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[mattm]

KNG is in the same situation as most of you restaurateurs; our customers (you) can't afford higher prices, but our costs have increased. We need to keep our prices low to help you survive so how do we continue to make a profit?

At KNG we have spent the last year constantly going over everything we do to make sure we are as efficient as we can be. It is a continuous process, but so far we have found enough ways to save money that we are able to hold our prices steady.

I would like to invite all of you restaurant owners, chefs, and other restaurant employees to give your ideas on techniques, tools, or methods that can be used to save money and maximize profits for restaurants.

Please reply to this post with your ideas and check back every couple of days to see what ideas others have come up with.

[CHRIS ELLIS]

Here are some of the key things I have learned in the past.

Have employees cross trained in as many areas as possible so when volume is down you can save on Labor.

are all of you menu item costed out, if so are you selling enough of the high margin items, ( they do not contrib as much to the top line, but drop more to the bottom line ) as your low margin high price items ( that contrib more to the top line but less to the bottom line) there should be a balance there to protect the Food Cost you seek

Are your Floor employees servers or are they your sales staff

Monitor you water and electric use and cross reference to what the util. company is charging you

USE your Point of Sale system to the fullest...for labor...food cost....get a Daily P & L if possible

Are soda machines correctly brixed

how are you paying for your cleaning supplies and dishmachine soap, if just purchasing as needed is the titration level for dish machine correct.

Have a pre-close for the restaurant in place so all of the duties for close are not started late

Cook to order, & watch sauces on steam line for loss

Be able to set the cooking line up in a configuration that allows fewer cooks to run it on slow days.

Review you credit card processing charges....be able to understand what the charges are and how it works

Perform a daily or shift key item inventory for loss

Are employees ringins up their meals

what General Ledger account are comps and promos and emp meals being charged to ( goes to food cost )

Are you a member of a purchasing umbrella or are you a stand alone

are you tracking labor to budget on a daily basis

How is labor being calculated...rounded to the nearest 5 min, rounded to the nearest quarter hour?

Are kitchen linens issued by shift

are all members of you mgt team aware of the monitary
goals

are ordering par levels correct

inventories being done correctly

how is your landscaping being performed

that's all folks

chris

[mattm]

Originally Posted by CHRIS ELLIS

are all of you menu item costed out, if so are you selling enough of the high margin items, ( they do not contrib as much to the top line, but drop more to the bottom line ) as your low margin high price items ( that contrib more to the top line but less to the bottom line) there should be a balance there to protect the Food Cost you seek



chris

Chris's point about making sure you are selling the high profit items is key to a restaurants survival. KNG recently sponsored a trial for Jimm'y Egg (located in Oklahoma).

The purpose of the trial was to see if adding a 1/2 width extra pocket to their menu covers will increase the sales of their high profit Griddle category. Jimmy's Egg was using an 8.5 X 14 double pocket menu cover. The 4.25 X 14 extra pocket really made the Griddle specials stand out.

The result was a 55% increase in Griddle category saleshttp://www.restaurant-community.com/images/icons/icon7.gif.

KNG is a proud sponsor of the Restaurant Community forum. Please visit KNG - Buy Menu Covers, Aprons, Chef Clothing, Restaurant Uniforms for all your Menu cover needs.

[isitoget]

A good way to increase sales is with your menu. If you have your menu in menu jackets with pockets, they come in 2, 4, or 6 pockets. If you menu and front cover take up 5 pockets, you can use the pocket left over for promoting specials for lunch, dinner. You can use it to promote things that you sell in your restaurant other than food items. You can use it to let them know specials on catering, special events, etc. I always made sure that when the customer opened the menu jacket, the first thing they saw was the promotion page. We also trained the staff to sell from the promotion page. You can find all this and other ways to increase sales on my website, Home Page.

[Dmagnet]

Coming from a marketing standpoint. One of the easiest ways to maximize profit is to increase customer frequency or get those existing customers to increase their average ticket. It is less costly to sell to a current customer then it is to attract new ones.