General

Food sanitation is a must in the restaurant business, but a lot of owners try and reduce their costs by cutting corners. One area where cutting corners isn’t advised is kitchen sanitation. Staff members may want to leave early on a Friday night, and you may want to close up shop to save on utility bills and wages. It's understandable, but not in the restaurant business.

Consultants offer that extra hand, guidance and expertise that a business needs to find success. And in the restaurant business, there are restaurant consultants that can mentor your restaurant to success.

Every restaurant is different, and the reason a restaurant needs a consultant will also be different. Some hire restaurant consulting firms to help them grow their business. Others hire them to market the business, add new dishes or figure out how to get out of their comfort zone.

A business may be doing well, but if it’s not growing, it’s not time to be comfortable.

Cutting costs is essential for every business, and while costs can be cut in the form of workers, it can also be cut in material costs. Restaurant food costs can be cut, and in some cases, you may be able to save 10% or more on your food costs.

There are many ways to cut costs, too.

Whether you run a casual pizza joint or a high-end restaurant, wine should probably be on the menu. Wine is everywhere today, and that's partly thanks to millennials, who now drink about a quarter of the wine inventory in the U.S. Some are now calling wine the "drink of the everyman."

But the best restaurant wine lists don't happen by accident. They're carefully and strategically planned to complement the cuisine and the tastes of guests. Here's how to create the ideal startup wine list.

What's a great way to get more people to your restaurant and spend more time there? Host a live music event. When done properly, live entertainment creates an atmosphere where guests can sit down, enjoy a meal with friends and enjoy some local music. Notice how I said, "when done properly?"

Live music can either enhance your restaurant's atmosphere or kill it. Before you plan your live entertainment event, consider these pros and cons of music events.

You have a great idea for your first restaurant, and you have experience (ideal for anyone looking to start a restaurant). But, like most businesses just starting out, you don’t have the money to fund your startup.

Chances are, your idea may sound great, your business plan may be impeccable, but restaurant financing is difficult.

If a restaurant wants to increase profitability, one of the best methods is incorporating upselling techniques into your marketing strategy. But upselling in restaurants is a bit different than with other businesses, where an upsell can be a warranty, extended support or a higher tier of service for a discounted price.

A happy customer is a customer for life. In the restaurant industry, customer service is everything. Provide great service, and customers will come back again and again. Provide a bad experience, and you may find yourself out of a job.

For most restaurant owners, finding ideas to improve customer service is the biggest challenge.

When going into business, it’s often much cheaper, initially, to purchase used equipment. But over time, this used equipment may cost you more money, or it may last well beyond its typical lifespan and be a steal.

We’re going to help you understand when buying new vs used equipment is ideal.

Every restaurant is unique, and there are no financial rules set in stone on what your restaurant needs to follow. But financial rules of thumb can better help a restaurant manage their finances, pay their bills and remain profitable.

Conducting a restaurant financial analysis is recommended if you have several months or years of data.

At some point, every restaurant owner must make the difficult decision to raise menu prices. Whether it’s because of inflation, wage increases, food price increases or a combination of all three, pricing needs to be adjusted periodically to keep the restaurant up and running.

Menu pricing is both an art and a science.

But how do you know when to raise prices in a restaurant? What’s the best way to raise menu prices?

Restaurant owners spend a lot of time writing their business plans, designing their restaurants and getting financing. But one of the biggest challenges that still lingers is having to find a chef. A good chef will help a restaurant thrive, but a bad chef will cost your restaurant business.

A restaurant’s success rides on its menu pricing. If prices are too low, the business will fail. If prices are too high, the restaurant may have to change its target audience. Determining restaurant menu prices is an art, and this art can make or break a business.

You’re ready to pour your blood, sweat and tears into your restaurant start-up, but you’re worried that things may not go as smoothly as you had hoped. About 17% of restaurants will close in their first year, but in many cases, the owners made mistakes that could have been avoided.

A customer that frequents your restaurant has left you a bad review. Perhaps the customer was passing through, and you’ll never seen them again, or maybe they were a regular that no longer wants to visit your establishment.

In either case, you need to know how to handle negative reviews gracefully.

No matter the reason, you have a new menu and need to introduce it to customers. If you have regulars, this change may be ill-received.

But you may also be adding new items to a similar menu, so it truly depends on how to introduce these new items.

Opening a new restaurant is both exciting and stressful. It’s easy to get so caught up in the location and branding that you overlook the most important part of your business: your equipment.

The best restaurants have the best commercial kitchen equipment.

Opening a new restaurant requires a lot of overhead: incorporation, insurance, menus, staff, utilities, marketing - a lot. But by far one of the biggest and most expensive investments will be in the commercial kitchen supplies needed to run the business.

If you’re thinking of starting up a food truck business, you’re entering a thriving industry. Not only are there over 4,000 food trucks in the United States, but people are flocking to food trucks for everything from tacos to ice cream and even breakfast sandwiches.

The food truck business is the happy medium between going out to a restaurant and getting fast food.

We're going to explain everything it takes to get into the food truck business, from food truck equipment to writing a business plan for a food truck and costs and profits.

If you read our post on how to make a food truck business plan, you may be wondering how to determine the average cost to start a food truck business. There are a lot of costs involved, and you’ll need to consider all of the aspects of owning and buying a truck.

But in this post, we’re going to do our best to provide a base cost to start a food truck business.

Food trucks need to have financing and a place to start their operations. A good place to start is to create your own food truck business plan. New business owners, or aspiring owners, very rarely realize that business plans are for more than financing.

If you're starting a food truck business, you'll first want to do your research for your local license requirements and food truck options. There are some cities and states that make it difficult - if not impossible - to open up a food truck.

But once you've done your due diligence and know that you can open up your own food truck, it's time to start acquiring food truck equipment.

Imagine running your own successful takeout restaurant. Your dreams can become a reality if you know where to start and the right moves to make.

Yes, there will be challenges, but these can be overcome if you have a guide - or a plan - to follow. First, you need to understand what it takes to succeed with a takeout restaurant. Next, you'll need to know which supplies will be needed and how to create a menu that drives more sales.