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…
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…
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…
Types of Restaurant Finance
There is one key driver in the restaurant business – cash flow. If the cash is not flowing, the restaurant is not growing. And from time-to-time, you need an injection of money into the restaurant for anything from a refit, to expansion, restructuring or simply cash flow. Here is a list of the types of finance available to restaurants: Tax / VAT Funding Business Development Loans Cash-flow / Cash-release Facility Refurbishment Loans Asset Finance / Re-Finance (Leasing) Vehicle Funding Merchant Cash Advance Invoice Financing (Factoring) Personal Loans Secured Loans (2nd charge) Almost all lending is unsecured (ie not secured against property) but does require personal guarantees. I will cover these…
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, Waiter, 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.…
BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL RESTAURANT
