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Informative Articles About Restaurant Reservations

Profitable Lines?
Any operation with a "no reservation" policy wants a line out their door on a good night. It's worth the money to advertise if you have no line on a Friday. If the line can't be achieved, the policy should be changed to accommodate reservations.

The most popular restaurants have long lines at dinner time on Friday and Saturday. With a decent size lounge area, the average revenue per patron can be significantly increased. The next turn is waiting in line or in the lounge boosting bar profits. A steady line increases turns and the average spent per patron.

When is the line too long? The line is too long when the estimated wait produces a negative profit expectation.

To solve this riddle, we need to know quite a lot about the operation. Valuable information would include the number of seats, average dining time per patron, peak hour arrival rates, off-peak arrival rates, recent promotions and the expected impact on arrivals.

Your hostess can help to answer the question. Find out the percentage of parties willing to wait 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes, etc. Keep records to document the sweet spot.

What's the policy on keeping your best customers waiting in line? Perhaps they are treated exactly the same as someone who has never dined in your restaurant before today. You might discreetly escort them to the bar and comp them with a drink order.

A factor called mean service rate equals the average number of patrons you can serve in one hour (or another time period which works in your operation). The expected time someone needs to wait in line equals the traffic intensity ratio divided by the net of mean service time and mean arrival rate. The traffic intensity ratio equals the mean arrival rate divided by the mean service rate.

The idea here is simple. It pays to know 3 pieces of information in your operation: the unacceptable wait time, covers served per hour and peak period arrival rate.

Faster Turns Can Help
If you ever dig deep into your restaurant's information mine, you'll locate plenty of valuable ore. Since most money is made and most opportunities are lost on busy days, it's always wise to focus on high volume days.

Take the day of the week with the highest sales (week in and week out). For this busy day, enter the date and sales figures for an entire year in a spreadsheet. Chart the information using the Line method. Locate the high and low sales figures and note the dates. Pay specific attention to holidays, seasons and special events in your area. Go a step further and calculate the average, median and standard deviation.

Most days will fall within one standard deviation (plus or minus) of the average. In fact, it is rare to find days which do not fall within two standard deviations of the mean. Most likely, you will find specific events which caused the high or low figures. You can even rework the numbers excluding those data points.

If you have a line out the door during peak hours on these busy days, you can turn the dining room faster through intelligent prep. Know your menu well. Prep the popular items ahead of time for the average sales level. Don't produce less. We're going for a faster turn which will increase your volume.

It is especially critical to have appetizers and desserts ready to go fast. A quick response to the initial order for starters and the final order for dessert have a major impact.

By increasing focus on your busiest night, you can get a higher sales number when the opportunity is greatest. Make sure patrons do not feel rushed and prevent a long wait time for the check. Your faster turns will produce greater sales. The best route to a better food cost percentage is a bigger sales figure.

Please visit Joes Dunbar's blog site, Food Cost Control, to read many other articles pertaining to the Restaurant Industry and in particular to food and liquor inventory control.