Building a Specialty Restaurant

I have summarized the blog for you. Of course, you are invited to read the story and share your feedback. 

Summary

In this blog, I discuss building a specialty restaurant business is a deliberate decision. I discuss the six contributing factors for building a good business and to explain I share a client's story.

The Blog

Every Restaurant is an expression of passion-driven creator, with a passion to serve great food and an amazing experience to some good friends and wonderful strangers. And with time they become your patrons, your most loyal customers.

When your place comes to being loved for a 'special', when it becomes their 'third place' then your customers would turn into your “Guests”. 

Building a specialty Restaurant is a deliberate decision – it is a choice carefully thought and curated. There is definitely a marked difference between just a Restaurant and a Speciality outlet. Both have their own space to thrive and customers to cater, and both are here to generate wealth. The difference lies in the approach of enterprising.

Almost all of the times, my clients, before they arrive, have already established themselves with a Restaurant business thereby completing their first step into the art of hospitality. It is how we work towards building a unique place out of their ordinary place that sets us apart. It is all about giving a unique experience and identity to their creation, and yet not ignoring the cash register in the process.

We believe that to open a Restaurant three factors contribute i.e., Crowd, Food and Location and to convert it into a frequented place by your customers, another set of three factors contribute i.e., Quality, Chain of operations and excellent HR policies.

Let us share one project experience where we helped out in building a Brand -

We were hired by a 8 month pizza and cafe restaurant to guide them through the difficult time they were facing with regards to their sales specifically. Of the eight, they could not achieve breakeven even once so the work for us was cut out.

And the first thing we realized that they were selling everything they could think in the category of pizza and cafe. It was a complete mess of a menu.

So we started with trimming the menu to the dishes they were atleast okay with in preparation, made well and rejected all else. Not a happy site to see when 60% of the menu is gone.

And the we started with identifying what of the (new) menu the customers really loved. Those were the items we decided to capitalise on.

Henceforth, 80% of their marketing and promotional events focused on these couple of items.

The team was continually trained and motivated, small aesthetic improvements were done and the whole place had a new vide to groove on.

It was clear to our team that there's No rush to explore and rather they are to focus on building a reputation of being good at what we have defined their specials are going to be.

Going with the flow, we implemented a six month plan to introduce interesting menu items (6 max) in close coordination with their most loyal customers. It was gradual introduction of nine items and we removed four not doing as per our expectations.

Our results

So at the end of our project, we trimmed their menu to their most profitable and widely accepted items, deleting loss making and inventory blocking items. And we have added a few more but the core menu stays. We might offer them a seasonal menu, but that a different story.

We had built them a loyal Guest base, who have evolved with them and since we involved them in our project, they had a feeling of belonging to the place. Now it was their Restaurant and they cared.

I continue to visit them from time to time, as a friend, to guide them against any slip-ups. And must I add, they are doing well indeed.

Our learnings at the project is the realisation that a Speciality Restaurant is an identity driven place whether it be of the creator or the product or an experience.