You Can't Turn a Bad Restaurant into a Good Business

Each week our goal is to provide practical tips and tactics on restaurant marketing, cost control, business management, and other topics that can make your restaurant a more profitable and successful business.

Something we haven't mentioned in a while is that the effectiveness of nearly all of these tips are based on the assumption that you already have a good restaurant, that is, one that consistently provides good food and quality service in a clean, inviting atmosphere.

Unfortunately, many independent operators are less than objective about how good their restaurant actually is.

Just watch a few episodes of the Food Network's Restaurant Impossible and you'll see what we mean.

If you aren't familiar with RI, the show features Chef Robert Irvine who in two days and a budget of $10,000, tries to turn around restaurants that are on the brink of bankruptcy.

While the specifics of each restaurant are different, the storyline has a very common thread. A once profitable restaurant is now fighting for survival. The food stinks, the service is spotty and the restaurant is outdated, rundown and often filthy. Nothing has changed in years, leadership is either ineffective or nonexistent and there is usually friction or downright animosity among the owners or the owner and staff.

Our point is that in these "bad" restaurants no amount of marketing activities, cost controls, or better financial management skills are going to "fix" the problem. First, something must be done to turn the bad restaurant into a good one.

When is good marketing not a good thing? Whenever you have a bad restaurant.

-- Joe Erickson

The most fascinating part of each episode is the owner's initial defensiveness and often utter denial of just how badly the restaurant is being mismanaged. At first, most operators attempt to defend the quality of their food, service, and their management abilities.

Once Robert (often abruptly) helps them to see the reality of their situation and how awful the restaurant is, things start to change for the better. The transformation of the attitude of the owner(s) is usually as dramatic as that of the restaurant itself.

When was the last time YOU objectively evaluated your food and service or looked at your décor and furnishings with a critical eye?

Here are some things that may give you some valuable feedback on how your restaurant is REALLY doing:

• Look at what people are saying about you online (Yelp, Google Places, CitySearch, etc.)
• Employ mystery shoppers regularly
• Conduct dish room audits to see what's not being eaten or taken home

Be objective and do it now!

Don't wait until your last hope is to be chosen as the next desperate restaurant on Restaurant Impossible.

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Have a profitable week!

Jim Laube & Joe Erickson

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