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Restaurant Success By The Numbers



Even if you don't know anything about cooking or running a business, you might still have a great idea for a restaurant - and this handy guide will show you how to make your dream a reality. If you already own a restaurant, but want to see it get more successful, Running a Restaurant for Dummies offers unbeatable tips and advice for bringing in hungry customers. From start to finish, you'll learn everything you need to know to succeed.




Restaurant Success By The Numbers



With the horrific failure rates of restaurants, how can you ensure yours will not only survive but grow and thrive? If your restaurant sucks, it is because you suck at running it; 100 percent. Donald Burns, author of Your Restaurant Sucks has created a methodology and mindset honed from his Special Operations training in the US Air Force. As a Pararescueman, his training developed a keen sense of purposeful and fast decision making. In the military, he learned the phrase, "embrace the suck".


In this straightforward and tips-filled audiobook, Katelyn Silva presents her approach and strategies for not only building a team, but leading them effectively to have smoother shifts, happier guests and team members, and, ultimately, more money. How to Rock Restaurant Management will equip you with all the tools you need to build a team of all-stars that become your secret weapon to success in your management career.


QuickBooks for Restaurants: A Bookkeeping and Accounting Guide shows restaurant owners and operators how QuickBooks software can be leveraged for restaurant success. I explain QuickBooks fundamentals including sales tracking, purchasing, bill paying, invoicing, managing day-to-day liabilities, gift certificate tracking, cash management, detailed reporting, and more.


Author and world-renowned restaurant coach Donald Burns brings his straightforward advice on how to get the restaurant you want. His knowledge in running a restaurant not only comes from his technical skills, but also his nearly four decades of real-life restaurant experience as a restaurateur and working with celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. Your Restaurant STILL Sucks! is not your usual guide on how to run a restaurant. Instead, it will challenge you to rethink the way you look at how you run your restaurant. This book is for those who want a better restaurant and a better life.


Ninety percent of all restaurants fail, and those that succeed happened upon that mysterious X factor, right? Wrong! A man of many hats - money-guy, restaurant owner, and restaurant consultant - Roger Fields shows how a restaurant can survive its first year and keep diners coming back for years. Featuring real-life start-up stories (including many of the author's own), this comprehensive how-to walks listeners through the logistics of opening a restaurant: concept, location, menu, ambiance, staff, and, most important, profit.


Updated to address current trends such as food trucks and to tackle online opportunities (and pitfalls!) including Groupon, Yelp, and Twitter, Restaurant Success by the Numbers remains a critical resource for navigating the food industry. Opening a restaurant isn't easy, but this realistic dreamer's guide helps set the table for lasting success.


The first step is planning your restaurant concept: what type of food were you serve, what level of service would provide, and what unique selling points that will differentiate you from the competition? For example, the level of service can be fast food (optimized for rapid turnover), food trucks (not recommended because of higher overhead costs compared to typical restaurants), take-out only restaurants, and full dine-in service. The concept needs to match the demographic characteristics of your desired location, which you can research by official statistics, conducting surveys, and looking at customers of existing restaurants in the area. Location is critical: Pay attention to patterns of traffic in the area (variable depending on time and day), zoning regulations, access to pedestrians, and parking, etc. Next, make a financial plan: estimate your incomes and expenses (often by comparing to similar restaurants in your area), and determine whether the idea is feasible (i.e., can make a reasonable profit). Also calculate the amount of starting capital you will need to open. The author gives a table of all the major costs you should include in this calculation.


When designing menu items, the cost of ingredients should be about 30% of the menu price, but this is not fixed and also depends on what other restaurants are charging and how much customers are expecting to pay. When designing the restaurant interior, optimize for the flow of traffic so that waiters and customers do not run into each other, design lighting to make people and the food look good, while adhering to local regulations about bathrooms, fire safety, etc. Bars and alcohol is a very profitable business since the price of alcohol is often less than 10% of the sale price, but you will need to deal with a lot of regulations and licensing related to sale of alcohol; you will also need to keep strict accounting of inventory otherwise you will lose drinks due to bartenders being generous or theft.


The last section of the book covers financial, accounting and legal details while opening the restaurant: documents needed to get a loan approved from the bank negotiating a commercial lease; tradeoffs of different business structures; marketing for your new restaurant before opening day, and more. Overall, this book gives many details about specific aspects of the restaurant business, such as many types of kitchen equipment, choosing tableware and furniture, etc, and the author often lists brands of service providers that he recommends. A very insightful read for anybody thinking about opening a restaurant or just curious about how the restaurant industry works.


A restaurant management training system that ensures that they learn it so clearly when going through training, that they can do it on their own without supervision or help after training is complete.


A weekly/monthly budget variance report comparing budget to actual numbers giving management a clear financial report card that will guide them on to what systems need to be reviewed and what new systems need to be put in place.


For more examples of systems you can use to hold your managers accountable in your restaurant, download our free report, The Secret to Holding Your Managers Accountable. You can also view tips for restaurant management training and restaurant management systems in your restaurant on this YouTube channel playlist. 2ff7e9595c


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