Embrace The Suck Blog
The restaurant industry can at times be like a boat in the middle of the ocean. You're in clear calm waters with blue skies and then 30 minutes later the ocean turns and your boat is being tossed about by 30 foot waves and gale force winds. In the restaurant industry, some people call that the...
If you were dropped off in the middle of the woods without a map and compass, your chance of making it back to civilization are pretty slim (especially if you have never been out in the wilderness). Having an accurate map and a way to know if you are going the right direction (the compass) are...
You look at your menu over and over until you feel like your stare could burn a hole in it. Hey, it looks good. Maybe even great. You decide it’s ready to be rolled out and you decide to launch. Sales jump and you get excited. Then....they seem to level off. What happened?
A fresh menu...
Here you are. Middle of the year and things are in either one of two conditions:
A. You are rocking it beyond your wildest expectations!
B. You are already looking forward to next year, you just need to survive until then.
If you are in category A, congratulations—you may stop...
I get hundreds of email each week from frustrated restaurant owners and leaders (I hate the word manager because I feel it leads to just managing the shift and not leading the vision...sorry, I digress) asking for a way to get their team to follow directions.
My reply is always the same....you...
The restaurant industry has never been a low turnover kind of business. In 2017 the industry turnover rate was 73%! Some fast food restaurants are even higher at around 150%! Holy crap! Now back in 2007, the turnover rate was a whopping 80.7! So, as an industry 2017 was better. It’s...
We all get frustrated from time to time working in restaurants and bars. Emotions can run rampant and things can escalate fairly quickly. If you’ve been in the industry for any amount of time (a veteran) you have surely heard a few things that would make some people do a double take. I know...
The relationship you have with your restaurant is like all the other relationships you’ve had in your life. They all have their ups and downs. When things are good, you are walking on sunshine. No clouds in the sky. The birds are singing and there is a rainbow in every direction.
When...
When your restaurant is running like a world championship team everything is amazing. All the training, all the hard work, all the time fine tuning your team and brand are paying off. You’re communicating, working together for a shared vision and mission. It’s a thing of pure beauty...
You made it. You’re a leader in your restaurant. Well, that might be what your business card says or how you see yourself. The truth is often quite the opposite. We tend to think that being a leader is about the title or even tenure. Nothing is further from the reality that many people...
Have you ever seen a bucket full of crabs?
The strange thing is that they don't put a lid on top to keep them from escaping. Why? The crabs keep each other from getting out. As soon as one gets up above the rest, another crab will grab it and pull it back down into the...
Marketers and behavioral psychologists spend their lives trying to get inside the mind of the consumer. There are companies that spend millions of dollars annually on research to predict trends in the market. Focus groups and surveys are being used at this very minute to understand what makes...
