Operating a restaurant is more than just setting up shop and watching the people come in and spend money. You must consistently monitor your restaurant’s performance over time so that you can sustain a profitable business. You will need to evaluate how your restaurant does financially and how efficiently your operation runs. But numbers and charts don’t tell the whole story. Customer and employee feedback also provides a useful analysis of the state of your restaurant as well as changes in the current market.

Review Your Restaurant’s Finance
In any business, it’s important to review your finances regularly. If the numbers don’t seem right, you have to find out the discrepancy and resolve it. The accuracy of the final financial picture depends on how well you organize your sales and expense figures. It is essential to make a good habit of keeping your books updated and to address any errors or discrepancies when they appear. Also, analyze your sales history and cash flow.

Break Down the Sale of Menu Items
Aside from reviewing your restaurant in financial terms, you have to evaluate your operation’s efficiency and profitability. Not only do you need to keep track of how much money your business is generating, you should review which items are selling and which are not, and more importantly, how much are you profiting from each item. To do that, you have to break down your total sales according to the number of items sold.

Evaluate Your Inventory Efficiency
There are two factors to look at when evaluating how efficiently you are utilizing your inventory.
The first factor is your cost of sales, which is your actual food cost percentage. The second, which is related to your cost of sales, is your inventory turnover rate. Both of these factors can help you pin point where problems may lie if your bottom-line profit is not meeting your expectations.

Respond to Customer Feedback
Customer feedback can be positive or negative, and in either case, it can be a valuable source of information for you on improving your business. Don’t rely on your customers to approach you and let you know what they think. Make every effort to find out what they think and how you can respond. Getting feedback from comment cards, in person and via the internet are good tools.

Listen to Your Employees
Your employees may also provide some valuable feedback concerning the restaurant’s operation. Keep the lines of communication open with your staff, from your staff down to your bussers.

Take Notes on Restaurant Reviews
Restaurant reviews written or broadcast in local media can have a positive or negative effect on your business in the short run, but they aren’t going to make or break you. Take all reviews, positive or negative, in stride. If you are fortunate enough to receive a good review from a critic, don’t rest on your laurels just yet.

National Restaurant Association’s hot trend predictions for 2018
Gourmet kids meals, Peruvian cuisine and house-made condiments

In 2018, American kids will be eating a wider range of foods and grown-ups will be swapping out cards for vegetables and eating heritage breeds of meat with uncommon herbs, according to chefs polled by the National Restaurant Association.
In it’s annual What’s Hot survey, the NRA asks members of the American Culinary Federation to rank a long list of items as either a “hot trend,” “yesterday’s news” or “perennial favorites.”
New cuts of meat ranked in first place, same as last year, followed by house-made condiments, which leapt five places to second. Street-food-inspired dishes, ethnic-inspired breakfast items and sustainable seafood rounded out the top five. They all scored in the top six last year, with ethnic-inspired breakfast jumping up two spots to fourth.
Healthful kids’ meals fell three places to sixth, but gourmet items in kids’ meals moved up two spots to 18th and ethnic-inspired kids’ dishes joined the top 20 trends for the first time to 16th place.
Other newcomers are vegetable carb substitutes (think riced cauliflower and parsnip puree), uncommon herbs (ingredients such as yarrow and stinging nettle), Peruvian cuisine, heritage breed meats, Thai rolled ice cream (ice cream base poured on a super-chilled “anti griddle”, frozen and rolled into a tight cylinder), doughnuts with nontraditional filling and ethnic condiments (such as Sriracha, gochujang and chimichurri).
Doughnuts filled with nontraditional filling is the fastest-growing trend. More chefs voted for it this year compared to last year than any other trend. It was followed by ethnic-inspired kids’ dishes, farm/estate-branded items, heritage breed meats and Peruvian cuisine.
In terms of nonalcoholic beverages, the hottest trend was house-made or artisanal soft drinks. Of the 700 chefs surveyed, 56 percent said it was hot. Cold brew coffee, gourmet lemonade and locally roasted/house-roasted coffee got 55 percent of votes. They were followed by specialty tea (hot or iced), mocktails and kombucha.
By Bret Thorn

What To Do If A Recall Happens?

Here are 5 Tips

An E. coli outbreak is a nightmare for everyone: the customers, the community and the restaurant where it happened. For restaurant operators, corrective next steps are crucial to success; they can’t afford to make one mistake.
What should you do in the event of an outbreak? First, pay attention to all information, updates and product recall announcements. Because the food supply chain is complex, sometimes suppliers or manufacturers don’t deliver timely notices of the recall.

Here are five tips on how to deal with an outbreak and the removal of contaminated foods or other products:

1. Execute an effective recall plan: If you identified a product affected by a recall, look at the brand of the product as well as the code date, lot number and manufacturing facility if it is available.

2. Remove the affected items from your inventory and place them in a secure and proper location, away from any food, utensils, equipment, linens, or single-use items you are planning to use. Also, make sure to wash and sanitize cutting boards, surfaces and utensils used to prepare, serve, or store potentially contaminated products. In addition, make sure you wash your hands with soap and hot water following the cleaning and sanitation process.

3. Label affected items in a way that will prevent them from being put back into inventory.

4. When isolating or disposing of the products, refer to the vendor’s notification or recall notice. This is critical because product reimbursement often only occurs if you take the required actions provided by the vendor.

5. Inform staff members not to use the affected products. A helpful practice is to create a communications plan employees can use to explain to customers how the restaurant responded to the outbreak and is addressing the problem. They should know how to properly answer customer’s questions and concerns, and communicate a consistent and accurate message.