The mystery of the restaurant business
We have been open 4 ½ months. I learn a little bit every day. One thing that is ever more clear is that the margins in the restaurant business are close. The goal at The Flying Banzini to my make 10% of sales as profit. Obviously, to get there, weu need to be very efficient. There are lots of places that can be improved but the two BIG areas that need constant vigilance are food cost and labour cost. This, of course, means accurately predicting how many staff you need on any given day.
So… I am not very good at this because I have no idea how to predict how busy we will be.
Last Monday, lunch and supper combined to be the slowest day we have had since we opened. Overall, January has been pretty lean. Then, yesterday, lunch and supper combined to be among our best days since we opened. Sigh… five days apart, same weather, and it’s a HUGE difference.
I may never figure this out.
Dave
Indeed, key for having right staffing levels is the ability to predict volume. I am SURE you are already doing this, but keeping track of your customer counts (lunch, dinner, by date, by weekday) is a good idea to be able to analyse & predict things the year after. You need to note & know when special events happen that bring people to your area. I am also sure you know that you are in one of the most neighbourhood/family friendly locations ever. Thus, you need to take a look at the school board calendar online. Friday was a PA day and many parents were home with their kids, taking the day to do fun things - this likely greatly contributed to your clientele.
Check out the other OCDSB PA days, and other holidays, in order to be better prepared in the future! Your customers will understand that it gets busy, but might as well take advantage of knowing these things in advance.
PS. I really enjoyed the roast beet salad at your restaurant!
I spent a large chunk of my life working in restuarants and perhaps I can give you some useful advice. People do not usually go out for food on Monday and Tuesday nights. They prefer the weekends and then spend the first 2 days of the week as many do Januaries - recouping from whatever they did and spent before. Because of your location you might still get customers at lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays from Tunney’s Pasture so it might be worth being open for lunch those days, But closing on Mondays and Tuesdays would give you a must needed break awhile saving on labour costs.
Restaurants always need more labour on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday nights because that is when most people go out for dinner.
In the summers you will find that cloudbursts bring customers in. I noticed this at several cafes I used to cook at.
As to food costs, one-off daily specials can be used to use up good food that people are not ordering that week.
I hope this helps a bit! best of luck!