Category: Sales
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How to Price Your Menu for Profit
How to price a restaurant menu for profit: start from target food cost, price to perceived value, use menu engineering and pricing psychology, and grow the check average.
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How to Track Sales Per Labor Hour (SPLH) in Your Restaurant
Ask most restaurant operators how they measure labor efficiency, and they will give you one number: labor cost as a percentage of revenue. It is the metric the industry has used for decades. It is also, when used alone, one of the most misleading numbers in the restaurant business. Labor…
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Limited Time Offerings: How to Drive Frequency and Buzz Without Discounting
A limited time offering — an item or menu available only for a defined period — is one of the most versatile revenue tools in the restaurant industry. It drives repeat visits, generates social media content, tests new menu concepts at low risk, and creates urgency that a permanent menu…
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Discounting Strategies: Why Discounts Almost Always Cost More Than They Appear
Discounting is one of the most instinctive responses to slow sales in the restaurant industry. Traffic is down, the dining room feels quiet, and the impulse to put something on promotion — a happy hour extension, a buy-one-get-one, a 20-percent-off weeknight deal — is understandable. It feels like action. It…
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Crisis Management in Restaurants: Protecting the Business When Things Go Wrong
Every restaurant will face a crisis at some point. A health inspection failure. A foodborne illness complaint. A kitchen fire. A viral negative review. A key employee departure that disrupts operations. A flood, a power outage, or a global event that shuts the dining room. The crisis will arrive at…
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Optimizing Menu Mix for Profitability: Selling More of What Makes Money
A restaurant menu is not just a list of what you serve. It is a collection of financial decisions — some intentional, many inherited — that determines what your guests order and, ultimately, how much margin flows to the bottom line. Menu mix optimization is the discipline of understanding which…
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Seasonal Engagement and Community Connection: Building Traffic Beyond Your Four Walls
A restaurant that is open, serving good food, and providing attentive service has done the minimum. The restaurants that build genuine, durable traffic over time — that become neighborhood institutions rather than just good places to eat — almost always have a presence beyond their dining room walls. They are…
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Mitigating Traffic Losses: How to Protect Revenue When Guest Count Declines
Traffic declines happen in every restaurant. Some are seasonal — January after the holidays, the week before school starts, the rainy months when guests stay in. Some are cyclical — economic slowdowns that reduce discretionary dining. Some are structural — a new competitor opens nearby, construction blocks your entrance, or…
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Increasing Party Size: The Revenue Lever Hidden in Plain Sight
Of the three ways to grow restaurant revenue — more guests, more visits from existing guests, or higher spend per visit — increasing party size is among the least discussed and most consistently underestimated. It requires no new marketing spend, no menu overhaul, and no additional seats. It simply requires…
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Maintaining a Strong Loyalty Program: The Financial Case for Guest Retention
The most valuable guest in your restaurant is not the one who discovers you on a Saturday night and has a great first experience. The most valuable guest is the one who comes back. And comes back again. And brings someone with them the third time. The economics of guest…