The Question of Quality – What to Look for When Trying to Improve Your Restaurant

As a restaurant owner and manager, you know how challenging and critical it can be to keep your business relevant. Hospitality is an essential factor when working in the service industry.  You must continually look for and review ways to give your restaurant’s patrons an excellent dinner and experience.

Change is everpresent in hospitality, and there’s a good reason for it – dining out is more expensive than eating in at home. When restaurant goers choose to dine out, they are spending their hard-earned wages on what is a social engagement, and it needs to live up to their expectations. This doesn’t imply you need to revamp your restaurant every six months as many eateries exist due to their comfort, familiarity, and continuity, which is why family-owned restaurants remain popular and operate for decades.

How can you improve your restaurant?

Cleanliness

There are many ways you can improve your restaurant with new menus, interiors, and service. However, another simple but effective change is improving cleanliness. Outside your restaurant, in its entrance, the dining areas, hallways, and restrooms all need to be clean. Avoid falling into the trap of out of sight, out of mind mentality. Diners judge an eatery’s state of cleanliness, and for a good reason, rodents love restaurants, and bad food hygiene can cause food poisoning. Eateries need a food license and must put their certificate on public display.

Many eateries also neglect their restrooms. This is a mistake as the bathrooms are high-traffic zones during peak dining. Make sure your restrooms and the journey to them are spotlessly clean, tidy, and free of rubbish. Also, consider the smell on the route to and within the bathrooms. Plus, when you upgrade your restaurant decor and interior design, carry it to the restrooms. One tip is to add music to the area, too – it can help keep the same continuity of the restaurant ambiance.

Menu Pricing

A significant player that gets hungry customers in the door is the menu and the cost of the items on it. If you want your restaurant to improve and succeed, you must ensure your food is appropriately priced. Once you have the formula down, revisit the pricing from time to time to verify the pricing is still bringing people through the doors!

Training of Staff

Another critical factor in increasing growth and improving the business is to make sure staff is adequately trained. Owning and running a restaurant is a service-related field. Service needs to be top-notch to keep customers happy and coming back. You want your staff to treat all diners extremely hospitality to ensure they feel welcomed and cared for. This comes naturally to some servers, but others need more training in this delicate area.

Peak Hour Scheduling 

When is your restaurant the busiest? Are you struggling to get people seated and served during this rush? If so, you need to schedule your staff appropriately to ensure you have enough wait staff and cooks to keep up with the busy time. Make sure you are also keeping your employees happy by possibly giving them time off as needed and incentives to keep food sales high.

Portion Size

Another crucial part of restaurant management and the improvement of the business is the perceived amount of food the client receives. People want to feel as though they are getting value for the meal. Therefore, they do not wish the amount of food to be too small and still feel hungry.

As a business owner, you also have to be conscious of the amount of food you are serving to avoid losing profits on the meal. This is a tricky and delicate balance, and it comes down to the presentation of the food on the plate and the training and management of your kitchen staff.

Inventory Management

The last imperative tip on improving your restaurant comes down to how you are managing your inventory. It is of the utmost importance to have the proper stock of quality food to not run out of the necessary ingredients to turn a profit.

On the other hand, you do not want to have so much inventory that the food spoils or is wasted. You must ensure you are rotating stock properly and using ingredients before the expiration date arrives.

Why is it so Difficult to Maintain a Restaurant’s Image and Production?

Restaurants are everywhere, and it can be challenging to maintain your business due to the supply and demand of quality eateries in the area.

That is why it is vital to make sure you are continually trying to improve your restaurant by pricing the menu accordingly, scheduling and training staff accurately, managing your inventory correctly, and developing a good portion size, but that also makes the customer happy and satisfied with their choice in restaurants.