The key to a restaurant’s success is understanding how to optimize and make the most of its resources – time, employees, and communication. Properly managing a restaurant’s table turn times, server performance, and communication tools can significantly maximize profits, minimize costs, and save time.
- Optimize Table Turn Times: Knowing and understanding the proper turn times for your restaurant allows you to run your business more efficiently. It’s key to understand your average turn time and how each table performs in relation to this number — how long is the average time between turns? Is it appropriate for your restaurant segment? For example, a fine-dining establishment should see an average turn time of at least 90 minutes, but a more casual restaurant’s turn time would be much lower. Which tables are your top performing tables and why? How can you improve the sales of those lesser performing tables? Having the right standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place to ensure that servers are counting covers properly will give you the most accurate table data.
- Enhance Server Performance: Who are your top and bottom performing severs? Do you know what makes them the top or bottom performing servers? To improve server performance, restaurant general managers should be able to determine how poorly performing servers can improve to meet their team average. If a server is selling less wine than their peers, it may be because they need to learn more about the wine offerings, or because they don’t know the proper way to open a bottle in front of guests. Or if a server has significantly lower dessert sales than everyone else, conduct a tasting with them and explain that they can meet the team average simply by selling two more desserts per night.
- Leverage Digital Communication Tools: The way a restaurant keeps records of the day can impact the whole team — did someone break something? Was someone late to their shift? Did a VIP come in? Does everyone on the team know the answers to these questions? Understanding what went right or wrong, what your sales were, and what occurred in the restaurant on a given day is important for many different epartments within a restaurant. An online tool, such as a digital logbook accessible by everyone rather than a pen and paper kept in the back office, allows many people to communicate their notes for the day in an organized, searchable manner.
Looking for a solution that allows you to run a more efficient restaurant? Get started with Avero today.
