BUSINESS: 4 Insights into Modern Restaurant Delivery Services
Food delivery is among the hottest restaurant industry trends. We’ve talked a lot about why restaurants need a delivery program. This time, we look at the less obvious aspects of delivery execution -- including upselling, POS integration, ghost kitchens, and optimizing delivery menus.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Would You Order a Pissed Meal?
Burger King is takes on McDonald’s with a range of “unhappy meals” including Pissed Meal, Blue Meal, Salty Meal, Yaaas Meal, and DGAF Meal. Bold flex from BK here, especially that last one. These “Real Meals”, however, are part of Mental Health Awareness Month in May. The deals includes a Whopper, fries and a drink. BK is also swapping their “Have it your way” slogan with “Feel your way.” The meals are available in Austin, Seattle, Miami, LA, and NYC.
AAF Founder Charged with Fraud
The AAF caved pretty fast after a strong start, but now it’s just sinking to new depths. The league’s original founder, Reggie Fowler, faces up to 70 years in jail for fraud, unrelated to his AAF dealings (or so it seems). Nonetheless, Fowler promised to invest $170 million but only forked over $28 million, forcing the league to bring in Tom Dundon who quickly shut the league down after he learned the AAF would have to pay broadcasting stations to carry their games. Oof.
Sinclair to Land Fox RSNs?
It appears that the 21 available Fox RSNs are heading to Sinclair for an estimated $10 billion. Sinclair has also inked a deal to acquire the NY Yankees’ YES Network for roughly $3.45 billion. That deal, which isn’t finalized, also includes Amazon as a partner.
BE A LIFELONG LEARNER
Why it matters to you: If you aren’t getting professional development support, create your own program.
Leadership is among the most neglected skills in our industry. Our industry certainly values it, but we don’t invest in developing it with nearly the fervor we do other aspects of the management pro forma. Often times as a professional manager’s career advances, they are left without advanced training options that are either relevant or accessible. Which is why I’m about to pitch LinkedIn Learning to you. To be clear, we have no connection to LinkedIn other than our own presence there. However, when I stumbled upon LinkedIn learning I was immediately impressed that this much great content was just sitting there for professional managers to access towards their own development. Many professional organizations require professional development on an ongoing basis to maintain your status in their hierarchy.
Take teachers as an example. In order to maintain their licenses, they are required to engage in a prescribed amount of ongoing training. Our industry sorely lacks this standard; consequently, you have to be your inspiration and seek out resources that will help you grow. Hence our promotion of LinkedIn Learning.
As you can see from the accompanying image, just the first eight pieces of content on the page include great topics like “Strategic Thinking” and “Being a Good Mentor.” Further searching delivers insights on pretty much any topic you can imaging. So, if you feel a little stuck in your current development, take on the job of educating yourself with resources that cater to your interests and subjects that will jump start your performance!
[Source: LinkedIn]
BEEN CAUGHT STEALING [Song]
Why it matters to you: Employee theft is 100% avoidable. What are you doing about it?
Exposure to theft is cause of many nightmares for restaurant operators. It would be almost impossible to operate without the inherent trust we place in our staff. That’s why when you experience what this restaurant operator from Florida describes, you have to wonder who was at fault -- the employee or the operator for not catching it. In this case the operator received feedback from a guest that the tip amount was not the same as what he signed for at the end of his meal. When the owner verified the receipt with his own records, it appeared the server never included the signed copy. If your first reaction is absolute rage, I’m with you. However, that needs to pass, and you have to ask yourself “Could I have done anything to remove this exposure?” In fact, that applies to almost any of the ways you are exposed to employee theft and manipulation.
The old adage, “locks were made to keep honest people honest” has always been the mentality I used in managing employee malfeasance. Of course, a dominant percentage of your staff would never take a nickel that wasn’t theirs, but you need only read about the experiences of your peers to know many places have failed because they hadn’t instituted and maintained systems to mitigate their risk of internal theft.
Our suggestion: let the aforementioned rage be your impetus for implementing systems to avoid theft like this. For example: moving to a tableside payment system would 100% eliminate servers having access to changing tip amounts. Problem solved. This method is only one possible solution, but it’s up to you to protect your business and you alone.
[Source: Restaurant Business Online]
