MENU: Managing Your Frozen Drink’s Pricing for Profit
With summer’s late sunsets and busy activities, guests are more inclined to visit a restaurant during the week than in the dead of winter. The kids are out of school, vacations are planned, and time normally allotted to chores and homework is liberated. This summer freedom means midweek traffic increases and guests are more inclined to have a cocktail than during the rest of the year. This is precisely why reforming your summer drink menu is such an opportunity for profit.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Alternative Meat Market Posed for Growth
According to a recent research note, Barclays predicts that plant-based alternatives could grab 10% of the $1.4 trillion meat market by 2029. To achieve that, Barclays notes that makers of alternative meats need to expand beyond their natural target group and “appeal to the group that drives meat consumption: 14- to 70-year-old males.”
Capri Sun Cocktail
If you were a kid in the ‘90s, there’s a non-zero chance you had Capri Sun in your life. Well, our friends over at VinePair have created an adult version of our favorite childhood drink with the Capri Sunrise Cocktail. It takes Capri Sun Tropical Punch, mixes it with gin and other items for a nostalgia-inducing cocktail.
America Spent $43B in Video Games Last Year
While many people still shrug off video games as child’s play, that couldn’t be further from the truth. According to ESA, the average male video game player in the U.S. is 32 years old and the average female player is even older at 34. And it’s not just that: video games are a billion-dollar industry supporting more than 200,000 jobs in the United States. As the chart above illustrates, consumer spending on video games, hardware and accessories reached a record level of $43 billion in the United States last year. Are you ready to bring in eSports into your sports bar, though?
SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVIN’ IS EASY [Song]
Why it matters to you: Summer provides the most varied promotional season of them all.
One of the best parts of summer for our industry is the smoothing of the sales cycle. During the other seasons, your weekend sales likely account for more than 50% of your overall revenue; during the summer, that is more evenly distributed during the week. Kids are out of school, parents are taking vacations or working from home, and there’s light out later, so more folks are out at different times in the evening. All this is why you need a different approach to promotions in the summer. This slide show on FSR Magazine’s site is a great place to start.
From adding special items just for summer to extending your happy hour, summer is a time to have some fun with your promotions. Among our favorite suggestion is to have a pet-friendly option in your outdoor dining. Little things like water bowls and treats for our four legged friends give guests an option to dine that they don’t get during the rest of the year.
Summer is also a time for events which provide a great opportunity for restaurants. You can either create your own event or jump on the bandwagon of an event near you. For example, you can offer pre-event services like catering or act as a transportation hub to connect your restaurant to the special occasion. It gives you something to count down to and your guests connect you with their summer fun. So, don’t rest on your laurels; there are additional sales out there just waiting for your invitation.
[Source: FSR Magazine]
KEEPING IT SAFE
Why it matters to you: Hepatitis A is on the rise and you can fight back.
The spread of disease is one of the dirty little secrets in our industry. Whether it’s a food-borne illness or the common cold, our restaurants are gathering points where both fun and sickness can be passed to and among our guests visiting. This is why a recent spike in the instances of Hepatitis A should be particularly concerning. Nearly 22k people have reported contracting Hep A in 22 states since 2015. To clarify, Hep A is an infection of the liver, and it can range from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to something more severe that lingers over several months. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, belly pain and yellowing of the eyes and skin. The bad news is that it’s spread when someone ingests something contaminated by human waste that is infected with the virus.
Let’s be straight. It’s passed when staff that have Hep A use the restroom and don’t wash their hands properly. This cross-contaminates the food you are serving and rapidly spreads the virus to those that consume that food. While there are some prophylactic ways to avoid it -- like frequent handwashing and handling cooked foods with gloves -- nothing is fool proof. The best way to avoid spreading Hep A is to make sure your staff doesn’t have it. A simple way to avoid that problem is a vaccination. No, you can’t require that your staff have a Hep A shot, but you can encourage them to get it. Your most compelling argument is that they then don’t have to worry about ever getting a guest sick by spreading the virus. It’s a sticky issue, but if we are being rational, the best solution to a potentially horrible problem for your restaurant and its business.
[Source: National Restaurant Association]
