With many restaurants facing challenging times ahead we’ve taken a look at some of the ways tweaking your offering could ensure you are giving diners what they’re looking for whilst keeping staffing and supply costs manageable from your side.
Streamline Your Menus
Reducing the number of dishes on your menus can be an excellent way not only to avoid food waste and control stock levels but it can also encourage diners to experience your ‘hero’ dishes. Focusing on a few key dishes means you are free to focus on seasonality, changing these dishes regularly will encourage customers to come back for new and exciting menu updates.
Offering a reduced menu may also help with staffing – knowing in advance what customers will be ordering can help with prep ahead of time and may reduce the need for additional chefs on shift.
Add To Your Offering
Finding new revenue streams may be essential for some restaurants in 2023. Keeping ahead of the trends and jumping on rising markets is a great way to get a head start this year.
Products to take home…Many venues are now looking to include a deli-section to their offering, selling key elements from your existing menus in this way could offer additional revenue with minimal effort – Chef Oded Oren for example will launch a deli selling his homemade hummus alongside restaurant meals to heat at home.
Embrace the trend…No and low-alcohol drinks will continue to be popular this year. Developing a section of high end low alcohol cocktails with the presentation and quality ingredients of your regular cocktail offering (and at a similar price-point) could be an efficient way of encouraging customers to continue to spend across food & drink.
Go green…Eating a seasonal and more plant-based diet may not be new for 2023 but ensuring your venue’s marketing includes this as a priority will be essential. Having menus clearly labelled with dietary requirements, developing new plant-based dishes as well as offering vegetarian and vegan adjustments to existing meat-based dishes will ensure you are reaching as many customers as possible. With customers more and more interested in sustainability and the origins of ingredients having a section of your menu outlining your venue’s policies, preferred suppliers and more will be a valuable source of information.
Elevate your sides…Developing premium side dishes within your menu can be an effective way to keep main dish prices affordable (key to attracting diners to your venue during this time), whilst increasing the spend per head. Research from Lumina recently found that newly introduced side dishes are on average 23% more expensive whilst main dish prices are remaining relatively the same.
Table for 1…Solo dining is on the rise this year – offering smaller tables as well as counter seating can be a good way to tap into this new trend. Menus can also be reflected for the solo diner by developing individual tasting menus for example.
At Mise en Place we are committed to find the right people for your business, we specialise in senior hospitality roles and would love to discuss any requirements you may currently have – info@miseenplace.co.uk