Going Back to Basics

Many restauranteurs spend an incredible amount of money in marketing, trying to fill in their restaurants with customers.

However, often they forget the basics: Their food is just OK and their service could be improved.

Customers are smart. They might go to a restaurant once or twice attracted by a clever marketing campaign, but everything will be wasted if their experience is less than stelar.

Many times I recommend restaurant owners and managers to focus on the essentials. Deliver the best food that you can make at fair prices, have a nice and clean restaurant, and give an impeccable service.

That's all.

If they do this, customers will love the restaurant and will become the best marketing and sales force by telling their friends (in person or via Social Media), leaving great reviews in Yelp and other review sites and coming back for more.

There is not better restaurant marketing that over-delivering.

If you want to spend some marketing budget, do it by surprising your customers giving them freebies that they don't expect. A free appetizer (it doesn't have to be big or expensive), a complimentary artisan bread, perhaps a liqueur at the end of a really good meal, these go a long way to surprise and delight your customers. Yes, it will cost you a bit (if you are smart, you can come up with creative and inexpensive treats) but consider this as a marketing investment. Instead of doing the old tiring ads, invest money directly on your clients. You will be rewarded a thousand times.

Try it and let me know how it goes.

Simplify Your Restaurant Business

The older I grow, the more I like simple things.

Simple doesn't mean dumb or easy, or idiotic. Simple means stripping down the superfluous, the unnecessary, the complicated, the redundant to focus on the core, on what it is really important, on the essence.

This could be applied to anything: to your personal life and also to your restaurant business. A complicated menu with lots of ingredients, complicated operations, complicated rules and regulations, complicated schedules for your staff, etc. give your business an extra overhead and weight that you could do without.

How can you simplify your restaurant business, you may be wondering? Here are some suggestions:

1.- Simplify your menus.

I can't stress enough how important this item is. Many restaurateurs think that a large menu is an asset. In reality, it is not. Not only you get confused customers but you need to train your kitchen staff in the preparation of many items, keep track of which ones sell well and which ones don't, enter all the items in your Point of Sale, train your waiters in the ingredients that each dish have, keep a large inventory of ingredients, etc. On top of everything, I can guarantee you that most customers order 20% of your items all the time. It is much better to have a very simple menu with really good dishes than a large menu with average dishes. People will remember your restaurant because of a few well executed dishes, not because your menu has 20 pages.

What should you do to simplify your menu? First, if you have the information, look at the sales of dishes for the last 6 months to 1 year. Eliminate dishes starting from the bottom of sales. Don't be afraid to cut the menu down to just a handful of good dishes. You can always add some specials. The important thing is that you leave those special dishes that make your restaurant famous or for which people will come to eat at your place.

Once you simplify your menu, you can also reduce the number of your ingredients (saving thus money and preparation time), your staff (kitchen and floor) would be able to learn the new dishes much quicker and either prepare them or explain them to your customers way easier.

You will also be able to keep track of sales much easier than before.

2.- Simplify your operations.

Do you have complicated schedules and/or rules? (tipping rules, employee rotation, what to do with unsatisfied customers, food ordering, number of providers, etc. If so, you should think about simplifying them.

Look at all your operations with an objective perspective. If you see that you have anything that can be made simpler, do it. Not only your employees will be happier having to follow less procedures and understanding the basic rules but you will save many headaches and lots of time.

3.- Simplify your marketing.

Are you investing a lot of money or time in marketing? If so, you should consider simplifying your investments. The best marketing for a restaurant is the simplest and often the most inexpensive one. Here you have a few ideas of simple marketing that just works:

• Create a Formalized Referral System (very effective. For a very inexpensive and effective system, you can check my Referral System in a Box
• Invest some time and/or money in Online Marketing. Don't get crazy about it. A nice and clean website, some investment in mobile marketing (many smart phone users don't use a computer anymore), a Facebook Page and perhaps some time in Tweeter should have you covered.

4.- Simplify your decor.

Sometimes less is more. Lots of ornaments and things in your restaurant means more time to clean, more maintenance and an impression of clutter. Look around your place. Do you really need to have that deer head hanging from the wall? I don't mean that a restaurant should be barren, after all, people need to feel comfortable. If you don't have the eye for interior decoration, I would suggest to invest some money and hire a professional to help you. It doesn't need to be very expensive. Sometimes eliminating clutter and freshly painting the walls with nice neutral colors is all you need. Think about it.

5- Simplify your schedule.

Do you have a complicated business opening and closing schedule? Does it vary by the day of the week? Many times customers get annoyed when they go to your place just to find out that you open at 4pm each day except for the day when they visit. Same thing with weekends, etc.

Same thing with your workers. Do you have an easy to understand and logical rotation schedule? If not, you should. People like to know when they are working and when they rest so that they can plan accordingly. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't be flexible when they ask you for changes. But these should be the exceptions, not the rule.

Try to make a simple and predictable schedule so that your employees and customers know what's going on.


These are just 5 simple rules to simplify your business. I'm sure that you can find many more on your own. The point that I am trying to make is that simple is often better. Better for your customers, better for you, better for your business, and better for your employees.

Everyone wins.

Happy simplification,
Jose L Riesco

The Power of Restaurant Customers

I’ve just read an interesting article in BusinessWeek about the Yelp Elite reviewers and their power to make or break a restaurant. It is kind of scary to think that these people, mysteriously selected by Yelp (they don’t say the criteria) have so much power and feel entitled to review a restaurant based on their experience of one visit. If one waiter has a bad day, tough luck, the restaurant will go down in infamy because of the review of the Yelp Elite Member.

You can read the complete article here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232083260194.htm

Although this seems like a very unfair practice (and it is), you have always to remember everything that I told you: your main marketing expenses should be always focused on your existing customers. It is useless to spend money trying to bring new customers to your restaurant (at least that you just opened it) while neglecting the ones that you already have sitting at your table.

In the past, there were a few prestigious food critics. Only big newspapers and magazines could afford to have foodies in their staff eating at fashionable places and writing a review about them. Because of the scarcity of the critics, 90% of the restaurants never got reviewed and therefore could afford to keep on doing business as usual, even if business as usual meant getting several customers unhappy or even blatantly angry. After all, the maximum damage that they could do is to tell their friends and family, a relatively reduced crowd.

In these days of the Internet and Social Media, everything has changed. All the sudden, the critics could be anyone and their opinions are read by hundreds if not thousands of potential customers. If you already know the place, you make your own opinions based on your own experience, but if you don’t, you probably go online (I know I do) and read the opinions of other people who had eaten there.

With all the restaurant offerings guess which one people will choose? The one with high ratings and reviews or the one with low ratings and nasty comments?

The fact that the opinions can be read by so many people means that each customer counts. Never underestimate the lonely customer that you sit in the crappiest table because you think that s/he will spend little money. S/he could be an Elite member of Yelp or just some foodie blogger with influence over hundreds or even thousands (depending where your place is located) potential customers.

Just that one meal could cost you dearly in future revenues.

If you always follow the model that I preach: bend backwards to please your customers and think that your clients are your number one priority, you will be heads and shoulders above your competitors who think short term profits versus lifelong clients.

Of course, I am partial, but if you haven’t done so, I would recommend that you buy my Restaurant Marketing Strategies book or ebook (just click on the link for more info, it is a VERY inexpensive marketing investment that can bring you thousands in revenue). Read very carefully chapter one and try to apply the learnings to your business.

Your customers will be grateful that you did and your business will get great online reviews.

Happy customers,
Jose L Riesco

Why You Shouldn't Use Groupon

I often get this question from restaurant owners and managers about Groupon.

Should I use Groupon to attract hundreds of people to my place?

My answer is simple. No, you shouldn't. And the reason is very simple.

It is true that Groupon could bring many customers to your business but the question that you should ask yourself is: Are these the kind of customers that you want?

Not only your profit margin will be minuscule (if any) after all the fees that you must pay to Groupon and all the (big) discounts that you must give to these customers but, by definition, you will bring people who are addicted to bargains. If your hope is to capture these customers so that they will love your place and come back to your restaurant, I have bad news for you: They won't. Instead, they will go to the next restaurant that gives them a new Groupon offer.

If you read my book Restaurant Marketing Strategies or some of the content in this site, you know how much I don't like spending money to attract new customers. Instead, try something different: Spend your marketing budget in your existing customers.

Yes, that's right. Treat your regular customers like kings and queens. Surprise them with something extra that they don't expect. Woo them with impeccable service and excellent food. Give them some free dishes or gift certificates so that they come back another time. Make your best effort to convince them (with facts, no words) that your restaurant is their favorite restaurant in the city.

Not only you will expend less money than trying to bring hundreds of cheap customers to your place, but these customers who you already have in your restaurant will come back and bring their friends and family members with them. They will become your best salesforce because people trust their friends and family members more than any fancy advertising. And, as an added bonus, they will be so happy with your business that they will express their opinions in blogs and forums all over the place.

When somebody is looking to try a new restaurant, they go to the Internet and look for reviews. If yours scores very high in customer satisfaction, this is the best advertisement that you can buy at any price.

Good luck,

Jose L Riesco

Sliced bread and other marketing delights

This is an interesting video from Seth Godin. If you don't know Seth, you should. He is a marketing genius with tremendous creativity. Worth a few minutes of your time to get inspired.