“I was just simply amazed at the amount of knowledge he gave me and the extra “above and beyond’ he did for me, that I didn’t hire him for nor ask him to do! He just said ‘…this needs to be done…’ and he did it!"
17 Leadership Best Practices
November 23rd, 2009 // 11:00 pm @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
We’ve been talking a lot lately about Leadership so here are my top 17 hottest best practices.
One-On-Ones: The best tool that gets the best results for our clients is the 5-minute, “One-On-One” utilized with EVERY employee, EVERY day. We Coach them to pick one employee every day to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation [...]
Category : All About Your People & Culture & Top-of-the-House
Post-Recession Thinking For Restaurant Operators
November 23rd, 2009 // 10:24 pm @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
Stop being afraid of your environment or your market.
Stop the spiraling toward commoditization. There are many fewer seats in many more markets now. Start to differentiate yourselves or you will fall into a second stage of category commoditization and there will be even fewer seats in even more markets.
Continue the aggressive marketing posture the recession [...]
Category : Top-of-the-House
The Real Reason Restaurants Fail
November 20th, 2009 // 3:03 am @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
It is not undercapitalization and it’s not the economy. It is “sameness”!
Buildings built the same. Menus taste the same. Employees act the same. Managers manage the same. Restaurants marketed the same. Same programs. Same coupons. Same ads. Same processes. Same procedures. Same interior decor. Same! Same! Same!
What’s the USP in being a commodity?!!
Want to answer [...]
Category : New Business Openings (NBO) & Top-of-the-House
Questions From Readers
October 14th, 2009 // 9:05 am @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
Q: I have been asked to become the GM of my restaurant – I am currently the AM. The previous GM ran things into the ground to the point that everything pretty much sucks. The owner is no help. What can I do to turn things around?
A: Working with Your Boss. You must first make [...]
Category : Top-of-the-House
Cornell Releases Comprehensive Compilation of Wage-and-Hour Laws
October 2nd, 2009 // 6:06 pm @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
A new Roundtable Retrospective from Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) seeks to unravel the remarkable tangle of wage-and-hour regulations throughout the United States.
Based on an investigation that began with the center’s Labor and Employment Law Roundtables, authors Carolyn Richmond and David Sherwyn developed this guide to wage-and-hour regulations in all fifty U.S. states, as [...]
Category : Articles & Top-of-the-House
Operators Who Are So Off My Buddy List
October 2nd, 2009 // 10:35 am @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
My email’s inbox is full lately of news reports about businesses closing right and left. The level is no more than usual, but it’s the comments by the operators that get me the most. Some I have actually seen due to my extensive traveling for clients and I’m pretty familiar with most primary and secondary [...]
Category : Articles & Top-of-the-House
What To Do Before The Shift Hits The Fan
September 19th, 2009 // 1:15 pm @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
The fortunate thing about time is that it doesn’t stop. And even a bad shift will eventually end. The question is what do you do with the de-brief? This situation offers a tremendous opportunity to learn from and come out on the other side, more aware of what actually went wrong and how to prevent [...]
Category : Articles & Top-of-the-House
How Top Operators Increase Profits
September 19th, 2009 // 8:46 am @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
Success as an Owner or Operator has never been more challenging, due to increasing competition and higher demands to meet business objectives.
Personal pressures are equally daunting. Long, stress-filled hours at work can strain commitments to family and health.
If you feel a little overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Merely projecting a veneer of confidence [...]
Category : Articles & Top-of-the-House
Doing The Math On Discounting
September 19th, 2009 // 3:21 am @ Jeffrey Summers // One Comment
A reader asked me how much you need to sell to make up for insane (my word!) discounting?
If your regular gross profit is say 30% and you…
…give a discount of 5% you have to increase sales by 14% to generate the same gross profit
…give a discount of 10% you have to increase sales by 35% [...]
Category : Articles & Restaurant Marketing & Top-of-the-House
Prime Costs
April 23rd, 2008 // 11:13 pm @ Jeffrey Summers // No Comments
Prime Costs are the sum of the Cost of Goods Sold (Food Cost + Beverage Cost) + Payroll (Labor Cost)
In more detail, the percentages look like:
Food Cost
27% to 33%
Wine Cost
27% to 46%
Liquor Cost
14% to 31%
Beer Cost
10% to 25%
Other Beverage Costs
10% to 25%
Payroll
25% to 35%
Total prime costs should run between 60% to [...]
Category : Articles & Operations & Top-of-the-House
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