THE MIDDLE EAST'S NUMBER ONE RESTAURANT CONSULTANTS
We aim to offer practical tips and tactics on basic restaurant operation, restaurant management and restaurant fiscal management each week. The goal is to help restaurateurs and others in the industry learn the art of running a restaurant successfully, watching it grow and expand in the process. However, we offer such insight based on the assumption you must be operating a proper functioning restaurant that your restaurant must be steadily bringing in required profit. We believe the food is great and quality of service is excellent.
What we have come to realize is not every restaurateur is completely honest about how good and successful their restaurant actually is. To many restaurateurs it is but an illusion. They take no advice from anyone, and truly believe they know what they are doing. Now, you may be the person that turned a dream into reality by starting your restaurant from scratch, although it doesn’t mean you have the expertise of running it just as well. If you have watched Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network, you would know what we mean.
Restaurant Impossible is reality television at its best. We have Chef Robert Irvine who ambushes restaurant owners in the hope of turning their businesses around from impending failure. Each story-line is different but with a common thread. Robert’s goal is to take a restaurant fighting for survival and turn it into a survivor’s story. The restaurant is always rundown with crappy food and inadequate service, uncomfortable setting and more often than not infighting between staff and owner. This is the story that has been going for years with ineffective leadership and no possible chance of ever turning it around. Until, Robert Irvine walks in!
Before turning a bad restaurant into a good business, it has to be first transformed into a good restaurant. What is astounding at the beginning of each of these episodes is the owner seems absolutely unaware of how badly the restaurant is doing. As much as it is interesting watching the restaurant turn around, it is also tickling to see the many phases of the restaurant owner as he starts with denial then turns it into anger and finally acceptance.
Whilst the restaurant owner is trying his best to defend the quality of food and service, Robert is pushing his agenda of turning something bad into something good. Usually, transformation begins with the right attitude, and until the owner gives into change not much can happen, even if cost control, marketing activities or financial management skills are improved. What is the lesson that can be learned from all this?
How objective are you when evaluating your own business? If you find being impartial a difficult task, why not try a few tactics as mentioned below.
- Use mystery shoppers to visit your restaurant to evaluate food, quality of service, setting and competency of staff
- Read reviews of how your restaurant is doing online whether it is on message boards, restaurant review sites or social media
- Audit the dish room regularly, see what is being eaten and what is left behind
Do not be on Robert Irvine’s list of most desperate restaurants that need transformation. Let it begin in your heart. You take the first step, and the rest will follow. Do it today. Be objective now!
