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Running a restaurant has never been easy. There has always been a lot of competition in the sector and margins have typically been tight. Sadly, since the pandemic, in many areas, things have become even more difficult.
In many parts of the world, recruiting staff has become far harder. While at the same time the cost of the raw ingredients, power, and other overheads have all soared. In addition, most restaurant customers have less to spend on eating out. Therefore, restaurant owners are having to think creatively to remain profitable and stay open.
Increasingly, successful restaurant owners are leaning heavily on technology. Here we take a look at why this strategy is working so well. As well as explain, using a few examples, how any restaurant, bar, or café owner can find success by installing the right tech.
Tapping into the power of digital screens
The first piece of tech we are going to look at costs extraordinarily little to buy, install and use. Yet, it is still hugely powerful. Over the past few years, the use of digital menus for restaurants, cafes, takeaways, and bars has become much more commonplace. Customers like them and they bring the following benefits to the restaurant owner:
- Speeds up the ordering process – customers do not have to wait for their server to bring them menus. So, they are ready to order faster, and the server saves at least one trip between the kitchen and the table because they do not have to walk away to give people time to think before placing their order.
- Improves the dining experience – when an item runs out it can quickly be taken off the menu and reinstated when it is available again. This reduces disappointment.
- The ability to instantly change the price – if the cost of the raw ingredients goes up, the price of the relevant meals can be instantly increased. When they go down that dish can be put on promotion, or have its price reduced.
It is hard to believe that installing one simple piece of technology can make such a huge difference. But it does. Establishments that use digital menus end up saving time and improving their profit margins while making life easier for their customers and staff.
Restaurant inventory management technology
For any restaurant, waste is a big issue. Every ingredient that ends up in the bin instead of in a dish that is being paid for by a customer eats into their profits. If you throw away $100 of food every few days, and your average profit margin is 10%, you need to sell $1000 worth of meals to cover the cost of the food you binned.
So, it is worth your while investing in inventory management apps and teaching your staff how to make sure everything is kept up to date. Remember, “garbage in garbage out.” If a member of staff does not log the ingredients they pull out of the storeroom or the fact they threw away 2 kgs of potatoes and why, as it happens, you will be looking at incomplete data.
Find out more about using inventory tracking apps to make your restaurant more profitable, by reading this article.
Tech that saves power
You can also use technology to reduce the amount of power your restaurant consumes. For example, investing in rapid cooking methods that use less power.
Installing low-energy bulbs that have sensors on them to make sure they only come on, when necessary, also saves power. As do smart heating and cooling systems.
Technology that makes life easier for your staff
This last category may seem a strange one. But if you do not look after your staff your chances of retaining them are limited. In many parts of the world, people no longer want to work in the hospitality sector. So, you must retain the people you have and maximize their effectiveness.
Technology that makes their lives as easy as possible can help you with this. For example, using kitchen display systems will save your waiting staff from having to walk as far. They can take the customer’s order, and key it into the system using a tablet. At which point the kitchen staff can immediately start preparing what is needed. It is also easier for the cooking team. They no longer have to deal with the stress of holding all of the order details in their head. Everything that they need to know about the workflow is right there on the screen.
The above are just a few examples of how technology can be used to improve your restaurant business. More is being developed, so keep an eye on what is happening in your industry.
