One of the prime challenges faced by restaurateurs nowadays is how to cut down the net operating expenses in the restaurant business and to increase their net operating profit ratio. Whether dine-in or the online food delivery app, both have recently seen a marginal slump in their sales figures due to many reasons. A few of them have already started adapting to a handful of strategies leading to a little help in controlling food costs.
Additionally, rising real-estate prices, bulls & bears playing with food & raw material costs, and a hike in labour wages have led to a fall in operating profit margin ratio for the restaurant owners.
Without waiting for further ado, let’s have a quick look at the top 10 ways to cut down your restaurant operating budget.
1. Design a Budget
Streamline your restaurant operating budget for every article, whether it’s about the wooden floor or shiny tiles or managing kitchen inventory.
2. Empower Staff
Teach the kitchen crew about how their actions can affect the monthly restaurant expenses. For example, training them on the methods to reduce food waste can hugely contribute to cutting down the restaurant operating costs.
3. Explore Food Automation
Restaurant tech is evolving with the online food delivery business in the limelight. Deploying restaurant food delivery apps to robotic delivery to chatbots are a few of the ways to cut down the total operating cost.
4. Manage Inventory:
Keeping clean & organized shelves while implementing FIFO (First In, First Out) of the kitchen supply store ensures the freshness and proper utilization of kitchen supplies. Also, regularly performing a food cost analysis of essential items also helps in reducing net operating expenses.
5. Check What Goes Out
A regular visit to kitchen trash cans and kitchen garbage cans will help you understand staff’s habits on kitchen supplies wastage and if any restaurant article, glassware or tableware is discarded due to negligence.
6. Cross-train Staff
Cross-training allows your staff to do multiple job roles at once and helps with the restaurant labour cost management by reducing the number of staff scheduled.
7. Stay Alert For Theft
From using customer display at cash registers to minimal access to cash drawers – a slight mistake can burn a hole in your restaurant earnings. Also, try to keep an eye on your food cost as misplacing or stealing products like drinks, etc., will add to your restaurant loss.
8. Re-Style Your Menu
It is advisable to go over your menu costs and re-engineer them as per the current trends. Additionally, you can remove the unfavourable dishes or the ones that are costly to prepare.
Wrapping Up
There are many factors that affect a restaurant’s business operating costs, such as the style, theme, food dishes, kitchen staff, in-house management habits, and more. However, it is vital to keep a tab on food costs as well as the net operating profit ratio. Whether a big or a small restaurant, it is a must requisite for restaurateurs to reduce their food business operating costs.
