Running a restaurant has never been easy, but if the last two years have taught us anything, adaptation is the key to success. Restaurants that have been able to quickly shift mindsets and adopt new strategies have come out on top.
We are fortunate that our restaurants had great teams behind them, willing to do whatever it took to stay operational and serve the food our customers love.
The restaurant world isn’t just about the quality; you need to create a feeling, a sensory experience. It’s about your customers wanting to be a part of an experience they can share with others.
An authentic restaurant will foster a sense of inclusion within its customers – whether they are associated with some kind of status by posting your venue/food online or feeling like they’ve been transported to a new country by dining with you.
Throughout the pandemic, this was a hard feeling to foster within our restaurants. However, we adapted and went where the target market was. Many of the strategies we implemented hung around post-pandemic because of how much our customers loved them.
Foremost, we did our own home delivery – customers wanted to spend money on our food but resented the idea of paying the delivery fee charged by most third-party services. Our solution was to target specific suburbs each night that we would deliver to fee-free, and our orders absolutely skyrocketed.
I highly suggest implementing a similar practice if you are a restaurant owner – customers want to spend their money, and you just have to make it easy for them. We did this for around six weeks, which was the main reason the restaurants could stay open during the pandemic.
Obviously, there are increased costs when delivering orders fee-free, such as delivery drivers and extra staff but the downside of losing a long-term customer far outweighs the additional expenditure.
Mindset is everything as a restaurateur – having a growth outlook and being able to identify new opportunities is the only thing that will lead to greater success. We took advantage of the first lockdown by restructuring the business and trying out new and innovative ideas – by the time the second lockdown commenced, we just had to click play on the strategies that had worked so well previously.
As a business owner, your mindset and resiliency are what keep your team going – making sure that they know you’re there for them is crucial to fostering a cohesive workplace.
The world is changing quickly, and restaurateurs aren’t looking outside the box. In this pivotal moment in history, it’s important to look at all the options rather than sticking with the historically worked strategy. There has never been a better time to get uncomfortable and try new things with your business.
Think about where you want your restaurant to be in a year’s time and start executing plans to get yourself there. In a year’s time, you’ll wish you had started implementing change today.
