I have always wanted to have my own restaurant, so I was happy to accept requests from restaurants for help with marketing.
Before I started advising restaurants, I decided to watch at least a hundred episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, where Gordon Ramsay visits restaurants on the verge of collapse and helps them improve within a week. I learned a great deal from Ramsay, which helped me in advising restaurants in practice, as Gordon is considered one of the best culinary masters with restaurants all over the world.
What does Ramsay advise if you want to open your own restaurant:
- Do research on the offerings at other nearby restaurants before setting up your own.
- Take your sample food to the streets and ask people what they think about it.
- Choose your own butcher – have their name on the menu so guests know where the food comes from.
- Set a budget you can spend at the market, e.g. 40 euros for lunch for five of your customers.
- Before hiring a chef, test them – have them cook something for you – in his opinion, the head chef is the most important factor in a restaurant’s success.
- Plan a loyalty card and go to nearby businesses before opening, giving out free food; do this with the chef and have the chef talk about what will be on the menu and invite them to your new restaurant.
The most common reasons why many restaurants fail:
- An overly extensive menu,
- Inexperienced chefs,
- Complicated dishes.
- Owners don’t know how to hire the best staff.
- Don’t forget about events – while running a restaurant, focus on events, as they are an excellent way to attract more guests, e.g. food competitions, dance evenings, item auctions, etc.
What is the role of a restaurant owner according to Ramsay?
- Clearly tell your employees what you want, what you need, and how much it means to you.
- Give orders and supervise – discipline is important.
- Your role involves a great deal of leadership.
- You must also eat at your own restaurant, which makes it easier to see what guests think.
- Be friendly to the local population, as even in tourist areas, locals contribute up to 40% of a restaurant’s revenue. Regularly conduct surveys to find out what locals think about the food at your restaurant.
- Always deposit the day’s earnings at the bank.
- Once a month, invite employees to a different venue and use games to demonstrate what is important to you.
- For every dish you serve, you need to know whether it is profitable and how much you can sell it for.
- In marketing, focus on well-known personalities (celebrity marketing).
- Use the power of the internet (blogs and social media are very important).
- Use mystery guests (a guest who visits you with a camera every so often).
Every restaurant also needs people who will:
- Welcome guests (this can also be the owner).
- Review reservations, the kitchen, etc. in the morning.
- Accept reservations (which are usually made at two-hour intervals).
- Take care of decoration, cleaning, and procurement (Ramsay advises always buying at the market and never at a supermarket).
What to expect from waiters?
- They must always recommend the daily special.
- Communication between the kitchen and the serving staff must be flawless.
- They must also taste the food themselves before their shift.
- They need to know how to offer food to guests in the right way, e.g.: “May I suggest what’s fresh today?” etc.
- It is important that they walk elegantly and do not use their phones.
- Waiters are there to present the menu, so they must know the ingredients for every dish and where they come from.
- They should never take all orders at once, as this can overburden the chefs.
- They must always have a smile on their face.
- They should use abbreviations agreed upon in advance, e.g. chicken is ch and fish is fs.
The work of the head chef and their assistant(s):
- Orders on tickets received from waiters should be passed from left to right.
- The owner should bring ingredients from which the head chef must create something – consider this as the first test.
- The chef’s pantry reveals what the restaurant is really like (whether the food is fresh or not).
- They should prefer to cook in a pan rather than on a flat top grill.
- When the chef calls out an order, everyone in the kitchen must say yes and communicate with each other.
- The chef must taste their food to maintain standards.
- Every day, the very first order is crucial.
- The main course must be prepared within 20 minutes and for each guest the entire meal must be ready within 45 minutes at most (from starter to dessert).
- They must enjoy their work, the kitchen must be filled with passion and joy for preparing food.
The restaurant’s menu is also important:
- Before composing the menu, have the staff try it and share their opinions.
- Trim the menu, start with simple dishes and add something homemade/local.
- The menu should contain a maximum of 12 to 15 dishes (three starters, three main courses, three desserts).
- Focus on two to three key dishes and be aware that simple food is better than complicated.
- Set aside fried food, microwave preparation, and ensure the restaurant uses only fresh ingredients (e.g. Italian
cuisine should offer guests fresh pasta).
Finally, I would add that Ramsay also demonstrated several tricks that can be used in restaurants, such as preparing dishes in front of guests and similar.
