Restaurant Lessons from a Recession (Part Two) – Marketing
Perhaps marketing is the most challenging task a restaurateur faces with or without the impact of a recession. Recognizing that there is a recession is always in hindsight and pinpointing the day it started is impossible. You don’t wake up one morning and the newspaper headlines tell you your business is down, people are losing [...]
Restaurant Lessons from a Recession (Part One)
History is a teacher. The lessons we learn are supposed to help us be more prepared, avoid mistakes and correct our paths into the future to lessen the chance of a repeat historical calamity. Hopefully, we won’t see this financial crisis, dubbed a recession, again, but if we do, here are some notes to remember.
The [...]
Destination Designation – Not Performing in Economic Downturn
Many high end food operations previously positioning themselves as “destination” restaurants are getting hit hard in this recession. Almost every segment of the food service world has been affected in one way or another, but double digit declines for the special occasion operations are the norm. The same store sales decline is on top of [...]
The Recession and the Dirty Little Secret Restaurateurs Can’t or Won’t Talk About
Everyone in the restaurant and hospitality business would agree that having a great staff is key to success. Your kitchen crew is essential to producing a food product guests will crave when the dinner bell rings in their head. Equally important are the people who serve and sell those culinary creations. The wait staff and [...]
Restaurant Survival – Beyond the Recession
Unless you are one of the QSR chains with 79¢ to 99¢ “value” menus, your revenue is down or customer counts are down (and maybe both). Many restaurateurs have resorted to heavy discounting and coupons to drive traffic. While I am highly skeptical of this practice for the long term benefit, many restaurants have been [...]
