How To Create An Effective Loyalty Program For Your Restaurant Business

Holding on to existing customers is much easier than getting new customers in the door. While it is always important to keep expanding your customer base and bringing in new diners, most restaurant owners concentrate too much energy on, and spend too big a portion of their marketing on new customers at the expense of not retaining their existing customers.

With a good loyalty program in place, this doesn't have to be the case.

A loyalty program is applicable for all levels of restaurant service and style. Many restaurant owners who run more upscale establishments think that loyalty programs are only for bargain hunters and fast food type restaurants, but this isn't the case.
A well planned and appropriately themed loyalty marketing plan will work for any establishment and can bring a tremendous return on investment in terms of increasing both frequency of visits and per ticket averages.

Restaurant Menu Design Engineering

Today I wanted to talk to your about your menu and more specifically about engineering it for profit.

Menu engineering is the analysis of your menu which look at the sales price, sales history and the cost of each item of the menu. From the collected data engineering refers to the calculation of the profit or contribution margin of each item in relation to all the other items on the menu for a period of time.

Menu engineering is an integral part of hospitality management in today's robust and competitive market. Each of the items once calculated will be classed into one of four categories:

1. Stars (popular and profitable)

2. Plow Horses (popular but not as profitable)

3. Puzzles (not popular but highly profitable)

4. Dogs (neither popular or profitable)

Eating Nutritious Food Is Not Expensive - Tips on Saving Money While Losing Weight

I've heard it a million times where poor people say, "Eating healthy is so expensive, I can't afford it!" Well here's an article that may help you about shopping smart: ways that you can eat healthy without breaking the bank and you won't even have to frequent the 99-cent menu.

Money VS Convenience

Let's not confuse expense and inconvenience. Let's face it-it is very convenient to go to the restaurant or drive through the drive-through and pick something up not having to cook anything for dinner. The point is it's more expensive if you eat out rather than if you go to a grocery store and buy raw ingredients for cooking cuisines in your home. Restaurants will drain your bank and you will typically eat stuff you normally wouldn't should you have prepared food at home instead. You're going to be tempted to pay for delicacies, give fried food a try or probably have a taste on that creamy dessert you had no intention of eating at all in the first place. Not only that, you will tend to eat more at a restaurant (defeating the purpose of losing weight) than you would at home.

Top Child Friendly Restaurants in Johannesburg

I am finding that like myself, my friends are also building families, and like myself they also find the prospect of worrying after children while at a restaurant unappetizing. When a bunch of my friends and myself want to meet up, we can have around 10 children in tow, aging form 6 months up to 6 years old, I think we strike fear into the heart of many a restaurateur.

Don't get me wrong, My kids are well behaved, sure they could be better, but they are kids and listening to a bunch of adults prattle on must be boring. That said on a recent visit to Australia I was astounded to not find one restaurant with any child friendly facilities. I am not sure if this is a South African thing, but to be child friendly a restaurant needs to have a kiddies menu, a separate play space, climbing frames, crayons... stuff kids like. In reality where I live, children have an expectation to at least be able to order food that they are familiar with if they want to.

Both Restaurant Pagers and Chess Are Logical

Installing a system of restaurant pagers is as logical as the strategic game of chess. In the food industry, staff have to deal with servers, customers, chefs, food suppliers, as well as kitchen staff, which includes the cleaning crew. Being able to play the game of retail within the food industry, gives the owner or manager a real heads up, and they can become their own chessmaster within their restaurant.

For any business to run smoothly, administrative staff, waiters and waitresses, cooks and chefs, the headwaiter, deliveries, problems that crop up, and the thousands of one of the things that could happen within a busy restaurant, have to be dealt with and organized as they occur. How do you make this large communication system run smoothly? Pagers have been around for some time and maybe have become a highly valued tool for making businesses run smoothly.

Local Store Marketing Tips For Your Restaurant

Here are several ideas I have used in the past to increase my restaurant sales. Many of these ideas also involved my staff in events that brought them together as a team. I gained a better, more loyal staff as well as increasing either the restaurants standing in the community or its sales. Give them a try, measure your results and have fun.

Easter Egg Hunt - Restaurant provided prizes and candy for a traditional egg hunt at a local park. A visit and photo op with the Easter Bunny made this a special event for the 50 plus children in foster care. The local newspaper printed a small story with a photo giving us additional exposure in the community.

Christmas Party - This event involved the staff of the restaurant providing a small Christmas gift for underprivileged children. Similar to the "Angel Trees" that are so prevalent today with one exception. We also provided a Christmas party for the children and of course a visit with Santa to present the gifts. The staff was able to serve and interact with the children during the party. These events brought the staff closer together as a team. Again local news was on hand to provide a human interest story associated with the restaurant.

Mother's Day Candle light dinner - This event held in a fast food restaurant, found the staff turning the dining room into a fine dining establishment complete with candles, flowers and linens. Rather than having the guest place orders at the counter the staff took orders table side and of course delivered the food as well. This event was talked about for weeks both by guests and staff. Sunday nights typically are the slowest of all nights for a fast food restaurant, let alone a Mother's Day where for some reason moms don't want fast food fare. This Mothers Day exceed previous Sundays by 18% and the previous Mothers Day by 31%.