MENU: “Give Me All the Toppings” [Presented by Lamb Weston]
78% of guests are interested in topped fries, so get creative with your fry offerings by adding ingredients that are already in your restaurant. Put a topped & loaded shareable on your menu, or try out a topped & loaded LTO. For more menu tips visit LambWeston.com/Recipe.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Notre Dame by the Numbers
A visibly emotional French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild the iconic cathedral. He said, "we'll rebuild this cathedral all together and it's undoubtedly part of the French destiny and the project we'll have for the coming years" before adding "that's what the French expect and because it's what our history deserves." Hundreds of millions have already been pledged to rebuild Notre Dame with billionaire Kering Group CEO François-Henri Pinault saying he would donate €100 million. With the fires now extinguished and the investigation beginning, this infographic shows some of the key numbers behind the cathedral.
Is Tiger the GOAT?
A spinal fusion surgery that finally alleviated Woods' chronic back pain marked the beginning of an unlikely comeback in April 2017. As the pain went, Woods’ game gradually came back, and the results soon followed. Throughout the 2018 season, Woods showed on several occasion that he can compete with the top players again and his win at the Tour Championship in September put an exclamation mark behind his comeback season. Leading up to the Masters, Woods had posted decent, though not spectacular results so far in 2019, making his win even more surprising.
How Do You Spend Your Tax Refund?
Millions of procrastinators in the United States may be in for a stressful start of the week because of Tax Day, i.e. the due date for individuals in the U.S. to file their tax returns. While doing taxes is a chore that most people dread, it is usually a worthwhile exercise. According to the IRS, 111.9 million out of the 151.4 million individuals who filed their tax return in 2018 qualified for a refund, with the average refund amounting to $2,899.
UNSATSIFIED AND DISSATISFIED
Why it matters to you: Employees continue to tell us that our training sucks.
If you read The Daily Rail regularly, then you know we are big fans of quality training as a method for retaining employees. We have dedicated a webinars to both reducing turnover and implementing digital training at your restaurant. Turns out the data that we relied upon to motivate our efforts on the training discussion haven’t changed much as this blog by Toast POS takes pains to articulate. The post references statistics like over 40% of staff are dissatisfied with their training.
The main assertion of the post is that training must be a place where we systematize and regularize the actions necessary to execute well. Not just for newbies, but for your entire staff. In fact, the employee satisfaction scores from staff that regularly receive training are above 65%, but drops precipitously when training is done only annually to 33%. If you don’t see the value in doubling the satisfaction results of your staff, then frankly, you’re in the wrong business. Let’s be real, the National Restaurant Association pegs turnover at 70%. If you cut that number in half, you’ll increase profitability while simultaneously improving your own quality of life.
[Source: Toast POS]
CONTROL COSTS THROUGH MENU COSTING
Why it matters to you: Not regularly reviewing your menu costs is a recipe for disaster.
A key way to understand the financials surrounding your business is examining the “prime cost” designation. Those are the costs that you control, are variable, and make up more than 50% of the expenses required to run your business. The problem is many of you neither account for prime cost or understand how to manage it effectively. Given that the typical prime cost number is between 55-65% of income, you would think more of you would be focused on the details of managing it. That is why menu costing is such a crucial step to managing inventory and ultimately you prime cost. Most operators do an analysis of their menu expenses once as they build a menu, but don’t return to it with any regularity.
In fact, a significant percentage of you simply see how your competitors are pricing and use that as your guide to your own menu prices. Given that food costs have increased significantly over the past few years, it’s imperative you review your menu mix and recipe-based costs to ensure you have the right prices for the current market conditions.
According to this post on FSR Magazine, only 1% of you have a real system in place to regularly review menu costing. As ingredients increase in cost, you must either increase your retail prices or reduce your recipe elements to maintain your profit. Too often this incredibly valuable process is lost and then an operator finds themselves out of business. Don’t wait. Review your menu costs and respond. Your guests won’t likely even notice, but your bottom line sure will.
[Source: FSR Magazine]
