How to Increase Restaurant Sales

Wine Bottle Wall Mount Sculpture by amazon

       

All restaurant owners, managers and staff look for new ways and ideas to increase restaurant sales, thereby increasing their profits. Use your senses to determine what changes need made to help your restaurant turn a profit.

 It's not too late to make a few changes to your business that can help your bottom line. Small changes can lead to BIG profits if you play your cards right. You take a lot of financial risk when you open a restaurant and you need to do everything you can to make it a profitable business or all your work will be in vane and you could end up with  nothing.


Use our tips today to get more customers coming to you, increase your traffic, make your customers happy, keep  loyal customers coming back often and boost sales and profit.

     Take a walk inside your restaurant beginning at the entryway and try to see it from a customer's viewpoint.  Use all your senses and try to be objective.


Ask yourself these questions as you walk around:
 Using your sense of sight... Do you like what you see immediately?

          - Is it visually appealing or does it need a fresh coat of paint?

          - Does your staff look professional in their uniforms or do you need to get everyone on your team in a uniform? Check out our post on the best work attire - staff uniforms. 

           - Is your restaurant clean or do you see dust and fingerprints on the front door, the entry walls and on your art work?

          - Do you like the art work that you've added or worse yet, there is no artwork?
Customers want to go to places that are visually appealing and many get ideas for their own homes so make sure to add intriguing art to the walls. These coffee themed kitchen posters are inexpensive, 8x10 and easy to frame yourself. Line them up near your entryway, around the coffee bar, dessert station or liquor bar. We even like them above booth seating and customers appreciate having cute prints to view and talk about when they're dining.

 Check them out below. What a great price so if you need to cover a few areas of your restaurant, you can simply get a few sets of these to mix and match around the space.

Four Coffee Posters Kitchen Cafe courtesy of amazon

       More ways to add art for a visually appealing restaurant:
          - See a close up of the wine bottle wall mount sculptures shown above. Add dimension to your walls with sculptures combined with art prints. You and your customers will love the way it looks. 
          - Got great photos of your restaurant? Why not get poster sized frames, print your images and frame them yourself for hanging. We like assorted sizes of poster frames from 11x17 all the way up  to 24x36.   This won't cost too much money and it could be worth the work involved if you have delicious looking photos of some of your best menu items.

     Does your restaurant smell good or do you smell bad fish odors, smoke, strong cleaning supplies or any other bad odors such as gas?
     It might be time to call your professional hood cleaning company if the kitchen odors are lingering into the entryway or dining areas of your restaurant. If you can't afford that yet, make sure that your kitchen staff is taking time at the end of the shift or before your business opens to wipe down the hoods and walls near your ovens and stoves.
     There's no way that you can please your customers if your restaurant doesn't smell appealing and you won't be making profits. Get your kitchen hood system cleaned properly at least a few times a year and have the kitchen staff do the routine maintenance on them.

     Is your restaurant equipment old, outdated and causing your chef's frustration in cooking good food? Check out our best reviews of restaurant equipment that you can afford, you need it today.

     Get a stockpot of homemade spaghetti sauce on, a roast in the oven, fresh bread baking, pizza cooking in the pizza oven or a few fresh pies baking in the oven, those are the smells you want to notice if you're going to be a profitable restaurant. 

     Next, use your sense of hearing.
     What do you hear when you walk through the doors of your restaurant?
 Is it too loud with your staff talking, laughing and giggling? Is it too loud with the overhead music playing? You want to hear sounds of business booming. Sounds of customers having a good time, kitchen pots and pans (not too loud), staff moving around briskly, tables getting set and reset, bartenders creating drinks.

You also want enjoyable background music or the sounds of your live band. If it sounds like the only sounds you hear are your staff, make sure to teach them what you want, expect and remind them to always be mindful for the customer's sake and the sake of your profits.

     Use your sense of touch around your restaurant.
     How does it feel?
          Are the entry tables and chairs smooth and dirt, grime free? Is the area dusty? Bend down and look at the tables that your customers dine on. Check all the chairs from top to bottom. If you find any grease, spots, stains or even gum under tables and chairs, you have a problem.

Look at your menus. Are they clean? Chances are good that they need wiped down at the end of every shift so they're clean and disinfected for the next round of customers. Use one tablet of Trifectant Disinfectant to a one pint spray bottle and use it with a soft cotton cloth to disinfect menus and all customer areas.

Get your staff working on their cleaning checklist and keep them busy before you open for business. Time is of the essence and you can't afford to have a dirty restaurant. Why would any customer patronize your business when there are other places that are cleaner or even their own homes? Think about it and make changes now.

     Finally, use your sense of taste in your restaurant to measure your success.
     Taste everything that goes out of the kitchen, from the server area and from the bar.

          Are your recipes being followed?
               I'm a cookbook fanatic and if you own or manage a restaurant, you'll want to be too! I love looking at photos, getting ideas, learning new recipes and ways to use new spices. There are so many ideas that will help you to find your style, even if you don't completely follow recipes from books. Don't have wonderful recipes and need some ideas?

Check out Mangia, Little Italy for stories and recipes that you can tweak to make your own stories, memories and recipes that customers will rave over. 


          Are all recipes consistent? Customers won't be coming back if one day they ordered a dish and the next time they come, the recipe is changed. Teach your staff the importance of consistency. Read more about Menu Consistency and how it can help you to increase sales.

          Are the bartenders pouring drinks correctly for the best taste without wasting product? You've got to use a auto measured bottle pourer to gain consistency in drinks or you'll lose sales when customers aren't happy. Keep a close eye on your bar, it's one of the biggest areas where you'll lose money.

Increasing restaurant sales has to include all your five senses in order for your business to be profitable. No one area can be neglected. It's a lot of work, of course it is. Nothing good can come from taking shortcuts, offering cheap products, cheating customers and allowing staff to not do their job. Pay attention to these things and you will increase your sales and profits will come. There's always more to do when you own and operate a restaurant. It will all be worth it when customers rave about the sights, smells and feel of your restaurant. If you found this post helpful, we thank you for considering to: 

         
 Before you leave, we suggest that you check out more of our ideas in posts all about showing you the money - how to make money in your restaurant.