You hear these types of stories all the time: a passionate owner with no experience opens a restaurant and turns it into a huge success in little time. What is their secret? And how can you do the same?
Being a small restaurant owner comes with a lot of challenges, mainly related to finances and promotion. We understand the issues you face, and we are here to help you learn how to run a successful small restaurant.
How to run a successful small restaurant
Truthfully, there is no secret to owning a thriving small restaurant. It all boils down to the right knowledge, using the most efficient technology, and making the best decisions. Use these tips if you want to grow your food business:
1. Get to know your audience
Trying to make every person happy will only exhaust your resources and won’t bring in the results you hope for. Not every person in your area will become your client, and that is okay.
You must focus your energy only on potential customers. Taking into account your location, type of service, and cuisine, do some market research to determine your target market’s:
- Demographics: age, sex, occupation, type of employment, family size;
- Food preferences: what they like to eat, when they usually visit restaurants and eat out, and what price point they are interested in.
Read more: Restaurant Target Market: How to Identify It and Why It Is Important for Your Business
Using the above information, you can then update your menu, offers, and promotional efforts to specifically target your audience.
For example, if your target market is largely comprised of students, you can create a discounted menu for them during certain hours.
2. Create a strong restaurant brand
How to run a successful small restaurant? Start by outsmarting your competition. There are surely many other food places around your location. How can you convince people to pick your business?
A great way to stand out is to brand your restaurant. This way, you create a unitary image for your business that people will grow to recognize and love. You must:
- Decide on a persona and tone of voice: if you imagine your restaurant as a person, how would you best describe them? Maybe cheerful, helpful, and friendly? This will also help you settle on a tone-of-voice that you must use consistently on all platforms, be it website, social media, or review platforms;
- Choose branding items: your logo, colors, and even font that you will use for promotional materials and decorations;
- Have a slogan: something short and catchy that will get stuck in people’s minds and make them think about your restaurant often;
- Expand into merchandising: you can gift and sell merchandise such as mugs, caps, aprons, totes, and many other items that will act as free promotion when worn by customers.
Read more: 12 Restaurant Branding Ideas to Build a Memorable Presence
3. Speed up service & improve operational efficiency
After food and price, service is one of the biggest factors customers consider when deciding if they will revisit a restaurant. Speed of service is vital, and you can improve that with the help of technology.
On-premise ordering via QR code
Small restaurants can often get crowded, and the service quality suffers when your employees aren’t able to pay attention to every customer.
Say goodbye to people waiting a long time trying to catch a server’s attention. Empower clients to order their food as soon as they are seated.
By simply scanning the QR code on their table, customers can access the menu, browse it leisurely, and order when they are ready. They can also pay using their phones, so they can focus on enjoying their food.
The best restaurant POS system
With the GloriaFood restaurant POS system, you can offer clients the speedy service they desire. The color-coded dashboard is intuitive and easy to use, so employees can place orders and take payments in no time.
Moreover, it enables you to accept a variety of payment methods, such as:
- Cash
- Credit or debit card
- Smartphone
- Smartwatch
- Other digital wallets
This way, you know every customer will be able to pay however they wish.
On top of this, the GloriaFood POS system also comes with a variety of built-in features that help take your restaurant to the next level:
- Offline mode so you can keep working even if the internet is down;
- Staff management features to make it easier to oversee staff financials;
- Free online ordering integration;
- Ability to make menu changes directly from the POS dashboard;
- Access to in-store and online restaurant data analytics.
4. Discover new revenue streams
When you’re searching for how to run a successful small restaurant, you must be aware of your limitations, which, in this case, is the small space. This means you will only be able to serve a limited number of customers in a day.
If you want to sell more, you will have to look for new ways to generate revenue, such as:
- Add an online ordering system to your website: it will only take you 10 minutes to add the free online ordering system from GloriaFood to your website and allow customers to place an order in just a few clicks. You can forget about third-party app fees and have full control over the online ordering process. Moreover, you can also use our restaurant website builder to generate a sales and SEO-optimized website that will boost your online ranking;
- Get a branded app: the GloriaFood branded app is fully personalized with your logo and menu and allows customers to place orders easily through a native app. Hungry customers will find it hard to resist when they know they have your delicious food at their fingertips;
- Offer catering: you can serve your food at events of different sizes, be it gatherings, office parties, baptisms, or even weddings.
5. Make data-based decisions
How do you know if your promotions are efficient? Or if you should change your menu or do more to attract loyal customers? You can’t just guess, or you may end up losing money. The best restaurants make decisions based on data.
The good news is that GloriaFood makes it easy to get access to this valuable data. If you use the GloriaFood POS system with the online ordering integration, you will be able to monitor both POS reports and online ordering analytics such as:
- Daily property financial report including net sales, offered discounts, order types, cash payments, and more;
- Employee financial report to track individual performance;
- Best-selling categories & menu items;
- Online ranking;
- Delivery heatmaps that show the areas where most of your orders come from.
6. Manage and reward your employees
If you want to know how to run a successful small restaurant, start by choosing the best employees and doing your best to lower staff turnover.
Labor costs are already high, so if you have to constantly hire new people, you will spend a lot of money that could have gone into your profit.
To keep employees happy, you could offer bonuses for performance and also celebrate accomplishments, such as positive reviews.
Read more: 10 Restaurant Employee Benefits That Keep Service Staff Happy
Moreover, the GloriaFood POS system can make managing employees a breeze with the following features:
- Training mode to show employees how to use the POS system during onboarding without affecting your financials;
- Assign different responsibilities for each employee, such as only allowing the manager to access the cash drawer;
- Monitor every action a staff member performs, from placing an order and accepting payment to offering a refund.
7. Use promotions to attract new & returning customers
Promotions are a key part of running a successful restaurant. They can help attract new customers, boost the number of returning clients, and increase the average order value.
If you use the online ordering system from GloriaFood, setting up promotions only takes a few seconds. You can choose from a variety of tried and tested promotion templates and add them to the top of your menu in a few clicks:
8. Make social media a priority
If you search online for how to run a successful small restaurant, the main answer you will find is marketing. But as a small business owner, you don’t have a big budget, and you have to carefully pick your promotion channels.
The good news is that marketing your restaurant on social media can be free. It may take some time to reach your audience and build a big following, but consistency will help you get there. Check out these tips on how to take advantage of social media:
- Link to your menu and website: both in your profile’s description and in captions to encourage people to order;
- Have professional photographs: that will make viewers instantly hungry and curious about your restaurant;
- Organize contests: even simple ones, such as “like and share to win a free meal,” will help you reach a bigger audience;
- Interact with followers: by asking questions in captions and stories, and replying to comments and messages to show followers you care about their opinion.
Read more: How to Attract More Customers to Your Restaurant Using Social Media
9. Add entertainment to your restaurant
Your restaurant doesn’t have to be just a place where people come to eat. It can also be the spot where the community gathers to enjoy different events and build a stronger relationship. This will grow your reputation in their eyes and encourage repeat business.
Therefore, choose one or two nights a week when you organize any of the following events:
- Live music night with local artists;
- Allow local artists to showcase their art on the walls of your restaurant;
- Wine or craft beer tasting;
- Trivia night;
- Disco night.
Read more: 15 Restaurant Event Ideas to Get Customers Through the Door
Final words
You now know the basics of how to run a successful small restaurant, so it is time to take advantage of all the helpful tips mentioned above. Start with the technology that will really make a difference and bring the GloriaFood POS system into your restaurant.
