How to Run a Restaurant

You Can Also Read Our Article About Restaurant Business Plan


The best way to overcome any disaster is by laying out a good defense. The excellent defense here means you are equipped with the required information pertaining to running a restaurant. Starting a restaurant business is quite exciting marred with many challenges beginning from designing the restaurant layout, hiring the right personnel, and keeping a close eye on your close competitors. All this should be done while in the kitchen preparing a delicious meal and providing top-notch services. It is onerous and time-consuming. I am not scaring you but been loyal to you. Opening a restaurant is just the tip of an iceberg in the sea. Anyone can do it as long as he/she has funds but running the restaurant is a big deal. I know you are wondering how you can run a restaurant successfully with all those pressing matters, worry not because you are on the right track.



Running a restaurant business is not much different from any other company apart from the fact that, you have to business-minded, innovative and committed in this arena since this business entity is very delicate and very competitive. It has been a challenge to many people who have the zeal to open and run a restaurant. In this article, I am going to show you how to run a restaurant efficiently. No one has ever survived from a silver platter. We all start from somewhere and struggle all through.

Many times you will record-high profits, and sometimes you will even think of closing the business and go back home. Running a restaurant business requires someone who will look beyond his nose and work the extra mile to make sure the company is up and running. However, you must draft a contingency plan if you want to succeed. As the saying goes, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail,’ restaurant business should have an order of events/operations. When the workers follow the restaurant rules and policies to the latter for some time, it will become a restaurant culture, and the workers become used to them. It becomes easy to run the restaurant because there is no conflict between workers and restaurant management. With all that in mind, I am going to give you some tips on how you can run a restaurant efficiently on a daily basis.

Managing the Restaurant Finances

Every day, there is a continuous flow of money in and out of the restaurant. Money flow in when customers make payment for their meals and flow out when the restaurant manager pays for restaurant deliveries. If this inflow and outflow of money are not well managed, the restaurant may end up collapsing. Funds run a restaurant business. Funds are the fundamental pillar of any business. Whether it is a loan you have acquired or your family savings, the funds must be managed. If the funds are not well controlled, then your restaurant will be long gone. We have witnessed many nourishing restaurants collapse within a short period due to fund embezzlement by the managers. For you to run a restaurant efficiently, you must have workers who are loyal and honest to you.



Managing restaurant finances does not mean that you underpay your workers. It says the restaurant funds are well channeled. There is no mismanagement of funds through dubious projects or unnecessary purchases. Purchases are made at the right time and when required. Some managers take this as an opportunity to exploit the workers. If the workers are not well paid, they lack job motivation and end up offering poor services to customers by either taking too long to deliver orders or by been harsh to customers hence chasing customers away from your restaurant.

Running a restaurant does not require a genius to figure it out but to make the right decisions. If you choose to pay your workers handsomely, then pay them and make sure they work as per the set standards. Employing qualified workers is an added advantage to the restaurant owner since they will be professional and they will offer the best services. Many restaurant owners prefer not to employ these workers since they will demand high salaries little do they know their work will be on point.

Running a restaurant for dummies is an initiative many restaurant owners are preferring. It is an excellent invention, but one has to figure out its cost. You need to ask when dummies substitute the workers, will they be able to be as efficient as the workers? Does the cost of purchasing the dummies surpass the cost of hiring human workers? What is the availability of the dummy's spare parts in case they break down? If the pros of running a restaurant for dummies surpass the cons, then open the restaurant. Many customers may not prefer been served by dummies which they cannot have a conversation, or they cannot complain too.

Making Deliveries and Use of Online Food Delivery Systems The invention of the internet has made marketing very easy. Long a gone the days’ business people used to walk door to door sensitizing people about their business products. You only need a laptop and internet access, and you are good to go. Marketing is the pillar of any business. It improves business sales. You cannot fetch high returns if you are not making massive sales in a day. Running a restaurant requires you to market your business. One of the platforms where you can effectively market your restaurant is through social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, what sup and Instagram. Many people especially the youth spend more time on these sites chatting. You can use this opportunity to promote your restaurant by posting pictures of your restaurant, the delicious meals that you offer, your restaurant location and how they can make orders. Before you can make this move, make sure you have an established and working online food ordering system where customers can order meals at the comfort of their seats. This system is used by many customers who have visitors and are held up such that they cannot cook for them. You need to make sure you have a delivery van to make sure the food ordered by the customers is delivered on time and the right condition. Due to involving nature of many jobs, people are finding it difficult to cook at their homes. Customers prefer a restaurant with an online food ordering system to order a meal.

Restaurant deliveries should always be efficient. Before you research on how to run a restaurant successfully, you need to first look for a reliable supplier. A customer cannot book a meal, and your response is ‘I am sorry I cannot offer that meal because my supplier did not make a delivery’. You will sign your career suicide note. You should always make sure you have enough inventory at the store. Running a restaurant business is not a hit and run business, it is continuous. It requires continues the supply of stocks so that you can offer regular services to customers.

Having proper and excellent delivery services is very crucial to a restaurant business since it retains customers. Customers would not return to make an online order if the last one they experienced was negative. They will urge their peers not to make any orders from your restaurant because it is not trustworthy. This is how you will start losing customers. In the world of business, you should ever do anything that can make you lose a customer. It is difficult to convince a customer to buy from you unlike convincing him to start buying from you. The same thing happens to deliver orders made by the customers. Once a customer makes an order, he expects it to be addressed as soon as possible. Food is a basic need, and it cannot be postponed. The only cure for hunger is food so running a restaurant requires a proper installation of delivery channels. The restaurant should have a well-organized delivery management process that is ready to make all the deliveries and swiftly solve all the delivery problems and complains that might arise. Once the orders come to the management, they can plan and reduce time wastage. Many people do not know how to run a restaurant successfully. For the restaurant business to be successful in delivering the orders, delivery tracking is required. This is to monitor the movement of the goods along the delivery cycle and be able to update the customers since you have visibility of the products. Your customers will not know when to receive their orders.

Creating a Restaurant Menu

A menu is like a mirror for the restaurant’s meals and services it offers. A customer cannot walk into the kitchen to choose a meal that he wants; he will request for a menu. This shows how crucial a menu is to any restaurant. If you are asking yourself, how can I run a restaurant business successfully? This article well answers this question. First, you must make sure your menu is well designed. You must be flexible and ready to adapt to the changing environment. Many restaurants are now offering tablets that are customized with apps where a customer can browse food on the menu and make an order.

These restaurants have online food ordering systems that do not require the customer to walk all the way to the counter to place an order. You need to invest in these customized apps so that customers can place orders on their own. These apps offer a detailed description of the food, eliminates errors made by the waiters when taking orders and reduces the cost since few waiters are required. However, these customized menus are limited to visually impaired people since they cannot see the displayed food and illiterate people.

Secondly, the restaurant menu should be strategically placed where customers can easily access it. Start a restaurant menu and put it on the restaurant wall or the restaurant tables if you do not have the customized tablets. Many customers do not like shouting to request for a menu to make an order. A small booklet and a pen should accompany the menu where the customer can write down his order. Clear pictures of the meals should be displayed on the menu for the customer to make the right order bearing in mind some customers may decide to order a particular type of meal because it looks delicious on the menu. The restaurant management should make sure that the meal pictures are not exaggerated to attract customers. You should not add a meal that you cannot provide in the menu. The menu should be updated daily.

For those restaurants with neither customized tablets nor menu booklets, the restaurant owner, can choose to write the menu on the chalkboard on the restaurant wall where everyone can see it. He must make sure all the words are visible. It will be easy for him to make any changes to the menu because he can rub it. Starting a menu makes it easy for the customers since they can budget for their meals. The menu shows the cost of each meal thus cases of customers being held captivity because they cannot pay for their meals are minimized.

Why so Many Restaurants Fail

As I said earlier, the restaurant business is very challenging. Just like any other business, it can fail. Running a restaurant takes more than just pure inspiration to keep it running. Many restaurants collapse between their fifth and sixth years. Below, I am going to discuss the common reason why most restaurants fail.

a) Lack of Market Research

Before you think about how you can run a restaurant business, carry out market research. The research will help you to identify the meals on-demand, your target customers, the cost of running the restaurant and the legal documents to open the business. Many restaurants have been closed because the owners do not possess the required documents such as Restaurant License, Food Handling Permit, Liquor License, and Music License. Market research is crucial to anyone planning to start a restaurant business since it opens your mind. You are able to know the likely challenges and look for ways to overcome them. If you find out that the nearby restaurants do not use an online food ordering system, then this will be your arsenal to place yourself ahead of them.

b) Poor Management

Poor managers can ruin your restaurant's potential to grow since he/she is responsible for overseeing all the restaurant’s operations and hiring. Mismanagement of the restaurant's funds can lead to its closure. Every business requires proper management. Management starts with listening to customer complains, maintaining high standards of hygiene to the appropriate allocation of funds. You have to listen to your customers even if they are wrong. You should ensure your workers can handle short-tempered customers nicely without causing any trouble. The restaurant manager should make sure all the customers are satisfied with the services offered by talking to them when he is not too busy with office work. Running a restaurant requires creating time to interact with customers to hear their views.

c) The Food is not Delicious

The primary service offered in many restaurants is a meal. If your chef is not able to cook a nice delicious meal, then you are doomed. No customer will come to your restaurant to have any lunch or dinner. For you to run the restaurant successfully, you should always taste your food before it is served to know how it tastes. Your diet needs to taste good always to guarantee you that you don’t lose customers. Customers are willing to pay any amount of money as long as the meal is worth it. I am sure you have found yourself wondering why wealthy people choose to go to costly restaurants and pay a tremendous amount of money while they can have the same meal at a lower price. It is not that they are extravagant, it is because the services offered in that restaurant are worth that amount.

d) Poor Marketing

The central pillar of any business lies in its marketing. The success of a restaurant business depends on its marketing. The restaurant marketing covers; product promotion, public relations, advertising, and sales. If you market your restaurant, it is likely to increase its market share. How to run a restaurant successfully depends on the marketing strategies you have placed. Your restaurant business would be offering the best services in the entire continent, but none of your potential customers would know about it. For you to become successful in running a restaurant, you must toil and moil. Marketing increases sales since customers are aware of your products and your location. Marketing builds a restaurant's reputation. The success of a business rests on its status. As the reputation grows the restaurant increases its operation so as the sales.

e) Unsuitable Location

People who choose to open a restaurant in rural areas are guaranteed to fail. Restaurants owners should choose to situate their restaurants in an ideal area where they are visible and easily accessible. Areas such as bus terminals, near the train stations and Central Business District are likely to fetch more customers. Running a restaurant business in this area is very expensive because the cost of rent is too high. The landlord does not care if you made any sales, he only cares about the rent. You have to try your best to choose a strategic place where you can afford the rent.

You should choose a location far away from the waste dumpsite, sewers or any other contaminating agents. You should first consider the population base in that location. How many people in that region prefer having their meals in a restaurant? To determine the location population, you can conduct a site visit and carry out a study. You cannot choose to run a restaurant in an underpopulated area; there is no market. The location should be spacious enough for your restaurant. These include a parking space for the customer and the accessibility of the restaurant. This is the reason many restaurants are situated near the highways so that travelers and motorists can reach the restaurant without struggling with traffic.

f) Poor Hiring Management

Some restaurant managers have poor hiring management. They don’t know how to choose the best candidate for the job. They employ a cashier, and after a few months down the road, he is making losses or stealing from the restaurant. Before you can think about how you can run a restaurant efficiently, you should have excellent hiring skills or someone who possesses excellent hiring skills in mind. Other managers will choose to employ their relatives in the restaurant who have no qualifications. Apart from these being inappropriate, it is also illegal. Running a restaurant calls for someone who is independent-minded. Someone who puts the restaurant welfare before his sentiments.

Restaurants managed by people from the same family are likely to collapse because there will be mismanagement of the inventories. The workers will start carrying the stocks and food to their homes since they see the manager as their relative and he cannot suck them.

g) Ruthless Customer Service

This is an apparent cause for any restaurant to close.

Customers want to be respected by the waiters. However, some difficult customers require special attention. Restaurant workers should address these customers with a lot of professionalism. Quarreling with customers can make you lose clients. People watch how you handle customers when there is a conflict. If you yell at one customer, then the other customers present will know you will yell at them next time and shun from your restaurant.

It is said that every customer complains you receive there are four or more unsaid. Handling customer complains is part of the customer service. Listen to the customers even if they are wrong. Make them feel free to express their emotions. Don’t be too quick to judge them. After he is through with talking, tell him where he went wrong and assure him that will never happen again. That customer will walk home satisfied.

Conclusion

After opening a restaurant, you need to know how to run it. This article will help you know how you can run a restaurant without stumbling. It will guide you to achieve your business goals. However, you can have classes on how to run a restaurant on https://articles.bplans.com/start-successful-restaurant-guide

People who are risk-averse are not likely to do well in this business. A restaurant is one of the businesses that involve high risks. You order expensive wines and cook expensive meals, and you are not sure that you will make any sales. You need to be optimistic in this business and remain focused.

In any business, you are not guaranteed to make massive sales every day. Restaurants like any other business face low turnovers. Do not close your restaurant because you did not sell as expected. Continue operating as long as you can cover fixed costs. Running a restaurant business requires someone who is patient. Don’t rush to close the business.

Always have the right intentions in your restaurant. Love it and give it all your efforts. Remember to listen to your employees and other stakeholders who have good intentions. Opening and running the restaurant will require you to devote all your time and money. The restaurant business is the most exciting business you can ever think imagine.

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