January Fun

“To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future or indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.” John F. Kennedy 35th President of the United States.


Well, we made it. We made it through another holiday season intact. We survived the holiday insanity for this? A slow January?!! What is this God’s cruel joke on operators? Thanks for nothing! January isn’t always the best month for revenues. It can be a brutal month for customer counts and ticket averages too. January is cold. January is dreary. January is a lot of things and many of those things are unpleasant.

What can January mean to you? January is the perfect time to position oneself for even greater success in the coming year. Put this retail respite to work for you. This is a great time to look at your goals, best practices, your menu, your help, just about every aspect of your business. Why don’t you break it down weekly….1st week look at your help, 2nd week look at your menu, 3rd week look at your best practices and the 4th week look at what you are doing to drive more customers into your facility?

Start with an honest assessment of where you are today. What is your true labor cost? Do you even know? Are you allocating man hours to your greatest efficiency? Is there somewhere you can trim hours? Are there times when you can boost efficiency and productivity by adding hours to the schedule? Just because you have always done it a particular way doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it. Is there a growing day part that needs extra attention? Is there a day part that has been declining and that you might be able to get away with less? Now is the time to make those calls.

Week 2 – The MENU….start by asking yourself “who are you as a restaurant, what are you known for and why to people come to your establishment?” Answering those questions honestly will make the rest of your decisions so much easier to deal with….is this appetizer, entrée, dessert, side or extra reinforcing the answers to those questions or are they taking away from your identity? If they are detracting, why are they on your menu? If they are enhancing your identity, what other products are there that you can offer to extend that identity even further? Don’t get caught trying to serve too many masters. Find your identity and expand upon it organically. Become the best _____ that you can by building your brand through your menu. This is your big chance to drive new revenues with new ideas while reducing revenue suckers by alleviating the dogs. Talk about reshaping your bottom line! All of your items should be pulling in the same direction.

Week 3 – BEST PRACTICES….how do you do what you do? Is the way you’ve always done it, mean it’s the best way to do it? Often times not. We are all stuck in our familiar ways. They are easier and a lot less scary. Change is difficult. What if a new way of doing things saved labor but costs a little more on the invoice? Is it worth it to you? I can’t answer that but you can. Look around at many of the successful operations, and you will see that many of them are using value added items rather than commodity items in the early steps of their preparation. For example, many of the chains are using a premixed salad blend for their salads rather than tying up cooler space and man hours chopping and cleaning fresh vegetables and instead utilizing those man hours and space to find ways to make money and drive revenue rather than focusing on saving money one item at a time. Think about it….survey after survey shows that bathroom cleanliness is a leading factor for why customers will or will not return to a given establishment, but we all leave bathroom clean up for the end of the night when the chance to make the right impression has already passed us by, instead using those man hours to chop onions or lettuce or mushrooms……doesn’t make sense if you ask me. How locked down is your policy and procedure manual for the front of the house? Is it always done the same way? Is someone charged with checking accuracy and follow through? The opportunities for improvement are almost limitless here. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the way YOU want it done is being followed consistently.

Week 4 – MARKETING….what are you doing today to drive more people into your establishment next week, next month or next year? Social media (Twitter / Facebook / Chow Baby / Yelp) isn’t going away. In a world of growing connectedness people are becoming more and more dependant on their computers and smart phones for their information. What are you doing to control or influence the information that is available about you on the internet? How are you positioning your brand? What are you doing to boost your brand identity and recognition? How are you shaping your image within the community? Are you creating good will amongst the natives? Don’t take it for granted that word is getting out about you. One step further, don’t assume you know what they are saying about you. Google yourself. Surprised by the results? More or less than you expected? Better or worse feedback than you expected? Did your address and phone number come up? How about your menu? Shouldn’t they?

Nothing I have said in the previous paragraphs is anything new. And because they aren’t new ideas, they often get skipped over or overlooked. Don’t make that mistake in 2010. As the old saying goes….”when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”…..rewritten it means “When life gives you January, start planning to make the next 11 months great.”