10 Reasons Not To Hire A Consultant

1. You are inherently a risk taker. Starting a restaurant business is risky. But maximizing the risk makes the process much more exciting.

2. Yes, your restaurant is losing money but……….maybe somehow it will all just work itself out.

3. Sales are down! Must be the bad economy.

4. Food Costs are up! Must be the bad economy.

5. Labor costs are up! Beacuse sales are down due to the bad economy.

6. Check average is down! People are spending less because of the bad economy.

7. You have always believed in trial and error…..even if it costs you money.

8. All new restaurants lose money in the first six to twelve months. (Really?)

9. No pain no gain!

10. Sooner or later you’ll just figure it out.

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Productivity

The actual level of productivity of most restaurant employees never comes close to their true capabilities, but they still complain when asked to do more. Some for the bad habits they develop may prevent them from improving their productivity. In addition, having too much time or manpower to complete a task contributes to inefficiencies because employees tend to slow down and develop an unhurried attitude, even during rush periods.

Consequently, begin by staffing lean. Later, if you find that your employees are working at close to maximum productivity and still falling behind on qualitative and quantitative standards, you can schedule more employees to minimize the work load.

The Monthly Inventory

I am amazed whenever I hear that a restaurant does not take a fiscal inventory each and every month. By fiscal inventory I mean counting what is on hand at the end of the month and extending the value. In order for the monthly income statement to reflect accurately the cost of food consumed and sold, you must take a complete food inventory. There is no substitute or shortcut for taking a fiscal count of food, beverages, and supplies if you expect your cost ratios and percentage to show what is actually taking place in your restaurant.

You wont know if you don't count.

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Why Standardize Your Recipes?

A standardized recipe has several advantages. It will produce a known quality and quantity of food for a specific operation. It specifies the ingredients to be used---brands, grades, and varieties; the preparation and cooking procedures; the yield and potion size; and in some cases, the equipment, utensils, pots, pans, and evenn the flatware require for service.

But contrary to what you might believe, standardized recipes are not those previously used in other operations or found cookbooks. "Standardization" refers to recipes that are "customized" to your operation. They might begin with with ideas you took from another restaurant or cookbook but then adjusted for your operation's equipment, ingredients, and serving procedures.

If you don't have standardized recipes, or if their not being followed, you won't have consistency in in cost and quality. If the recipes have changed, let your standardized recipes reflect those changes. If you permit deviations from your recipe standards, you will lose both cost and quality consistency.

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What Should Your Food Cost Be?

A cost control problem is when there is an unacceptable difference between the ideal and actual cost for a given period. A 2 percent varience for a restaurant that does $30,000 a week in food sales amounts to $600 a week. That's more than $30,000 a year. However, if the targeted cost is inaccurate, then you'll be left scratching your head looking for a cost problem that doesn't exist. Below are some tips to determine your ideal cost.

• Accurately cost out each menu item
• Make sure each menu item has its own POS key so you can track the unit sales of each item.
• Create a spreadsheet that calculates the cost of each menu item times the number of items sold from the POS report to give an "ideal cost."
• Compare the ideal cost to the actual cost calculation from your P&L.
• For many operators who compare their ideal versus actual food cost, a varience of more than 1 percent of sales indicates a food cost problem.

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