OPERATIONS: 4 Restaurant Tabletop Cleanliness Best Practices
There are plenty of clichés about cleanliness, mostly because they are true. As it turns out a bad review of your cleanliness will cause 85% of consumers not to visit your restaurant. There are few places where that cleanliness is more obvious than the table or bartop your guests are sitting at. That’s why we wanted to speak about some best practices at your tables to give every guest a reason to return.
DID YOU KNOWS…
KFC Spoofs Bird Box
Everyone seems to be talking about Bird Box, Netflix’s much-buzzed thriller movie. So, of course, one our industry’s social media giant, KFC, jumped in. Specifically, the HFC Singapore account which tweeted out a still of Sandra Bullock from the film but with a big ol’ bucket of fried KFC chicken in tow. The caption: “The only #BirdBox you need.” Check it here.
Florida Woman Really Wants Outback
A Florida woman allegedly attacked her parents for not taking her to Outback Steakhouse. According to the woman’s mother, the altercation started after they told their daughter they wouldn’t take her to Outback. The daughter then started throwing punches and grabbed a knife. Like, we all love the Bloomin’ Onion, too, but this is a bit… extreme.
The “Pizza Fork”
So, 2019 is already bizarre. There’s a Kickstarter campaign started to fund the “Pizza Fork” which is a fork that has a pizza cutter in the middle of the handle. It’s a tool only monsters will fund and is being created by Stupidiotic (their name, not ours), which has also created a plastic neck pouch for pizza slices, so they’re all about pizza-eating accessories, apparently.
MORE THAN MEETS THE WIFI
Why it matters to you: Don’t miss the data your internet router can provide.
You may not have noticed, but EVERYONE seems to have a smart phone these days. That simple fact presents an opportunity to understand your guests’ behavior in ways unthinkable just 10 years ago. Most of you offer WiFi service to your guests. If you are approaching it strategically, you are actively acquiring email addresses and other personal information to better connect and market to your guests. However, you probably don’t realize that your WiFi router can do so much more and do it in a passive manner.
The key is the MAC address that identifies every single FCC rated device sold in US. This address can be discovered by an internet router that is specific capability enabled to do so. This means you can acquire a MAC address that is within a specific range (ostensible the radius around your restaurant) and track as guests come and go, and use their devices. You also collect the MAC address and see how long the device owner dwells. This way you can identify if, and when, the address returns. The applications are amazing.
This primer, focused on WiFi metrics, explains many of them. For example, WiFi analytics can also help you get to know customers better through metrics that track their behavior. Information like their frequency of visits, favorite days of the week to visit, dwell times, and whether they are part of the breakfast, lunch or dinner crowd can be used to more effective market to consumers when it’s most appropriate. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are several companies that deliver integrated WiFi and metrics-based marketing data. You just need to be committed to the effort to collect it. We just published a post on using WiFi analytics to improve your marketing, so be sure to give it a read, too.
[Source: Modern Restaurant Management]
WHOSE LOOKIN’ OUT FOR YOU
Why it matters to you: Is the NRA’s agenda, your agenda?
What do you know about the NRA? No, not the gun guys; the other NRA which represents restaurants across North America -- or so they say. Sorry, if that sounds cynical, but how many of you belong to the NRA? Exactly! Yet, they are advocating on your behalf in Washington DC. They have an agenda, but you have to know what it is to know if it’s really on your behalf. In a post on Restaurant.org on January 3rd, the NRA enumerated 4 legislative priorities and they are: immigration, infrastructure, workforce development and a tax-code correction. Which of these do you think is most relevant to your business? We would assert the tax-code correction is the one that is the most immediately relevant to your bottom line.
If you don’t already know about the drafting error on Qualified Improvement Property (QIP), you should. This error excluded interior property improvements from 2018 from the 100% bonus depreciation deduction. Consequently, if you did any interior work or general work on your property, this rule doesn’t allow you to immediately deduct its entire value because it was property based. It was an error in the drafting that the NRA is working to correct. While their other priorities may be laudable, they won’t likely get much movement on, but the tax code error correction could be a boon for anyone that did work last year. Make sure you ask your accountant to stay connected and informed to see if this frees you to take the deduction now and increase your take from 2018.
[Source: National Restaurant Association]
