As I have been watching the industry over the last couple of years, I’ve concluded that the big Private Equity and Venture Capital firms from Silicon Valley are trying to hoodwink the restaurant industry. What are the five big initiatives that most large restaurant companies have been focused on in the past couple of years: …
Restaurant Industry
People Can’t Get Their Managers To Follow Procedures
We are constantly talking to restaurant leaders about procedures, checklists, food safety etc.. One of the issues that is commonly raised by these managers is that they are struggling to get their people to do what they are supposed to do. This happens more than you can believe and I literally can’t understand it. Restaurant …
The Tight Labor Market is Causing Some Restaurant Managers to Make Poor Short-term Decisions
This is one of the most robust labor markets in the last 50 years. Typically low unemployment in the overall economy is bad for the restaurant industry because of our lower base pay and how demanding restaurant jobs are. Restaurant turnover is at 100%. Look at these restaurant labor stats from the 7 Shifts Blog …
The Pareto Principle and Restaurants
“The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a theory maintaining that 80 percent of the output from a given situation or system is determined by 20 percent of the input. … More generally, the principle can be interpreted to say that a minority of inputs results in the majority of outputs.” Read …
Ops Mgt Systems Could be as Transformative as POS Systems to the Restaurant Industry
One of the most transformative changes in the history of the restaurant industry was the invention of the POS System. Replacing the siloed cash register and giving brands real-time access to sales data did more to drive multi-unit operation expansion than any other technology. Prior to wide adoption of POS systems restaurants had only changed …
It’s the little things
I’ve been very blessed in all aspects of my life, one of the biggest blessings I’ve received is that I’ve traveled and I’ve stayed at some of the best hotels, resorts, and sailed on the nicest cruise ships in the world. This last weekend, my wife got us a room at the new Gaylord of …
Intelligent Checklists: What are they and why you should care
Basically, when you can’t intelligently customize your checklist to your locations, you pay more money for worse execution and mediocre data. Before you dismiss this as just pennies of cost. The average restaurant management team is supposed to be completing about 2 to 2.5 hours of managerial, food safety, and restaurant readiness checklists per day. …
Common Mobile Ordering App Mistakes
I’m one of those people who like to order ahead on an app and pick stuff up and bring it home. I’ve got two very frustrating stories of trying to do this recently and one great experience. In this blog I will outline what I was doing and the things in those experiences that were frustrating …
Wayne Humphrey COO of Larkburger – Ready for Growth
This week we interview Wayne Humphrey, COO of Larkburger. Wayne speaks about how Larkburger is ready to start growing out of the state of Colorado. Wayne also speaks about food consistency across the industry and why it is so hit or miss. If you live in Colorado or Overland Park KS shortly, please check out …
Alerting, Forced Comments, and Task Management in Checklists
A lot of our prospective clients ask us if we can force comments, create alerts or tasks when there are safety violations on their checklists. We don’t offer these features, not for technical reasons, but for liability and management reasons. I’m going to use this blog to explain our thinking on this subject. Alerts and tasks sound …