Managing a corporate restaurant is a constant challenge. Every day, it's the same question: how do you provide quality meals to hundreds or even thousands of guests per day, in a limited amount of time and with a tight budget?
In addition, the last few years have added new regulatory and sanitary constraints to the profession, inherited from Covid, inflation, but also from a global awareness of food and food waste (choice of packaging, etc.).
At a time when the catering sector is undergoing a complete overhaul, we offer you 9 practical tips to effectively optimize the management of your company canteen!
Why optimize the management of your company restaurant?
Increase your profitability
As a manager of a company restaurant, your objectives are in most cases to balance the budget, reduce costs or increase the margin of your establishment.
Is there a miracle solution to make it happen for sure? Not really.
In fact, it's quite the opposite, since many variables must be taken into account and complex calculations must be made...
👉 To go further: Margin and profitability: understanding everything
But don't worry, you'll soon see that there are concrete solutions to help you get back into your budget and be profitable!
To be part of a quality approach
Whether it's for your guests, your teams, your company, your partners (and even the planet if you're a bit green), managing your restaurant in an optimal way will have beneficial and virtuous effects in the long term that you'll soon see for yourself.
How to improve the management of your canteen?
1. Conduct an audit
The first essential step before starting is to conduct an audit of your structure to understand how your restaurant is functioning at the moment. This exercise will allow you to have enough height to make the best decisions.
To do this:
- Visit your site at regular intervals and at different times of the day,
- Gather opinions from your guests and your teams, both positive and negative,
- Define your cost centers in detail,
- Analyze any blocking points you may have identified,
- Finally, write your roadmap with all the possible areas of improvement, in order of feasibility (cost, difficulty, implementation time, etc.).
2. Make the most of your location
How about a game of Tetris?
Be careful, here the objective is not to pile your guests on top of each other!
We advise you to take a step back from the layout of your site, tables, stands or buffets in order to imagine how best to make the most of the space in your establishment.
Revising the layout of your restaurant will have the added benefit of two things:
- Streamline your guest experience,
- Bringing newness and change!
3. Pamper your guests
Take care of your guests and you'll be sure they'll come back!
Seduced by the codes of commercial catering, consumers now expect to find the same level of service and the same customer experience in collective catering. For this reason, hybrid concepts are being developed, inspired by fast food in particular.
For example, Mamie Cocotte has developed French Terroirs, a corporate restaurant that is a hybrid of a food court, a traditional restaurant and a bar. The only difference is that diners order their meals on ordering terminals, which makes the experience fun and makes the checkout process more fluid.
Employees no longer queue at the cash register and spend more time at the table in a cosy atmosphere, worthy of the latest fashionable establishments.
Another point modelled on the fast food industry: French Terroirs has developed a loyalty program to be sure to see its guests return!
Finally, for more transparency, some company restaurants choose to install dual-screen cash registers. This way, employees can follow their consumption live, consult their balance and choose not to print a receipt.
4. Analyze your budget
If this is not the easiest exercise, it is surely the lessons you will learn that will have the most impact on the management of your restaurant.
Break down your restaurant's financial statement
4 main indicators are sufficient to have a global overview:
- the constitution of your turnover,
- expenditure on raw materials,
- personnel-related expenses,
- operating costs.
Two columns are enough to show your expenses and revenues for comparison. This way, you have an immediate view of the health status of your facility.
Calculate expense to revenue ratios
This ratio, which is easy to calculate, allows you to quickly evaluate the financial performance of your company restaurant and to make the right decisions to rebalance your budget if necessary. By defining the right performance indicators beforehand, you will save precious time later on.
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👉 Contact a food service expert
5. Optimize your inventory management
In 2020, the ADEME estimated the cost of food waste at 68 cents per guest and per meal! The margin of progress is thus sufficiently important to be considered.
In addition, coupled with skyrocketing commodity prices, managing your inventory quickly becomes a priority to start making serious savings on your final budget.
and make serious savings on your final budget.
Today, your restaurant is competing with many players, driven by the boom in online ordering and the development of delivery in particular.
Of course, your guests are more volatile than ever, which makes your inventory management even more difficult.
👉 Going further: 8 tips to avoid food waste in restaurants
6. Sort out your suppliers and partners
Your energy suppliers
Invariably, the ecological transition to green energy drives up energy prices. That said, not all suppliers are equal and since the energy market has been opened to competition, some providers offer more attractive subscriptions than the competition.
If you are a historical customer, use your seniority with your supplier to renegotiate your contract. If not, it's time to look for a cheaper deal elsewhere!
Your food suppliers
With inflation and price increases across the board, some products are going up faster than others. As a result, reviewing your list of suppliers and keeping an eye on the competition can pay off in the long run and offer great savings.
Similarly, imported goods that were once affordable are becoming progressively more expensive than locally produced goods. So turning to local and seasonal producers makes even more sense when you add rising transportation and energy costs to the equation!
Your technical service providers
Is your kitchen equipment aging? Your cash registers and management software lack functionality and are outdated? Maybe it's time to turn to new providers!
Over the past few years, innovation has been increasingly invading the dining room and the kitchen to put digital technology where it belongs. Whether it's intelligent food processors, connected cash registers, tray scanners or production screens designed to simplify and streamline the organization of teams, complete solutions meet the specific needs of each structure.
👉 Find out more: discover our webinar hosted by foodservice experts "AI at the service of foodservice".
And if the initial investment can be frightening, you should know that these providers offer leasing or subscription offers to spread out the payments.
👉 To go further: How to choose the cash register software for your restaurant.
7. Take care of your staff
If you had any doubts, it is the teams that work in the best conditions that perform best in the long run.
To ensure that your teams stay motivated, there are a few management rules that should not be underestimated:
- Make sure that your staff has been hired and trained for the job, that their objectives are clear and their missions well defined.
- Focus on continuous learning, learning is a huge success factor for growing and staying motivated.
- Don't overlook the relational aspect: you will be surprised by the power of a positive and mobilizing speech, a simple thank you or a congratulations. Show leadership and set a good example for your employees and they will follow you!
- Finally, don't overlook the quality of their equipment. Whether it's restaurant supplies or digital solutions (cash register, production screen, etc.), quality equipment makes for quality work.
👉 Going further: 9 tips for finding restaurant staff
8. Define a strict organization
With very intense rushes every day in the same slots, corporate catering is a second story.
In order not to lose any of them, a meticulous organization is essential!
List all the functions needed to keep the restaurant running smoothly and then create a clear organizational chart to assess duplicate or backlogged positions.
Then, set up rituals, such as weekly team meetings to motivate your teams, collect their feedback, resolve blocking points and share best practices. The goal: to put your organization on a continuous improvement track.
Finally, define schedules with your teams that are accepted by all, so that you suffer as little as possible from delays or last-minute absences.
9. Keep a constant watch
Like you, many catering professionals think day after day about how to make their guests' lunch break friendly and balanced, while staying within their budget and taking care of their teams.
In this regard, keep track of what your most innovative providers are offering. Keep an eye on the competition, keep up with the latest trends and you will be able to offer the best service at the best price!
👉 Going further: trends to watch in the restaurant industry
