Nowadays, running an exclusively brick-and-mortar restaurant is an incredible missed opportunity. If you want to make it big in this competitive industry, you can’t just rely on the few tables you have at your restaurant. You must expand your business to off-premises dining.
Below, we’ll look at what off-premises dining means, why you should do it, and what you need to succeed.
What Is Off-Premises Dining?
As opposed to on-premises food service, off-premises dining refers to food that customers order from your restaurant but consume elsewhere. Some examples are:
- Delivery: perhaps the most popular type of off-premises dining, the food gets delivered to the customer’s door.
- Takeout: the orders are picked up by the customer in the restaurant.
- Curbside delivery/pickup: customers wait in the car next to the restaurant for someone to bring their order.
- Drive-thru: customers pick up the order from a drive-thru window at the restaurant.
The Advantages of Owning an Off-Premises Restaurant
Whether you want to complement your dine-in operations with off-premises dining or would like to run an entirely off-premises restaurant, there are plenty of benefits to enjoy.
1. Attract a larger customer base
While you will always have your dine-in regulars, there may be people who have always wanted to try your food but were disappointed that you don’t deliver.
Attract a bigger crowd by giving people multiple ways to enjoy your food, whether they pick it up themselves to enjoy elsewhere or wait for you to deliver it at home.
2. Serve more people daily
Offering takeout and delivery will help you serve more customers than you would if you simply relied on dine-in sales. Boost your daily profits by expanding your business online.
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3. Lower costs
Selling food online means you can increase profits without spending money on buying new furniture or expanding to a new location.
Not to mention off-premises dining implies less front-of-house (FOH) staff, which can lower labor costs. Plus, you can ask FOH staff if they’d like to deliver instead.
4. Needs less space
If you’d like to open an entirely off-premises restaurant, also known as a ghost kitchen or virtual kitchen, you won’t need that much space to run your business.
That means you can take the money you would spend on the space and invest them in technology and marketing that will help your virtual restaurant succeed.
5. Smaller menu with more flexibility
Typically, takeaway menus are smaller than dine-in menus because not all food travels well. That means you can work with fewer ingredients, use them for multiple menu items, and allow customers the option to customize their dishes.
Top 7 Things You Need for Successful Off-Premises Dining
1. Menu optimized for off-premises dining
As we’ve mentioned above, a smaller menu is better for off-premises dining. You need a menu builder that will allow you to quickly add and update menu items, create daily specials, and offer a variety of choices and add-ons, as well as allergen and nutritional information.
Here’s how easy it is to create an off-premises menu for your restaurant using GloriaFood’s online menu builder:
To give customers more variety when ordering food online, watch this video tutorial to learn how to customize your menu with toppings, sides, add-ons, and other choices:
2. Reliable online ordering system
Once you’ve created a mouthwatering online menu, you’re ready to share it with the world and allow people to place their first online orders.
For that, you need an in-house online ordering system that will ensure you keep all the profits and make all the decisions for your restaurant’s success.
All you need to do to start accepting online orders is copy a piece of code we provide on your restaurant website. This will add a ‘See MENU & Order’ button that customers can click to order your food online. That’s it!
If you’re a visual learner, take a look at this step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to add online ordering to your restaurant in no more than 10 minutes:
3. Sales-optimized restaurant website
If you don’t have a website yet, or if you’re not satisfied with the way your current website is performing, we can generate one for you.
The even better news is that the website will be optimized for search engines and sales, so customers can easily find it online and have an easy time ordering food.
The website comes with our online ordering system built in, so you’ll be ready to accept orders online in mere hours. Learn more here:
4. Easy-to-use order-taking app
So, your menu is ready, and you’ve published the Order button, what’s next? Well, you need something to accept incoming orders from, right?
Look no further than our sleek, intuitive order-taking app for iOS or Android. You can install it for free on your smartphone or tablet to turn them into an order-taking machine. No complicated technology or expensive devices.
Delve into the features of the order-taking app in the video below:
5. Multiple fulfillment and payment options
The more options customers have, not just when it comes to the food they order, but also to the way they pay for it or how it gets delivered, the more successful your restaurant will be.
That said, here are some must-have features for off-premises dining:
- Scheduled orders: Allow customers to place an order whenever they want, even outside your opening hours, and schedule it for later.
- Online payment: When placing an order, customers might also like to pay for it online via credit card or services like PayPal and Apple Pay. P.S.: Don’t forget to enable digital tipping so customers can give you a little extra when placing orders.
- Mobile ordering: Consider taking off-premises dining to the next level by offering a branded mobile app that customers can download to order from your restaurant.
- No contact delivery and minimum exposure pickup: contactless fulfillment options were needed during the pandemic, and they’ve maintained their popularity post-pandemic too.
The good news? All of these features are available at your fingertips if you use the online ordering system by GloriaFood.
6. Online marketing tools
The two most important goals you need to have for your off-premises restaurant are how to attract new customers and increase return visits.
We have tools to help with both.
First, take a look at our Kickstarter module that shows you how to create a first-buy promo to attract customers, as well as how to invite dine-in customers to place their first order online:
To tempt customers to keep ordering from you, you can set up targeted email campaigns. Then, let them run in the background using our Autopilot module.
These campaigns can help you encourage seconds orders, re-engage clients who haven’t ordered in a while, and prevent cart abandonment. Learn more in the video below:
And let’s not forget the simplest way to motivate customers to order from you: offer irresistible promotions.
With our Promotions module, you can choose from a variety of promotion templates and customize them to your liking:
7. Reporting data to help you monitor your success
Finally, there’s no way to know if your efforts are successful unless you monitor your off-premises sales and the success of your online marketing campaigns.
Don’t fret, our online ordering system comes with an advanced Reporting module that provides detailed restaurant analytics.
These will help you determine your best and worst-selling menu items, track your website funnel, the number of new and returning customers, and much more.
Final Words
Owning an off-premises dining restaurant comes with many benefits but many challenges as well. To stand out in the crowd, you need technology you can trust and that won’t break the bank. Using the tools presented above, you can kickstart your online business and take it to new heights.
