Surviving in a restaurant business

If it is true that a new restaurant is being put up each day, then it must also be true that restaurants are being closed down just as frequently.

The average lifespan in the restaurant industry is said to be one year.

Still, there are countless cases of restaurants that have not only endured but also flourished through the years.  Max’s.  Aristocrat. Barrio Fiesta.  Saisaki. Jolibee.  Goldilocks.  The French Baker. Just a few of the success stories.

How did the successful restaurateurs do it?

Johnny Que of Great Food Concepts (GFC) has an answer: Be innovative.  Find niches that are yet unserved and fill them.

He is credited for starting the coffee shop trend in Iloilo with his Coffeebreak Café that has grown into 17 branches as of 2011.

He also found an unserved niche in Filipino food in that province.  So he set up Bauhinia restaurant.  In the same manner, he put up Mojave when he found out there was no real steakhouse in the place.

Johnlu Koa of The French Baker fame expounds on the importance of positioning.  French Baker caters to those who do their regular dining and food purchasing in malls and supermarkets.  70 percent of these shoppers are female.  French Baker offers them freshly-baked, nutritious, delicious and constant-quality breads in clean, modern and well designed stores.  Its casual dining ambience allows shoppers to consume the bakery products right on the premises.

French Baker sells not only bread and meals but quality and distinction.  “What makes us distinctive from others is that all our food are made to order, whether cooked, fried, baked or steamed.  We create our products from scratch; a meal is not cooked until the moment the order comes in,” says Koa.

Koa also makes sure his staff are well chosen and well trained.  To him, attitude of his workers is critical. “Good persona attitude is the foundation for further training in customer relations.”  Key employees have been sent to Europe to enhance their baking skils.

Carlos Anton, who owns serial restaurants in Baguio City has his own take:  Focus.

Anton’s first restaurant, Steak and Toppings, was not an overnight success.  “Sure, the opening month was great, but after the first wave of customers, patronage soon dwindled.”  He suffered many sleepless nights but was able to hang on there, ride it out, and make his business click.  He made mistakes, learned from these, talked with others in the business, tried many food concepts after another.  His persistence eventually paid off.

A lesson Anton found hard to forget is the importance of location.  He opened a restaurant (Kamimura) far from the city proper.  It never took off.  When he reopened it at ShoeMart months later, he never looked back.

Here, from PRLOG , are more tips for running a successful restaurant business:

  • Set aside funds for marketing. Consult PR and design agencies to get an idea of costs.  Before plunging in, get marketing people in early so they can start planning a launch campaign.
  • Hold a launch event:. Restaurant launches are about creating a buzz, one that will not be forgotten by your diners so that they keep coming back and, importantly, tell their friends about what a great place it is. This word of mouth marketing is of paramount importance because customers are your greatest asset.
  • Your offering: Be sure your place doesn’t have bland decors,  a confused menu, badly laid out dining rooms.  The most expensive marketing campaign will not work if you’re not ready with quality food, service, and ambiance.It will be useful to look at what your competitors are doing.  Take time out to watch the Food channels.
  •  Get online: Make sure you have a website ahead of your launch, that way you can direct any pre-publicity to it where your potential customers can read more about what to expect – and even book a table, or ask to be invited to the opening; and get them to sign up to your news so you can email them with special offers or remind them of particular occasions.Get your social networking going early, and make sure there are links on your website and menus, and advertise it in the window.
  • Public relations: Try to generate some news or a stunt once a month, not only, for the local press but for your social networking a well.Here’s a few ideas to help generate some news: Why not host cooking classes on a quiet night, you could get a group of, say, 10 people for a series of four, two hours lessons, after which they all get a certificate and discount vouchers. You could even invite someone from the local paper to one of the classes.  And in the build up to Christmas hand deliver trays of food to the management of the larger businesses in the areaAnd finally, smile: Make sure you’re staff are well trained; they are attentive but not intrusive and are able to build a rapport with the customers.

Photo:  from the French Baker website