ever been to the doctor or the dentist? You arrive a couple of minutes before your appointment only to be greeted with a smile and told that there has been a bit of a delay and you’ll need to wait for your appointment. Or you could come back another day. And you’re only the second booking. Well, the same is true in most restaurants. There is only a finite number of employees both on the floor attending to guests needs and in the kitchen to prepare the dishes. So, when a couple of tables turn up late or early, or a couple of guests monopolise the time of…
Runner, Server, Host. What’s the difference?
There are thousands of books and blog posts written about being a waiter/waitress or server in a restaurant. These range from tips on how to do the job, to how to excel, to mistakes to avoid, to job descriptions, through to training resources of all different types. These are all good, but can often be dry and impartial. So I thought I would outline a more aspirational set of guidelines to help you achieve and deliver more to the guests you are looking after. Your employer will be happier, and you will be too. Even if it’s not your career or you may be doing it to get through college, the guest…
Another Year, Another Restaurant Scam
In the restaurant business, we learn about hospitality. We learn about finance. We learn about marketing. We learn (a lot) about operations as there are so many variables. But we learn - often the hard way - about fraud.
Why we left Quandoo
Quandoo was born in Germany and set out to ‘disrupt’ the restaurant reservations space since competitors like Open Table were charging a fortune for the service. That’s what they told us when we signed up shortly after they launched in the UK. Having recently read Blue Ocean Shift I now understand what it truly means to be a disruptor versus developing new business ideas to (Blue Ocean) Shift the business into a completely different dimension. ‘Disruptor’ is, sadly, an overused word meaning “doing the same as other people with a small twist”. Quandoo’s Disruption? Quandoo’s angle was to charge differently. You had a smaller monthly license fee plus the standard cover charge…
State of the UK Restaurant Market (2017)
This has been based on the excellent piece on PwC about the restaurant sector at the end of 2017, with additional commentary from me based on developments in 2018 and my view of the market from the inside. Food for thought PwC: The restaurant sector has performed well in recent years with market growth underpinned by long-term demographic and consumer trends. But market conditions have become more competitive, consumers are facing pressure on their real incomes from rising inflation and cost pressures are increasing. A more cautious outlook on the sector is justified. Me: Recent high-profile chain closures and restructuring including Toys R Us, Prezzo, Barbecoa, Jamies Italian, Strada, Byron and…
The Employers’ Problem: Some Hospitality Staff Just Don’t Care
I’ve been running restaurants for a little over 10 years now (at the time of writing) and employees have always been a fickle bunch; here today, gone the next. It’s a sad fact of the industry that employees, especially the more junior ones, hop between jobs. Sometimes they are just doing the work to fill in and earn some cash before their next real gig comes along. Sometimes they are just lazy and go back to claim benefits rather than work for a living to improve their situation over the long term. But over the last year, and especially this year, the new recruits-cum-leavers have been the worst I have ever seen.…
MISADVENTURES IN THE RESTAURANT TRADE
