Month: May 2024

There are a thousand roads that can lead to success in our industry but only one road that leads to profitability. Today we’re talking numbers with Anne Gannon, founder of the Largo Group.

In our chat today we’re going to explore what the formula for success looks like by examining some of her most successful clients and unpacking the tactics, tools and strategies they’ve used to achieve massive profitability.

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

[2:56] How to stop playing catch-up: The trends worth tracking weekly.

[4:20] Analyzing your restaurant.

[5:26] The labor crisis: an economic perspective and evaluation.

[7:01] Bottom line revenue: budget and operational inefficiencies

[8:15] The reality of labor: You can’t have it both ways.

[9:55] Lessons from the best: where passion and practicality collide.

[11:51] Profitability: you are in control of your own destiny.

[13:50] An industry comparison: where we can shift, and what we can embrace.

[15:33] The KPIs you should be tracking and the tools to do it with.

[17:24] Nauseating, but necessary: what we really should be considering when we invest in a POS.

[19:28] What we shouldn’t return to: the hidden dysfunction in the successes of 2019.

[21:43] Cashflow is king: remembering the pain of being top-heavy.

[23:53] Setting yourself up moving forward.

[25:25] Financial aid resources you don’t know about yet. (Here, have some money. You’re welcome.)

[26:56] What we don’t know we don’t know: Accounting doesn’t actually suck (really!).

[28:20] Congratulations are in order.

For more on her company go to https://www.thelargogroup.com

FULL COMP is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time.

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Philip Camino is out to save his restaurants but, in the process, may be able to help save the industry. Today we discuss how he’s expanding the concept of team to include his vendors and how wellness plays a central role in his restaurant operations.

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Want to streamline your front-of-house operations and increase sales? Head over to http://restaurants.yelp.com/fullcomppodcast to claim your free page and learn more about these powerful tools for your business.

SHOW NOTES

• Transforming the business during Covid
• Looking at ways to mitigate risk
• Reduce costs
• Get more efficient
• Speak to landlords and stakeholders
• Building a partnership with landlords
• Collaborating with landlords rather than being against them
• Less tennants in the next 6-12months
• More failures happening within the next year
• Mid level spaces – much less demand
• Philip’s professional background
• Director of Finance at the Student Union
• Corporate job in enternatinment management company
• Corporate marketing
• Moved to LA and began in hospitality
• Lessons from a varied professional background
• People are everything
• World class artists and brands have world class teams
• Strong teams attract other talented people
• The hospitality job market
• Hiring has been hard in the past couple of years
• Even BOH hard to hire
• Essential to the running of the restaurant
• Restaurants will have a more diluted talent pool post-pandemic
• Covid is creating opportunity
• Reset of the industry
• 35% restaurant closures
• 35% less competition
• 65% of restaurants who are left will hopefully get 100% of the remaining business
• Finding a stronger team
• Wages will come down
• More top talent available
• Some of the best hospitality professionals in the world are now available
• Benefits to remaining restaurants
• Better team
• Better supplier relationship
• Better opportunities to capitalize
• Less competition
• Redefining relationships with vendors and landlords
• Widening the definition of “team”
• Principles of mutual investment
• Poor current working conditions for employees in the hospitality industry
• No health insurance
• No 401k
• Long work hours
• Initiatives for better employee compensation
• Bonuses based on actionable metrics depending on position
• Example: executive chef receives bonuses for cutting prime costs
• Receives a profit share of money saved
• Gameifying health and wellness
• Whoop app to encourage healthy habits
• Financially incentivize better recovery score
• Recovery score made up of wellness metrics to measure your stress levels
• Resting heart rate
• Sleep
• Respiratory rate
• Heart rate variability

We’re all shut down. The hamster wheel has stopped. And some of us, myself included, are wondering if we have the energy and, more importantly, the desire, to hop back on.

We recommend you Check Our Restaurant Marketing Strategies to Boost your Sales

Today we discuss the case for change with a man that did just that. Matthew Jennings walked away from his award winning restaurants and all of the perks that come with being a celebrity chef to follow his bliss.

Click to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Click here to book time on my personal calendar.

Click here to download our Restaurant Recovery Guide.

Want to streamline your front-of-house operations and increase sales? Head over to http://restaurants.yelp.com/fullcomppodcast to claim your free page and learn more about these powerful tools for your business.

SHOW NOTES

• Change to the flow of service
• What happens to Front-of-House service?
• When doing delivery, does presentation matter?
• Restaurants won’t be restaurants anymore
• Reservation systems could be a benefit
• More information is taken from the guest
• Additional information is an opportunity for more engagement and connection with customers
• Pivoting
• Cornell Business suggests ⅓ bodega style, ⅓ takeout, ⅓ dine-in
• Chefs Matthew interviewed pivoted in different ways
• 1 pivoted to groceraunt model
• 1 pivoted to meal kits and family meals
• 1 pivoted to mercantile – soap, non-perishable products
• Starting in consulting
• Started as a side hustle whilst running own restaurant
• Worked with Dunkin Donuts
• Started Full Heart Hospitality
• Teamed up with Jason Rose
• Areas of consulting
• Creative
• Design concepts
• Design products
• Creating menus
• Marketing
• Operational
• Strategy
• Implementation
• Why Matthew left the restaurant biz at the top of his game
• Growing wasn’t fulfilling
• Running a restaurant took a toll on health and family life
• Doctor gave him a wake-up call
• Recovering from being overworked
• Moving
• Creating a new community
• Working from home
• Belief that life can be about abundance, joy, and progress can all happen at the same time
• Changes that can be made in the industry
• What do guests want
• Comfort food
• Number of people in a restaurant
• How to treat our teams
• What systems to keep
• The hard part is not having answers regarding the future of the virus
• Information changes every day
• How do you make decisions when things are constantly changing?
• 30/60/90 strategy for planning
• 30-day strategy aiming for small wins
• Reflect and measure the results at the end of the 30days
• Create a roadmap for 60 days then 90 days
• Cut down overwhelm by breaking it down
• We must remain flexible as things change
• Not completely reinventing the business model just in case things change quickly again
• Post-pandemic predictions
• How are guests going to feel in a restaurant?
• Restaurateurs responsibility to keep guests and staff safe