Restaurant Owners Uncorked is a collection of interviews with a diverse range of independent restaurant owners. It’s packed with real world practical advice for aspiring restaurant owners, those who currently own a restaurant or those who simply want to understand and be entertained by reading the business philosophies of twenty successful restaurant entrepreneurs.

Definitely a must read for anyone who manages, operates or is thinking of starting a restaurant.

Learn more about the Restaurant Owners Uncorked book by clicking here !

If you are thinking that you have spent an awful lot for that dinner date with your girlfriend. Sorry to say, but it is likely that you only spent a fraction of what a truly expensive meal is. There are expensive meals, and there are expensive meals. There are price tags that might leave your head buzzing.

You don’t believe me? Then take a look at the list of expensive meals that man has ever paid, or is yet to pay. From the sands of Egypt to the valleys of New Zealand, you would be shocked at the price of a single meal.

To view the complete list on Friends Eat please click here!

How many times have you heard one of the following remarks from your staff?

“We knew they were evaluators as soon as they arrived.”

“They asked questions only an evaluator would ask.”

“The staff knew who they were.”

“Mystery Shoppers are not our typical guests.”

Well, we have heard them all over the years as well and we have decided to do something about it.

The bottom line is, if your staff members know who the evaluators are then the evaluation/shop is useless. Evaluator anonymity is key to a successful audit. Unfortunately, with the vast majority of mystery shopping companies their operational experience and evaluator training is not adequate and often result in useless evaluations.

We are so confident in our approach and methodologies that we have a 100% Anonymous Evaluation Guarantee for each and every evaluation we perform. If you or your staff member identifies an evaluator while they are on site, you will not be charged for that evaluation.

Inside Hospitality is the only Restaurant & Hospitality Focused Mystery Shopping company to stand behind each and every evaluation.

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Inside Hospitality™, a comprehensive and innovative guest experience management and measurement company whose integrated suite of hospitality business solutions from restaurant focused mystery shopping to online reputation management achieves tangible results in the marketplace and is the choice for restaurant and hotels worldwide.

Contact us today and learn how Inside Hospitality™ can create a custom solution for your organization. We can be reached anytime @ (888) 260- 0380.

Click the “RingMe” button and we’ll call you back within 1 minute.

While daylight savings time is forcing time changes across the United States, your restaurant reputation may be at stake. In reality, daylight savings time is NOT an obstacle to success. The real challenge is Mother Nature and you may even be able to “blame the sun” should your restaurant reputation begin to slide. Daylight savings time around the world:

The cycle is not new but as the seasons change each year, restaurant managers are slow to react. You would think it was the first time daylight savings time went to effect and it is a total surprise that the sun dissappears over the horizon after 5 pm.

While restaurants have tools such as GuestPulse which monitor their reputations online, it is a good time to be proactive vs. reactive. It can be the small things that will have people chatting.

A proactive approach can seem like quicksand as the daily pressures of restaurant operations can be
distracting. A simple fix includes marking the calendar each week to compare last year restaurant sales vs. sales projections. This just may save the reputation of a restaurant. It is very important to review the sales pattern throughout the day. Everyone knows this is an issue of importance and “old news” is the response. Nonetheless, many will wait or forget. This makes the guest and the the staff pay the price, which turns into lower sales and higher costs for the business.

Here is a reminder for about the 30th year in a row.

• People eat dinner later.

The extended daylight hours will have people delaying their meals. Maybe they forget to eat?

• Outdoors becomes more popular.

• More will be searching online for these keywords: “outdoor seating”, “restaurants with views”, “waterfront restaurant”, “restaurants on the beach”.

• Staffing? If this expands the dining area, will more staff be needed?

• Has the exterior been painted, cleansed, scrubbed, and repaired?

Peak times are less dramatic and stretch out longer. In the winter people dine during a more compact time period. As the season brings longer daylight hours, the peak period for business does not have a wave but instead the guests arrive over a longer period of time.

• For the less experienced, it means that during winter more hands (staff) are needed to take care of the crowd in a narrow time period and they are problaby working shorter hours. In the middle of summer, the number of hands (staff) needed is less during peak time but they are working longer periods.

This issue alone might lead to guests venting through social media and restaurant review sites to warn others that your restaurant is “understaffed and not prepared”.

• Morale of the team can be impacted. Everyone gets a bit of spring fever. Since meal times are extended, the restaurant manager may say: “Do me a favor? Can you stay an extra hour?” After the 2nd or 3rd request, the answer becomes, “Sorry boss. I have to go home and wash my hair.” A lack of analysis and preparation impacts the usual great level of execution.

• There is pressure by the restaurant managers: “Cut labor costs. Why is labor so high?” Typically, the staff punched on the clock by 5 pm to accommodate winter peak meal times; however, spring and summer may have the staff wandering and waiting for guests who will not arrive for another hour. The temptation for the restaurant managers to say: “Why don’t you go ahead and wait until you punch in?” will have human resources shuddering in their boots and can potentially motivate unhappy staff to make a call to the labor board.

These may also become the same staff who are asked to stay late because of “unexpected business.”

GuestPulse will show a flurry of activity as guests share with others about their worst experiences. Even the best managers can be caught with the winter to spring adjustments.

The seasonal changes are so gradual that very few even notice. A reputation depends on hundreds
of little details. Bugs, air-conditioning, brown grass, ice-cream, cold drinks and salads must also be
considered. Sure, the more flimsy clothing worn by staff might have them missing socks and wearing sandals.

Those sitting in an office who watch the reports may see the sales numbers slide and profits dwindle. If they also monitor the remarks left in the social media world and restaurant review sites, the grumbles would make it obvious that the restaurant manager did not adjust the schedule and team to the new season. P&L watchers may be able to identify the what but not always the why.

Every year there is a new adjustment to the weather and daylight hours. Make it an opportunity to
improve the reputation vs. become a victim of poor planning.

Summary:
-Always be interviewing.
-Use a Spring Transition Checklist.
-Listen carefully to the team as they adjust.
-Watch GuestPulse results with a passion as the sun and season changes the patterns of guests.
-Review sales patterns from last year to anticipate the future.
-Be happy to see the sun….

Michael Hartzell – Inbound Marketing Certified Professional, entrepreneur, writer, speaker, restaurant marketing coach. Member of the American Marketing Association. Read more at
www.michaelhartzell.com/restaurant-marketing

We had the privilege of interviewing Guy Kawasaki about his new book called “Enchantment” on The Restaurant Marketing Hour today. The book talks about how to build better relationships and in our more social business climate, this book is sorely needed. Take a listen here and let us know what you think.

David Aaker has a great post here on his blog you should read that covers the book. I think “Enchantment” is a must read.

What the discussion boils down to is both the value of a happy guest and the value of an unhappy guest because both have equally important values.

Let’s assume you have a $20 per-person-average (PPA) and that for every happy guest they will tell five people within a month of their great experience.  Those five people then visit your restaurant and have a great experience and each of them tell five m0re people and so on. It will look something like this:

Happy Guest #1 is worth $240 to you a year if he visits you just once per month at the $20 PPA level. Do you have happy guests who just visit you once a month? Perhaps but most visit you much more.

So by the end of the fifth month, the initial guest has told enough people about his great experience to garner you over $15,000 worth of business – not bad for just getting it right – and after a full year of positive word-of-mouth, the initial guest has helped create over $128,000 worth of business for you simply by communicating to the people in his close community about how great an experience he had at your restaurant.

Now contrast this with the understanding we all have that when you “get it wrong”, people have a tendency to tell more people about the bad experience than the positive one. Then assume the $20 PPA again and multiple these amounts by a factor of 2 or 3 or 4 (whichever you understand to be the case about the flow of conversations about bad experiences) and you can see how much money is potentially lost from the negative word-of-mouth generated by bad experiences.

Now consider the amplification of the bad experience and subsequent communication about it by people engaged with social media and you see a whole bunch of potential for lost sales as well as erosion of your brand reputation.

Finally, add in the lost opportunity cost of getting the marketing wrong or not listening to your guests and understanding their level of dissatisfaction with your experience.

So the lessons of situations like this are what I rant and rave about to restaurant and hospitality operators on a daily basis. Those being:

• The reason most operators fail is not for lack of capitalization, it’s from bad marketing.
• The reason most operators continue to fail, even when they see how bad things are is because they can’t admit they need help.
• No marketing strategy is more effective or powerful than those which work to leverage positive word-of-mouth strategies and tactics.
• Failing to implement a serious Voice-of-the-Guest program to measure guest expectations is suicidal.
• The potential for success is too great to dilute by using any discounting strategy when what you should be doing is adding value to support and enhance each guest experience.
• Social Media can serve to amplify a great experience or a negative one more so than any other and underscores why you have to be listening, engaging and facilitating with those conversations.

What do you think?

Inside Hospitality is excited to partner with Tundra Specialties as our restaurant equipment vendor of choice. Tundra Specialties is a leading distributor of restaurant equipment, restaurant supplies, and equipment parts for the food service industry.

Tundra Specialties will a weekly guest blogger.  We are excited to be associated with and endorse the leading vendor in the restaurant equipment industry.

Visit Tundra Specialties by clicking here!

Check out the eTundra blog by clicking here!

Mobilality™ giving mobile website, keyword and short code to millions local US restaurants – free.

When a guests texts the keyword to 55411, a welcome msg with link to site is delivered instantly.

This is not another “app” per se… it’s a mobile web app…we like to think of it as the “UnApp” (with apologies to 7-Up). Guest’s gets on-demand, aggregated info, events, reviews, social integration (follows, check-ins, share) with one text message. No more need for 10 stickers in the store window suggesting you follow, friend, check-in etc, etc.

One stop for all things <merchant>. What is easier than that?

Included for free are all of the guest acquisition tools – keyword, short code, website and auto responder, as well as 24/7 dashboard access. Not included, but available in Premium Plans, are customer retention tools – Bulk Messaging, Appt Reminders, Vanity keywords. Merchants claim their site just by entering name and zip at www.Mobilality.com

Click here to visit the Mobilality website.

We have been hard at work on several new “Voice-of-the Guest” programs for Restaurants, Hotels and other Hospitality focused operations.  We are excited to officially announce our 2011 product line up on Tuesday November 16th.

Join our Facebook page and be the first to know! Click here to visit us on Facebook.

Nick Kokanas seems to be exploring the future of dining with the forthcoming launch of his restaurant Next. Wondering why he employed three people at his restaurant Alinea “just to say they were full“, Kokanas has realized that computer systems can help independent and small-chain restaurants cost effectively by offering customers better pricing at low periods, all-inclusive annual passes and a simple-to-use web based booking system.

The website reads:

Instead of reservations our bookings will be made more like a theater or a sporting event. Your tickets will be fully inclusive of all charges, including service. Ticket price will depend on which seating you buy – Saturday at 8 PM will be more expensive than Wednesday at 9:30 PM. This will allow us to offer an amazing experience at a very reasonable price. We will also offer an annual subscription to all four menus at a discount with preferred seating.

Two walk-in tables will be available every evening.

The tickets will be available via our website, and we are building the reservation system from scratch to ensure the best customer experience. It will be simple to use, efficient, and familiar to anyone who has booked a show or travel online.

As for the food, Kokanas and chef Grant Achatz will also keep diners hungry for more with a quarterly shift in cuisine (.e.g Sicily in the ’40s, or the Edo Period in Tokyo). The team created this teaser video to give future diners a taste of what’s to come

Visit the Next Restaurant by clicking here!