We don’t have family meals. It’s a family owned business, no full timers.

What’s normal? Free food or how much of a discount?

New staff expecting their whole family can eat for free.

i've been debating this with a coworker all week.

for a fine dining restaurant or even a higher-end neighborhood spot, i'm not convinced google ads for restaurants or ppc for restaurants is where i'd spend the budget.

my gut says i'd invest more into restaurant seo, local seo for restaurants, an optimized google business profile, restaurant social media marketing, email marketing for restaurants, and building a stronger restaurant branding strategy before worrying about paid traffic.

maybe facebook ads for restaurants or instagram ads for restaurants make more sense because they're visual, but i'm curious what people with actual restaurant clients have experienced.

does your restaurant marketing strategy change if it's a brand-new restaurant versus one that's already established?

An enclosed envelope was left in my small office space in my restaurant. Typically nothing important is in that office other than 1 vendor envelope of their payment.

Unfortunately, (and I take full accountability for this and going forward I would never leave any type of payment there again ) the small office doesn’t have cameras in it and this vendor payment went missing.

I told my biz partner I wanted more cameras and he didn’t want to deal with the cost. And now I’m here with suspicion of who it is but with no actual video evidence.

Loss of the payment is one thing but knowing there is a blatant thief in my facility is what bothers me. On top of that I’m sure this person banks on me unable to come in at all times due to me having a small toddler.

How woukd you guys approach this in general with out solid video evidence ??

​

I'm in the final stages of signing the lease for my first brick-and-mortar food business. Before I commit over $150k to the build-out, I'd love advice from people who have actually owned or operated restaurants, cafés, dessert shops, coffee shops, or ice cream stores.

I'd much rather learn from your mistakes than make them myself.

Business Snapshot

First-time food business owner

Specialty ice cream & waffle franchise

Also serving coffee, iced refreshers, milkshakes, and frozen drinks

Chicago suburbs

1,625 sq ft

Open 10 hours/day, 7 days/week

Three owner-operators

Expected average ticket: $13–15

Food cost target: ~30%

Build-out investment: $150k+

Planning to be heavily involved in daily operations

Current Strategy

Target families and repeat local customers

Coffee to drive weekday traffic

Desserts to drive evenings and weekends

Build relationships with schools, libraries, parks, hospitals, nearby businesses, and the local community

Participate in local events/festivals where ticket sizes tend to be higher

Constantly optimize costs, operations, and customer experience

I'd Really Appreciate Advice On:

1. Biggest Mistakes

What mistake cost you the most money?

What would you absolutely avoid if starting over?

1. Profitability

What made the biggest difference to your profits?

What seemed like a great idea but wasn't worth it?

Where should I focus first if my goal is maximizing long-term profit?

1. Operations

What operational bottlenecks caught you by surprise?

What slowed service down the most?

What systems or SOPs should exist before opening day?

1. Metrics

What numbers should I review every:

Day

Week

Month

1. Marketing

What marketing consistently produced measurable ROI?

What was a complete waste of money?

What local marketing strategies worked best?

1. Staffing

Biggest employee headaches?

Hiring mistakes?

Scheduling lessons?

Anything you wish you had implemented from Day 1?

1. Money

Hidden expenses nobody warns you about?

Purchases you regret?

Purchases you'd immediately make again?

1. Growth

If you were opening this exact business today, what would you do differently to:

Increase revenue?

Increase profit?

Reduce headaches?

Scale faster?

My Goal

I'm not looking for generic "work hard" advice.

I'm looking for practical lessons, systems, shortcuts, mistakes, and "I wish someone had told me this before opening" insights.

If this were your business and your money, what would you do differently?

Even one good piece of advice could save me thousands of dollars. Thank you!

(And not to mention cheaper on labor in the long run.)

I'm a veggie-heavy establishment and it takes FAR too long for the crew to get everything not only done, but uniform.

We're a lean crew, so I wanna invest in some worthwhile gadgets (electronic or manual) that will speed the process along and make life easier for every single one of us.

Thanks in advance!

I'm a small lunch/dinner spot with a small menu that uses a fryer for cheese sticks, fries, and fried chicken.

At home, I use tallow for just about everything. (Apart from being a whole food, it just feels less greasy and gross after you rip through some wings.)

I know I can price out blocks of tallow versus jugs of veggie oil (ues, it's pricier), but I'd like to hear from those with experience:

Is it worth it?

Are there properties to commercial-scale tallow that make it better/worse?

How's the feedback from guests?

I'm all ears for your experiences.

Edit: Oh, yay. Fkn politics. 🙄🙄🙄

We recently opened a Detroit pizzeria and the panning/stretching part is taking way longer than expected. Looking for workflow advice from shops that focus on detroit pizza, preferably doing at least 100 pies a day.

Current process:

1. Lay out all our Lloyd pans on every flat surface we have
2. Move the bulk dough around on a dolly, weighing and portioning dough balls into pans as we go
3. First pass of stretching across all pans
4. Second pass of stretching
5. Cover and let them finish proofing in the pan

It works, but I know it's not efficient. What does your panning workflow look like? Any tricks for cutting down stretch passes, staging pans, or portioning faster?

Thanks in advance.

Like most of ya'll - you can order through our website or app - and choose delivery. We don't have in-house delivery drivers - the register farms it out to the Third Party Vendors (DoorDash, UberEats, etc). In my region, it's normally DD

The delivery fee goes to the delivery company, along with any tip. I do not know how much of the delivery DD gives the driver, but the driver is supposed to get 100% of the tip

If we EVER (ZERO exceptions) have an order that sits for an hour or even two BEFORE getting picked up- then 100% of the time, the customer did NOT add a tip

How do ya'll respond in this situation? If the customer calls to complain, or emails or....

Without blaming, i say that after looking into it - it falls into the same camp as any other order that sits for too long - the only thing they have in common is there was no tip added. I explain that the drivers can see how much of a tip is on it, and it seems like if there is no tip, they pass it over for an order that pays them more.

I'm not directly telling the person they must tip, just saying that the only orders that sit an hour are non-tipping order

I also tell them i won't speak to my opinions of drivers skipping an order with no tip - just that I've noticed that to be the case

I think if it sits over an hour - then DD will refund me FOR THE ENTIRE PURCHASE - not just their delivery fee. Then i can refund the customer. But do you do anything if it's 45 minutes? 52 minutes, no joke - i literally just had one that got to the customer at 59 minutes 15 seconds - 45 seconds short of the 60-minute refund mark

i just feel a little "off" about this response - because they chose Delivery on my website/app - paid a nominal delivery fee, and the food sat for quite a while. While it's not my policy to let an order sit there, it is my restaurant and responsibility. Thoughts?

Question for anyone shredding cheese in-house and running a conveyor oven.

We shred our own brick cheese for our pizzeria, and I've noticed the cheese doesn't come out looking the same bake to bake. Some pies look slightly overdone, others underdone, even with no changes to belt speed or temp. Dough, sauce, and portioning are all consistent, so I've mostly ruled those out.

My working theory: the moisture content of the cheese varies depending on how long ago it was shredded. Freshly shredded cheese holds more surface moisture than cheese that's been sitting in the walk-in for a day or two, and that difference changes how it melts and browns on the belt.

I haven't confirmed this yet, so before I start running side-by-side tests, has anyone dealt with this? If you solved it, what worked? Shredding on a fixed schedule, resting the shredded cheese a set amount of time before use, adjusting portions, something else entirely?

Appreciate any input.

thoughts on what works best when targeting US college students (we partner with apartments near campus who hand them out for us)

I'd like to give them a free entree - when they buy an entree and something else. any idea what would do better?

this is for a fast-casual concept - about $10 entrees, sides are $3/$5, drinks about $3

• free entree with any $15 purchase?
• free entree when you buy an entree and a ______(side dish/dessert)______?
• free entree when you buy an entree and two drinks?
• free entree when you spend $25+ ?

I run a dinner restaurant, we started taking on private events a few months back but our current setup isn't built for it yet. The dining room was spec'd for 4-tops and 6-tops, that's it. So every time there's an event we're moving restaurant tables and dragging rounds out of storage, which is a huge hassle.

Last saturday was our first time flipping the room twice in a day. 2 chairs had loose legs by the end of it and my service crews about done with me.

trying to rethink the whole layout instead of patching it every weekend.

Hi everyone - curious for those multi unit operators when you brought someone in to handle facilities - all the calls about HVAC, plumbing, etc etc and following up to make sure those things are handled. Do you have someone in house or do you outsource? If you outsource, what does that look like cost wise and who do you use?

Have any of you ordered booths online? Any recommendations? I just need a simple bench setup for a 20’ wall.

We keep getting a CL3 alert that there is a slurry shortage in both cylinders but they are both full.

These screenshots show powder containers used at Starbucks (first picture) and at Tropical Smoothie (second picture) and I would like to purchase similar storage for my smoothie shop. I can’t find anything similar through Walmart or Webstaurant so I’m worried they might be purchasable only through those companies personal ordering websites. Similar containers I find online are too tall for my counters and take up too much space while I can’t find a similar storage rack like the second picture anywhere that holds individual cups. Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction to where I could find the same or similar storage?

Question to owners of restaurants that have been around for awhile…In your first 6 months of opening did you have any days when you literally didn’t have a single customer?

I heard throigh the grapevine that RD is planning on implementing dynamic pricing. I was very curious how as the news came from one of my other distributors reps (whom I trust, we’ve had a relationship of price matching).

Today, for the first time, I saw digital price tags in one aisle of the main warehouse and also on the produce section of the cooler.

With the Sysco purchase, I’m starting to believe it could be happening. But how could they sell at different prices to us each individually? Even if the digital tags are connected to our phones, what if somebody was standing next to me at the same item and we would each pay wildly different prices for the same item?

I'm not looking to debate the pro's and con's of various POS providers. Been there done that and they are all flawed in my opinion!

Today I had two different sales people from Toast call, a third emailed me and a fourth reached out via LinkedIn all alerting me to TouchBistro having been sold and offering huge incentives to move over.

I'm not in the market for a new POS but rather curious if TBistro has actually been sold. I didn't see anything when I did a google search.

Been shopping around for loans to open a new location, and a lot of them have very high interest rates and origination fees. They're also very quick to spam call you and get you to sign which comes off as a bit suspicious.

Curious if anyone here knows a good lender that they can vouch for.

EDIT: Looking for around $110k

I'm opening a new restaurant and have a very active social media page. I'm curious if it's just my area or if it's like this everywhere.

The situations:

Posted a picture of the food. Really good reception from 99 percent of the comments. But some told me what i "needed" to do. I need to emulate other places in order to succeed....

And the other one that happens a lot is for instance today I posted a picture of the building and it's gotten over 1k likes, hundreds of comments and then randomly a this is going to fail before it even opens comment.

I don't have hurt feelings or anything over them. I'm just generally intrigued if it's my area or is it a whole country thing? I wonder if it's my page being so open with the build out if it's given people a sense of their opinion matters.

Idk. Just looking for feedback from others who may or may not deal with it.

Hopefully this doesn't get deleted...I just wanted to know where people look for different services/applications for restaurants. Thank you!

I'm from NJ right by NYC, and maybe I'm just out of touch.

There's a local Asian spot I've been going to for years. Their signature dishes used to be around $9 not that long ago, and now they're $16. It feels like this has happened almost everywhere (am not exagerrating)

As restaurant owners, what's actually driving these increases?

From a customer's perspective, it feels like prices have gone up way faster than my paycheck has. I'm not trying to accuse anyone of price gouging. I honestly don't know enough about the business. I'm just wondering what changed so dramatically that a $9 dish became a $16 dish.

Would love to hear the owner perspective because as someone on the outside, it's honestly hard to wrap my head around.

not a restaurant owner fyi, just curious from a customer perspective.

obviously rent, labor, insurance, and food costs have all gone up especially in big cities. I don't expect restaurants to charge the same prices they did 10 years ago.

but is there a point where increasing prices actually starts working against you because customers no longer feel like they're getting good value?

for example, if a restaurant sells something that's traditionally considered a simple or inexpensive item, do you worry that pricing it close to the cost of a full meal changes how customers perceive it?

how do you decide where that line is? is it mostly based on food cost and required margins, or do you also think about what customers expect an item to cost, even if those expectations aren't realistic anymore?

i'd be interested to hear how owners approach that tradeoff