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A Guide to Building a Sunday Dinner Program

group of people eating together

Sunday dinner at your restaurant can bring in extra weekend revenue and ensure your regulars keep coming back. So, how do you create the perfect Sunday dinner experience?

Let’s get started with a few tips:

➡️ Create a unique menu: Your Sunday dinner menu needs to offer choices that make customers keep coming back. You should focus on classic comfort foods with a modern spin or classic dishes from around the world. Think about menus that will attract multi-generation families as Sunday is frequently a family day.

➡️ Set an attractive ambiance: Warm lighting, high tables, and comfortable seating help create a cozy atmosphere ideal for Sunday dinner.

➡️ Offer attractive service: Unleash your customer service teams’ creativity – provide excellent service with a friendly, personal touch. What can you do differently within your concept on Sundays? A special Sunday-only touch will distinguish the service and make those who join you appreciate the Sunday effort.

➡️ Develop an attractive marketing strategy: Promote your Sunday dinner program on social media and websites. Utilize word-of-mouth and reviews to engage with your customers. Invite VIPs and regular guests to get the new service style started.

➡️ Pay attention to customer feedback: Guests’ feedback should always be considered when creating your Sunday dinner menu. Ask guests what would make Sunday dinner at your restaurant attractive.

➡️ Keep your price point attractive: Make your Sunday dinner affordable and appealing. A great price point can help you attract more guests and increase revenue. Larger family parties will be more likely to attend if they have an affordable way to do so.

➡️ Keep up with trends: Research trending topics and flavors to keep your Sunday dinner program fresh and appealing. Incorporate seasonal adjustments, make special menus for Holidays and try to include viral recipes (http://spirop.us/viral) in special one-off menus.

For more inspiration, check out a few ideas for successful Sunday dinner programs:

• An Italian restaurant with special Sunday hand-made pasta dishes and affordable wine bottles from a rotating Italian region.

• A Spanish restaurant offering a Sunday family-style paella and sangria pitcher dinner party.

• A Tavern serving hearty Prime Rib and potatoes anna on Sunday night only.

Now that you have a better idea of what could make a successful Sunday dinner program, it’s time to plan your menu! Get creative, and don’t forget to monitor customer feedback for guidance.

#Restaurant #SundayDinner #Marketing #Food #foodanddrink #lifestyleandleisure #MarketingStrategy #RestaurantManagement #RestaurantBusiness

How the NFL Playoffs Impact Restaurants

selective focus close up photo of brown wilson pigskin football on green grass
With the NFL Playoffs upon us, it’s important for restaurant owners to understand how the demand for catering, reservations, and the influx of customers can directly affect their business.

The volume of reservations at restaurants across the US typically see a spike during the NFL playoffs, especially when a local team is in contention. This means restaurants should plan accordingly and make sure they are properly staffed and have adequate supplies and food on hand.

In addition to the spike in reservations, restaurant owners should also stay prepared for what customers will be expecting. Popular dishes for NFL playoffs include classic comfort food, fried favorites, and all the usual suspects such as buffalo wings, pizza and burgers. Catering can be a huge revenue source for gametime. 

Here are a few tips on turning catering orders into opportunities to maximize revenue:

🍗 Tailor a special menu that plays to the crowd. Having a game-day themed menu helps capture attention and adds a specialized touch.

💰 Offer party packages for large orders. This encourages customers to buy in bulk, increasing both your revenue and order volume.

🌐 Utilize online delivery services. These facilitate order and delivery, making the process easy and flexible.

🥣 Items like buffalo wings, pizza, burgers, chili, jambalaya, and salads are great options, as they require less maintenance and travel well.

💬 Reach out to customers in different ways. This can include emailing customers, hosting giveaways like catering gift cards or featured dishes on social media, or offering loyalty rewards.

Make sure to implement the right strategies to boost your catering business this NFL Playoff season and win customers’ business!

#restaurants #catering #foodbusiness #NFLPlayoffs

Handle the Holiday’s Like a Boss

There are a few steps that a boss can take to handle the holidays in a way that is fair, respectful, and supportive of their team:

  1. Communicate clearly: Make sure your team knows what to expect regarding holiday schedules and expectations. This can include whether the office will be closed on certain days, whether there will be any changes to deadlines or workload, and whether there will be any holiday parties or events.
  2. Be flexible: Recognize that the holidays can be a busy and stressful time for everyone. Offer flexibility wherever possible, allowing people to work from home or take time off as needed.
  3. Show appreciation: The holidays are a great time to show appreciation for your team and their hard work throughout the year. This can be as simple as expressing gratitude in a team meeting or as elaborate as hosting a holiday party or giving gifts.
  4. Encourage self-care: The holidays can be draining, both physically and emotionally. Encourage your team to take care of themselves and prioritize their well-being. This can include encouraging people to take breaks, encouraging healthy habits like exercise and sleep, and offering resources like mental health support.

By following these steps, a boss can help create a positive and supportive atmosphere for their team during the holiday season.

I hope these ideas help you manage through the New Year and have a team ready to Rock Out in 2023.

Restaurant Mobile Ordering Technology

As national chains and billion dollar valuation delivery operations drive revenue to their locations / partners where do today’s independent and small group restaurants turn to maintain their share of the market?

mobile order.PNG

There are thousands of stand alone app creators, and now restaurants are dealing with clusters of tablets and reconciling sales totals and reimbursements from several systems daily. It’s a mess.

Streamlined POS systems that integrate in person, online, and mobile orders are somehow still eluding us.

What is the best solution you have found?

 

 

 

It’s About People

In a stellar restaurant the separation from good to great is primarily created through the ability to cultivate a team of intellectually invested people who have a common goal. A goal to provide hospitality in a way that delights their guests. This goal applies to all hospitality businesses, it can apply to a small mom and pop hamburger shop and to a five star restaurant, to a Surfer Hostel and a Luxury Resort. The principles are the core, the facilities are the tools to deliver.

When an establishment has a clear set of goals, what it wants to deliver, what is the specialty, what the public will understand it to be, and how the team can stay within these parameters, finding the right people to take part will be easier. Once they are part of the team and allowed to create and deliver, there may be coaching moments to keep them on the path to deliver the goals, but they will more often push the project further than need coaching.

Its a win win.

This is not a trick, it is a plan. One that delivers the autonomy and patience to the team members to pursue an area of interest to them for profit and enjoyment. This is the idea. Creating the opportunity for someone to join the team who is doing what they love as their occupation.

This is a job for someone who has vision, belief, and the ability to take a well intentioned leap of faith. We are not cherry picking ripe figs from the branches of a tree that grew in our backyard without any care. We are cultivating, watering, pruning, and enabling these team members to blossom and grow into their potential. When they do, they will benefit, our guests will benefit, and the business will benefit. Without all three, how successful are we?

The architecture of your team, is your responsibility, it is the most challenging and most rewarding part of building these unique establishments. To my teams, I look forward to the big steps in front of us as we all grow, and deliver experiences that delight our guests along the way.

Great Restaurants Thrive on Cultural Diversity

To say that I have been fortunate to be part of several great restaurant teams would be an understatement. Diversity was a characteristic of all of them. Restaurants are commonly raved about for their food, decor, location, and drinks. What truly sets apart the great from the good is the people. The team that delivers the experience is what the architects of the best restaurants spend the most time focused on.

The more diverse the team, the more likely that future stars, great ideas, and ability to overcome obstacles is present.

Diversity is fun.
Diversity means a new perspective for everything.

Innovation, stability, creativity, and future leaders are born of diverse teams.

I spend a lot of time working on team building, looking for greatness, weeding out bad seeds. All these activities are done in the name of trying to create depth and a pathway for people to advance. When I examined the best teams I have been a part of I noticed that the stars of our organizations today were frequently someone who joined us from a disparate background. They were a source of diversity, and brought a fresh perspective. Now they are a leader, and an integral part of who we are. A restaurant is the product of the people who are working there today, no more, no less.

Diversity can help you achieve higher highs, but it also helps you avoid pitfalls. This concept is simple in theory as Seth Godin wrote about a little while back:

About half of all the bananas consumed worldwide come from the same tree.

Not the same type of tree. The very same tree. The Cavendish, which has no seeds, is propagated by grafting or cloning. Which means that they’re all identical. If you’re a mass marketer, pushing everyone to expect and like the very same thing, a thing with no variation and little surprise, this is good news indeed.

Until, of course, a fungus comes along and wipes out the entire monoculture.

It’s tempting to want all your bananas to be the same. To have all your employees be clones of one another, your products to be indistinguishable commodities, each conforming to the dominant narrative of the day.

But variation brings resilience and innovation and the chance to make a difference.

What is Diversity?

We typically think about racial diversity as it is a dominant theme in our culture and news these days.  But diversity in it’s full sense comes in many forms. For an intellectual, case study based read on the ways that diversity helps an organization; make sure you have read The Medici Effect. For many it is the definitive book on these topics. Frans Johansson, the author, even has some references to the success of diversity in restaurants. Here is his take on diversity:

Cultural diversity does not only imply geographically separated cultures. It can also include ethnic, class, professional, or organizational cultures. The mere fact that an individual is different from most people around him promotes more open and divergent, perhaps even rebellious, thinking in that person. Such a person is more prone to question traditions, rules, and boundaries—and to search for answers where others may not think to. ― Frans Johansson, Medici Effect: What You Can Learn from Elephants and Epidemics

Think about your restaurant, how diverse a group is there, what can you do to increase diversity?

Innovation and greater success are there for you if you can.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day.
Thanksgiving for our most personal relationship.
Our mother, nourisher, protector, teacher, counselor, consoler and chief celebrator.
As my Dad used to say:
“When she says jump you say: how high? She used to wipe your ass.”
A mother is the rare combination of sacrifice and intense love all in your direction.
She gives of her body, time, and mind as much as we are willing to receive.
Our pain is her pain, our success her pride, our children her reason.
There is no children’s day, that is everyday without pause.
Mother’s Day.

Thank you to my Mother, you are my definition.
You showed me what being a mom means, and allowed me to know when I met one.
Thank you to my wife, you are the greatest gift our son could receive.
I am in awe of how deftly you walk the line of devotion and discipline.
Happy Mother’s Day.

Remember moms play multiple roles in the movie of your life, this Mother’s day.
They all played a role in who you are and the life you live.
Thank you Diane.
You raised a gem who has taken the love you embraced her with as a child and carried it on.
Thank you for un-waveringly being you.

Adrienne, mom with your own style, and nouna to Christos. We are all blessed to have your flair for originality throw us off a step and alter our perspectives.

Happy Mother’s Day.

The relationship a mother has with her children is timeless.
We yearn for that love in a way that brings us together.
Christos has the amazing opportunity to be held by his great grandmother.
It’s something I never knew, and could never take for granted.
Nonni, we love you, Happy Mother’s Day.

Each of you who raised your children and gave them all the love:
Happy Mother’s Day!

The First Question We Should Ask When Starting a New Business.

WHY?

The basis for asking WHY we are doing what we are doing is to avoid a deep-rooted flaw in the way we build, brand, and market our new business. That flaw could lead to a division between what our customers, employees and community stakeholders truly care about and what he business stands for. 

Answering the simple question, Why? Will guide us as we build this brand to be the most admired, profitable, and case study inspiring brand possible. To achieve this we must realize that our financial success and ability to survive the test of time lies not in chasing earnings or in trying to sell more “whats” to more “whos,” but in aligning our offerings and values with the “why” of our customers.  

So, Why?