Page 32 - MENU Magazine - Sept/Oct 2017

WHAT TO DO ABOUT COSTS
Focus your e orts on lowering costs in a way that doesn’t impact perception about the value you provide:
• Thebestwaytoloweryourcostperguestistoget more guests. Do you have promotions and limited-time o ers that allow guests to keep you a ordable while building tra c to maximize the amount of time you are at peak volume?
• Insteadofcuttinghours,shiftyourmenumixtoitems that guests love and are good value, but use less la- bour both in the front and back of house.
• Ifyoudon’talreadyuselabourschedulingtoolsto manage guests per labour hour and if you don’t have strong controls over your food usage and yield, now is the time to start.
You can also look deeper into the costs that make your guests happy and the ones they don’t care about:
• Lookatyourhoursofoperation.Ifthere’snolunch trade in your market, consider closing for lunch during the week.
• Lookatyourdaysofoperation.Ifyoulosemoneybeing open on Monday, consider closing that day.
• Ifyougrewtooquickly(andthere’srarelyaline because you have too many seats), think about how you can sublet out part of your space. If you can’t, try closing the sections that are not needed to improve your service.
RESTAURANTS CANADA
IS TAKING ACTION IN ONTARIO
The Ontario government did an about-face on their minimum wage policy and announced a $14 mini- mum wage by January 2018, a $15 minimum wage by January 2019,
along with 64 other costly, anti-business policies. Restaurants Canada has been working full-out since then to assess the impact of these policies on restaurant businesses and employees and to com-
Making the adjustments
Now is the time to be proactive and think about how you’ll respond to labour rate increases. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can reap the bene ts. What actions—both big and small—will you take? What will you do to get a better result? Do you have a plan? It all starts January 1, 2018. Be ready and if you haven’t started preparing, do so now.
32 MENU
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2017