It’s always been challenging, there have always been limitless variables, and success is a moving target. Restaurants are tough – no matter how well you plan and how hard you try, finding a formula that works for everyone involved seems impossible. Something must change.

The cost of ingredients has become laughable, rents are unmanageable, labor is impossible, and marketing no longer makes sense like it did in the heydays of advertising. Guests are fickle, rarely loyal, and fed up with the prices we need to charge so they cut back on restaurant spending and when they do turn our way, they seem more inclined to have their food delivered in paper bags. Something must change.

Restaurants could depend on establishing a relationship with steady, return clientele, but in recent years that has been challenged by competition and customer value assessments (is it worth it?). Healthy competition among restaurants in your community has been replaced with survival tactics without mercy. Everyone is focused on maintaining and hopefully growing their customer base through whatever tactics work. Something must change.

So where do restaurants turn, what must they do, what does change really look like? Here are some thoughts – ideas to chew on (pun intended).

[]       THE FLUID MENU

Changing our restaurant menu mindset may soon become the key to success. It might be time to ditch the standard, predictable menu and replace it with a menu that evolves based on market pricing of ingredients and more regionalized use of ingredients when they are in season. As an example – any restaurant that depends on quality beef as its focus will continue to find it difficult to keep customer pricing in check. Additionally, those restaurants that build menus oblivious to seasonality of ingredients may need to change their approach. The unpredictable nature of menus may be something that both chefs and guests need to accept and even relish.

Menus that read like a book with dozens of choices may also become cost prohibitive for both the restaurateur and the dining public. Keep your menus simpler and execute them extremely well – this is the formula to adapt to.

[]       CREATE A TAKEOUT EXPERIENCE

The public may have adjusted to take out service since the pandemic and due to third party services like Door Dash and Uber Eats, but in the process, we have all lost the meaning of the dining experience. The value of a meal is not simply relegated to how much it cost but rather how does it make you feel. Without the ambience of the dining room, attentiveness of a professional server, sense of connection with community that a busy restaurant creates, or the attention to detail with plate presentations – restaurant food becomes, in foundational terms, a commodity focused on satisfying hunger.

Assuming we accept home delivery, ghost kitchens, and autos serving as dining rooms, then we must find a way to differentiate the experience provided. This is the moment to re-imagine packaging – finding ways to maintain the appearance, flavor, and temperature of the food that carries our signature. There may be a unique opportunity to build connections with the guest through technology. Maybe a QR Code on the packaging that leads to a video of your chef explaining how their kitchen operates or even how the dish you ordered is prepared. A link to the farm where your ingredients come from or even recipes for items in your order would enhance how the customer feels about their purchase. It might even be time to turn to your own delivery service with a knowledgeable person in chef whites knocking on their door with well-prepared, attractive food in hand. Start thinking about how you can change the PROCESS into an EVENT.

[]       RESTAURANT WITHOUT A PERMANENT ADDRESS

We’ve tried food trucks and brick and mortar operations – both have their pluses and minuses. The price of rent compounds the fact that to experience your restaurant the guest must come to you – not always convenient. What if your kitchen were mobile and your brick-and-mortar operation was a pop-up for short periods of time (1-2 months). Your restaurant travels to the customer base, not the opposite. Short term rental arrangements at untypical locations (warehouses, churches, studios, or even farms) might give the restaurant a greater chance at cost-effective operation.

[]       A COLLABORATIVE RESTAURANT COMMUNITY

Rather than view other restaurants as enemies who take away market share – work together to create culinary destinations.  Guests like to bounce from restaurant-to-restaurant, why not help them out, share marketing dollars, collaborate on group buying power for foundational ingredients, and even create grazing opportunities where guests start in one restaurant for appetizers, another for their main course, and end the evening of culinary entertainment at a restaurant with a strong reputation for dessert and coffee?

[]       OPEN MIC NIGHT FOR AREA CHEFS

What if your chef was more of a facilitator than primarily the orchestrator of your menu? What if you designed an exciting platform that welcomed a series of guest chefs who bring their style and food to your space for short “in residence” pop-ups? Think of the excitement for the operator and the guest – a restaurant that is always fresh and new. The eco-cycle completes as these guest chefs have a chance to promote their restaurant as well – face-to-face, the best form of marketing.

[]       TEACHING RESTAURANTS

Finally, to address the migraine headache of staffing – is it time to bring back apprenticeship? Either in your individual restaurant or within your restaurant community. Train your own, create a reason for young cooks to become part of a teaching environment, and even use your involvement of preparing the next generation as a marketing difference shared by all involved.

There are ample ideas and answers to the challenges we face, encourage creative thought and they will appear. The most important first step is to realize that something must change – let it begin with you, today.

PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER – EMBRACE CHANGE

www.harvestamericacues.com – BLOG

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