The Top 7 Ways to Increase Your Food & Beverage Revenues

We are always looking for ways to increase our top line as top-line revenue improvement is always the easiest way to improve your bottom line!

Some quick and easy thoughts:

1. How is your restaurant viewed? What do visitors think about the experience? Look on Yelp, Open Table, Trip Adviser, Foursquare, Zagat, or many others. If people don't like your restaurant, people won't go. So, what is the fix for this? Work with your team to dissect the feedback. Believe what people are saying. Don’t be in denial! Respond to any negatives, and then also, try to increase your general number of surveys with more positive to dilute any negatives.

2. Look at your pricing. Make sure that it is competitive with other local restaurants. Are you charging enough? Are your prices too high? Where do you want to be positioned to get a bigger slice of the pie? Create a pricing strategy where can you increase and also determine where should you decrease? Don't leave money on the table; people generally will not leave for an extra dollar. When you look at your menu, what does your pricing say about you? Take a quick glimpse as this is how people will judge you.

3. How does your team do at up-selling? How are appetizer sales, desert sales, coffee sales? Is the team trying and actually bringing these items up by suggesting them? Do they up-sell to the next brand tier in cocktails or wine? Do they have favorites and recommendations [higher-priced items]? What is their spiel? Yes, it must be real, but with some practice they can get really good and make a difference, which will result in better service for the guest, increased revenues, and also increased tips! So, listen in to what they are saying, do some training, make it part of what the daily life, and you will see a difference.

4. Look at your peak sales times. Figure out when they are and work on a plan to fill the restaurant in off-peak times. You can only do so much business from 11:30-1:30 and 6:00-8:00 PM. So, the question is, do we increase seating to maximize revenue during these times, or should we focus on filling the restaurant during the other times of day? What is your plan for this? Again, just review and create a strategy.

5. Are you missing out with to-go sales? What is your process? Do you make it easy for people to order on-line? Is it ready on time? Is it well packaged and attractive? This is a growing area, especially in large cities, and it will continue to grow - make sure you're ready! This could be a huge increase in revenue with very little labor cost.

6. Should you be worried about theft? Is everything you actually sell being rung up and charged? Or, is your team taking a share of the revenue? We, of course, want to trust our teams, but often the ones we trust can be the ones at fault. There are lots of systems out there to help ensure you stay on top of these issues without pointing any fingers. This will help you to be able to trust in your staff with confidence knowing that systems are in place. Call me as I have some great and very effective solutions.

7. Look at your peak sales times. Figure out when they are and work on a plan to fill the restaurant in off-peak times. You can only do so much business from 11:30-1:30 and 6:00-8:00 PM. So, the question is, do we increase seating to maximize revenue during these times, or should we focus on filling the restaurant during the other times of day? What is your plan for this? Again, just review and create a strategy.

If you would like any assistance, support or direction with this topic, please don’t hesitate to contact me through our website: www.focus-fb.com