If your restaurant is presently open for breakfast, I suggest offering an uncomplicated breakfast menu (no hot food yet) to start.
• Remember the mantra—This is a process.
• Start with a smaller menu and build it up over time.
• Work thru the kinks and develop your systems. Become known for a specialty item(s).
• Creating a big menu too soon could backfire. Besides having to keep a larger inventory on hand, it will create more work, stress, and expense. And, paring the menu down can be deflating.
• Begin with your core items – and grow incrementally.
To illustrate, a new restaurant opens and touts serving 20 flavors of chicken wings, seven days a week, until 11:00 p.m. Six months later, you notice they serve 10 flavors of wings, Tuesday thru Sunday, until 9:00 p.m. I guarantee they have not condensed their menu and shortened their hours because they were doing too much business between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m., or on Mondays. As a consumer, you might think (perhaps unconsciously),“There hasn’t been the demand they were planning for—I wonder why?”
This is opposed to noticing that they now serve until 1:00 a.m. every night. Which might lead to the thought, ”Wow, they must be banging it out—I’ll have to check them out.”
Remember
To start, link your restaurant menu with your catering menu. If you only serve bagels, muffins, coffee and juice, there is plenty of time LATER to add egg and cheese sandwiches. Instead, think about a specialty—signature cream cheeses, great coffee, the best muffins in town, beautiful fruit trays—be known for something that will get people talking.
Keep in mind
You can’t be all things to all people. If your restaurant does not currently serve breakfast, and/or if you are open later at night—you might want to focus on the meals and foods you are presently serving. Don’t take on too much at once.
Michael Rosman is a member of the Catersource consulting team. If you would like information about him coming to your business to address your specific needs, please email Carl Sacks at [email protected]. His book, Lessons Learned From Our Mistakes – and other war stories from the catering battlefield is available through the Catersource store.
You can visit Michael’s website at www.TheCorporateCaterer.com email [email protected].
