Keeping your guests happy & profits higher through proper par levels

Keeping your guests happy & profits higher through proper par levels

“Proper planning prevents poor performance”

By: Bob Tousey, FMP, MBA, JD

        Wowing your guest is one of the keys to success in the restaurant business. Another key is controlling your costs. These two goals are not mutually exclusive. A strong restaurant manager maintains par level on everything that is needed to run a restaurant including mundane items, such as uniforms, cleaning supplies and paper goods. This article, however, will focus on the two items that effect your prime costs, inventory and labor.

You never want to be the restaurant that is known for running out of food. You must be prepared to meet the demands of your guests. I am always reminded of my dad when I think of having enough food. While he was not a restaurateur, he loved to entertain and always said the key to being a good host is never running out of food or liquor. The same rule applies to a restaurant. Running out of food or liquor is not only a lost sales opportunity, it also adversely affects the restaurant’s reputation. However, you also do not want to have too much food as it goes bad and must be thrown out. Such waste causes your food cost to rise and your profits to decline.

You also want to ensure that you have proper staffing to provide “WOW” service each day. Another rule my dad had for entertaining was always make sure your guests are having an enjoyable time.  Nothing saps the joy out of a “night out” more than slow and inattentive service. So, you must have your aces in their places each shift. But you do not want to overstaff as that will cause your labor costs to rise and again profits decline and that saps the joy right out of owning a restaurant. So, the manager must strike a delicate balance to ensure proper inventory and labor levels. The key to doing this is to have accurate par levels for perishable inventory and labor. There is a method for accomplishing this and the rest of this article will unpack that method as well as throw in a couple of practical tips.

Most restaurants maintain a sales history, so they can anticipate and compare future sales. But as most of us know there are factors that affect sales other than the date on the calendar. A few include weather, events, and competition in area. Therefore, it is essential to keep track of these events as well.

Most of us use a software program or computer spread sheet to keep track of this information but I don’t really care if you use technology or do it the old-fashioned way by logging it in a book. What matters is that you have the numbers along with any other information that effect sales. I want to be reminded of the blizzard, the one-time event honoring a hero or that the restaurants power was down for two hours. All this information will help establish accurate par numbers.

But you can not only rely on past sales, you must know if anything is coming up that could affect future sales. Has a competitor opened or closed across the street? Is it graduation weekend? Are their any events such as parades, tournaments or school events expected? If you are near graduation venues, graduation weekend will cause a great increase in sales. Check with the school and/or venue to determine what dates they will be held. Check on any sporting events scheduled, check with local churches and other organizations to see if they have events planned that can impact your business.

It is essential for the general manager to be engaged with local groups and to attend networking events. I am reminded of the Saturday afternoon when a restaurant I was managing would have normally been slow, so I only had two servers, bartender, a cook, a prep person and myself working and suddenly, we got “slammed”. We literally got our rear ends handed to us. We were totally unprepared to execute this rush. I latter learned that there was an ice hockey tournament a few miles away. I was new to the restaurant and embarrassed to say that I did not do my due diligence, so I did not even know there was an ice hockey rink nearby. Please learn from my experience as it was a very painful and damaging lesson to learn.

When I am working with a new restaurant, I now drive around the area, talk to other businesses, guests and team members to learn what is in the area. Then armed with that information I grab some food, carry out menus and begin to visit the venues to establish a relationship with them as well as obtaining the dates of major events. The information and relationships are not only helpful in establishing my par levels but also for marketing the restaurant.

Let me insert a marketing tip here. Please note I said bring food. I have learned that food goes a long way to establishing a relationship and if they are not familiar with your restaurant it provides them an opportunity to learn about it. You don’t need to go wild with this. Chances are you have food that is still great but close to it’s expiration date, instead of throwing it away use it to build relationships. Check with your accountant or accounting department but the value of the food might be charged to business development instead of waste. This accounting adjustment could affect your current food costs. This is not a trick, it is a legitimate adjustment as food will likely result in increased future sales.

Leading up to the event, drop off carry out menus at the venue, remind the venue that you would like to partner with them leading up to and on the day of the event.  If you are properly prepared this can be a wonderful opportunity for your restaurant.

Once you have all the information log it on a planning calendar, so it is right there when establishing pars (which should be done well in advance, not the week before). Remember to let your staff know ahead of time that you will require additional staff.

Here is another tip that will improve operations as well as guest satisfaction. If you know that the guests will have limited time, consider preparing an express menu for them. Include items that are easy to prepare and can be served quickly. There is nothing worse than to have guests who are rushed for time and someone not thinking orders a thick well-done steak. Have your regular menu available but let them know that the express menu items will be a lot quicker.  Both your guests and your team will love you for it.

If you anticipate that you will be busy through out the day that it will be hard for the team to take breaks and the kitchen might be too busy to cook a shift meal, consider ordering in pizza for the team. For some other great ideas to implement on an extremely busy day I encourage you to read my article on preparing for Mother’s Day. Remember “proper planning prevents poor performance”.