BUSINESS: Updating Your Patio Space for Summer Earnings
“Can we sit on the patio?” The second the thermometer begins to peek above 60 degrees, your guests will undoubtedly start hounding you for al fresco dining. Maybe it’s the views. Maybe it’s the breeze. Maybe it’s the ability to hold a conversation. No matter why your guests want to get away from the brick & mortar, outdoor dining provides an avenue to increase your seating capacity and boost your revenue in warmer months. We’ll give you a few twists on summertime standards to give your menu a fresh look on the bar, but we also want to focus on the many ways to customize your outdoor seating.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Mop the Tables?
In yesterday’s The Daily Rail, we talked about how restaurants may want to consider using an all-cleaner instead of myriad specialized cleaning chemicals. However, we think this Burger King employee went a bit too far. Video was captured of Jacksonville BK franchise mopping the tables. The guest that caught video of the incident said she was “just disgusted honestly.” She said she had just eaten on that table, and questioned if this was a regular thing for the franchise. BK was quick to condemn the incident.
Smooth Moves
Not all heroes wear capes; some catch pizzas. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s video and GIF of a Toppers Pizza Place employee smoothly catching a pizza that slipped off a paddle and was destined for the floor. We salute you, good sir!
Til Death Do Us Part
How much do you love your favorite beer? Do you love it enough to get buried in a coffined themed after your favorite brew? That’s what one Aussie-beer-loving guy did. After Perry Cardy passed away in April, his family wrapped his coffin in a Foster’s label. The family said they wanted to brighten his sudden (and tragic) departure in a way that was fitting for his personality. Pretty cool.
A NEW REALITY
Why it matters to you: What augmented/virtual reality will mean to your restaurant in the not too distant future.
You can’t really be a functioning member of society these days without at least knowing that technology is changing with way we interact with almost everything. This new reality has spawned a couple of alternate realities that will become increasing relevant for your restaurant over the next few years. Specifically, we are referring to augmented reality (AR) technology, where your phone is used to overlay your view with relevant product data, and virtual reality (VR), an enclosed visual experience, which mirrors the real world in a digital frame. There a myriad ways these technologies will change how you design your restaurants, how guests interact with your restaurant, and how you entertain visitors at your location.
There are three significant areas that AR and VR will directly impact restaurants. The first, and perhaps most immediately significant, is in restaurant design. Imagine being able to physically experience your restaurants layout in detail before you drive one nail? The idea that you can avoid costly design errors will make VR a support standard in the future. Additionally, staff training can take advantage of VR as a way to replace physical training with digital demonstration and practice. No waste and no dedicated trainer; yet you will be able to develop your staff directly via a VR system. Finally, for entertaining your guests with games and other content.
[Source: Nightclub & Bar]
DISASTER AVERTED
Why it matters to you: Good news, the Mexico tariff threat seems to have abated.
We may be late in discussing this, but the tariffs threatened by President Trump last week would have been a serious problem for our industry. To make clear, tariffs are paid by the person buying the product. Since we procure 54% of our imported produce from Mexico, you can see how quickly a 5-25% price increase due to a tariff would explode the prices you are paying for produce. Our entire economy traded for some $371.9 billion in imports from Mexico last year alone and we sent almost $300 billion. That is a huge amount of annualized trading and makes clear any tariff/tax would simply crank prices up.
We have all experienced a price increase on a single product and struggled to decide to increase your price in response. Imagine the impact if almost half your produce increased by 25%; it would be a total disaster. To be honest, there seemed to be little chance the president was really going to implement these tariffs on all Mexican goods as the threat itself could have caused price increases. We should all be relieved that the threat abated, because the alternative would have been unthinkable for our industry.
[Source: Nation’s Restaurant News]
