download Hospitality August 2010 - Foodservice Gateway

management
doctorhospitality
I usually hang up on job applicants who ask to be
paid in cash, but I know we are missing out on
some good applicants. Am I being stupid?
You’re doing the right thing and it’s frustrating to see
others who don’t. Many people think there’s a benefit to
not being paid officially but point out to them that they
won’t be able to obtain a credit card without a record of
earning, and will find it difficult to get a reference for
renting a flat. These people are also more transitory —
they don’t want to make commitments.. And if they’re
injured, they’ll definitely want to be ‘on the books’ for
compensation. Be smart and stay safe.
What’s the formula for pricing a wedding?
It’s not as easy as just multiplying costs by three, four or
five. The more you can sell the ‘specialness’ of your
facilities, the more you can charge for more than just
food, drink and staff costs. Some caterers work on a 20
per cent food cost, others allow the costs to be higher.
Check competitor pricing and aim for clientele that is not
chasing the cheapest deals. Add in a charge for room hire,
and have a range of attractive options such as theming,
decorations, chair covers and cocktails — some of these
can be given for free to close a deal. Make sure your
website, phone answering, menus and service are all of
the highest quality and people will understand why your
prices are a little more.
I’m the new operations manager of a tired old pub,
with lots of ‘deals’ for regulars and mates. How do
I convince the boss this needs to change?
Once you and the boss agree on a vision of the business’s
future, it will be much easier to work on steps towards
achieving it. Gather your facts and identify the areas of
weakness, eg bistro sales, spirit sales etc. Use the 80/20
principle to look at the 80 per cent of customers who only
give you 20 per cent of your sales, and vice-versa. Hard
decisions have to be made about losing some of the lowvalue
customers. Keep talking about the future vision —
when you have agreement on that the tough decisions
are easier for the boss to agree with.
Everyone’s talking about Foursquare and ‘location
marketing’. What is it and should I worry - I’m only
just on top of Facebook.
Most new mobile phones can track where you are, so it’s
now possible to make offers to people based on their
location. Foursquare.com is one of the first of these
location services, and is popular with people who like to
play games with their phones. By adding the Foursquare
‘app’ to a phone, they can check in at a business and
become the ‘Mayor’ if they visit more than others.
Businesses can create offers that will come up as alerts
when a person checks in. Perhaps a free coffee on every
third visit? It’s time for every business owner to start
using the latest smartphones and get comfortable with
how customers are using them. Keep Foursquare on your
radar.
Got a question? Send it to the doctor via Hospitality's
editor at rosemary.ryan@reedbusiness.com.au
Wining ways to boost dining
Don’t scare off potential dining regulars with over inflated wine
prices, says our columnist.
HOW does that line from that old song go?
Aah, that’s it; everything old is new again.
Seems it’s something we should all be
singing about the Brits. Apparently, after all
these years, they have discovered BYO. And
they’ve done so at a time when the joys of
such dining are steadily disappearing from
the restaurant scene here.
Mind you, they’ve done it — or at least are
trying to do it — with a completely new
twist, one that aims at getting the restaurants
on side rather than antagonising them as
seems to have been the case in Australia.
There is even money involved, which seems
an odd feature of what we have come to view
as a cost-cutting measure and a riposte to
high mark-ups.
Two enterprising entrepreneurs (or opportunists,
even) have enlisted a number of upper-crust
and fine-dining restaurants into the
BYO Wine Club. Diner members of the club
are paying an annual fee of £75 (about $127
at current fluctuating exchange rates) for the
pleasure of taking their own booze rather
than ordering off the restaurants’ own (often
quite expensive) lists.
This means the cheapest bottle of supermarket
plonk can be unscrewed and poured
by a sommelier at some of the swankiest and
most exclusive nosh-pits in the land. And
they promise to do so without critical comment
or a haughty sniff of derision.
The positive aspect for the restaurants
who have signed up to this Clayton’s style of
BYO is that they remain in control of when
such liberties can be taken with their normal
order of things.
Some decree it’s a lunchtime only concession.
Some say Monday to Thursdays only.
Another limits it to just one night a week —
the normally dead Monday.
The expectation is not so much that club
members will be shaming the tables of finedining
eateries with cleanskins and wine that
could double as vinegar, but that they will
bring special wines for special occasions.
They can have that bottle of 1960 Grange
hoarded from birth uncorked and decanted
at a 50th dinner party with food to match.
The scheme applies to bottles of wine only
— no beer, spirits, ‘alcopops’ or chateau
cardboard. And members are told to discard
all paper bags and similar packaging before
entering the restaurant; there’s nothing tacky
about this style of BYO.
It is certainly not something that provides
huge financial advantages to members, especially
as the annual fee is soon to rise to £100
(around $170). You would need to be a fairly
regular diner and something of a cheapskate
in your choice of wines to show much
of a profit.
The real advantage here is for restaurants
at the upper end of the market who tend to
scare off punters not with the price of their
food, but with high mark-ups on their wine
lists and the universal lack of any bottles at
the cheaper end of the scale.
Diners who know full well they can get a
good quality bottle of quaffing red for less
than $20 at their local bottle shop or supermarket
baulk at paying three times the price
when ordering something to accompany
their meal.
One bottle of not-all-that-exciting wine
can double the cost of an evening out at
many of our chef-hatted restaurants. And
still they wonder why so often they are confronted
with empty tables in these straightened
times.
Too many places seem to see the wine list
as their profit-maker and escalate their prices
accordingly. The reality, however, is that it is
more than likely the deterrent that keeps customers
away or steers them in the direction
of their cheaper rivals, BYOs and even a
takeaway at home.
Restaurant wine sales have already taken
a dive as a result of a welcome increase in the
stringency of our drink-drive laws. There
seems little sense in further reducing this
source of income by maintaining such mammoth
mark-ups.
A better approach might be to raise meal
prices to a more justifiable level and cut back
on the wine charges. After all, it is in the
preparation, cooking and presentation of the
food that the real skills lie—not in the ordering
and buying in of cases of plonk. Reward
the artistry, not the administration. Thanks
to the television blockbuster MasterChef
there is now a much greater and wider appreciation
and understanding of what it
takes to put classy food on the table.
And put the customer first — not a distant
second. Think of their needs and perhaps
even welcome them with a smile and some
service when they front up with their own
bottle of wine. Anyone for an Aussie BYO
wine club?
hospitalitymagazine.com.au hospitality | august 2010
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