Restaurant business can be a source of great satisfaction by offering people precious moments of happiness. But as in all other industries, restaurateurs’ life is full of ups and downs that one must deal with to prevent the establishment from going bust. Knowing how to face a sales drop by taking appropriate countermeasures is key to survive in the long term, and more so in a fiercely competitive environment.
Hospitality sector is experiencing tremendous changes due to the digitalization of the business as well as the new-found customer awareness as this beverfood.com article about the food delivery and ethnic cuisine boom points out.
To keep up with the times, every restaurant, pizzeria, bistro and whatnot must renew itself continuously or in the most difficult situations such as those relative to a change in management or a seasonal activity, must endure a radical renovation. In this article, we will figure out the strategies you can adopt to revamp your restaurant, analysing its strengths to implement the necessary changes and then we will focus on feasible solutions like buying a new oven to improve the productivity and the quality of the dishes.
How to relaunch a restaurant in three steps.
Let’s get down to brass tacks so that you know exactly what to do to revive a restaurant in an effective and lasting way. Hosting an event and organizing a party at your establishment may be a successful one-off but what we really want is for the restaurant to be full every day, so that a long-term strategy is utterly indispensable.
Here are three steps to take to attract more customers to your restaurant:
1) Analysing the situation
2) Building the brand
3) Designing the customer experience
Let’s see them in detail.
1. Situation analysis
To address a problem, you need to understand which are the causes of it, that may depend on you or not. In the first case, you will need to work on the product, the service or the location. In the second case, there are so many variables related to a common element, namely the change in your business market due to the competitors’ actions.
2. Building the brand
If you need to refresh your restaurant’s image, there’s no better way than developing your brand. In a few words, you must outline the major features of your product, service and place based on the type of client you want to target. In a crowded and competitive business like the restaurant industry, good food at the right price is not enough anymore as we saw in this article on how to attract customers to a restaurant. So, we must figure out why people like eating out, bearing in mind that the choice of the restaurant hinges on emotional impulses such as the need to belong to a group or a class or to fit into a particular lifestyle. Think about customers opting for traditional restaurants looking for a story behind the food or other ecologically aware clients preferring establishments with locally sourced fare. Building a brand that resonates with the clients and keeps them coming back is no picnic but can allow you to make your audience loyal over the years. Suffice it to say that fast-food chains, that have high footfall despite average food and not so low prices, capitalise on a very strong brand.
3. Thinking the consumer experience
Once you have established your brand identity, you must develop an unforgettable consumer experience that is every interaction that a client has with your restaurant. Every aspect must be consistent with the brand communicative value beginning with the food and finishing with the establishment decor. Consumer experience is not only the unmitigated consumption of the product but the set of emotions that you will be able to stir before and after the act of eating and drinking (listening, customer feedback, problem-solving and so on).
How new Alfa ovens can revitalize your restaurant.
To revive a restaurant, radical changes are often needed that have a positive impact on your customers. These transformations may concern different aspects of the business but can’t prescind from working on the food that you serve in your establishment. Revamping your menu is a very good idea to ramp up sagging sales and, in this respect, the choice of the oven is indicative of the kind of cooking you want to offer. For instance, if your menu is varied enough to provide something for everyone, the electric oven is for you, thanks to its ease of use and versatility.
On the other hand, if you have a pizzeria, you should certainly opt for a high-performing, high-temperature wood-burning oven and more so if you want to tap its visual effect in an open kitchen. Let’s look now at how Alfa ovens can best contribute to breathing new life to your establishment by improving your dishes, managing your business effectively and, what matters most, attracting more clients. Here are three key points:
- Quality of food.
- Renovation of the premises.
- Management upgrade.
Quality of food
The Alfa range of commercial ovens includes 8 traditional and contemporary models to meet all your needs. All of them can be wood-fired, gas-fired or hybrid and they are ready to accept all the cooking challenges coming your way.
Wood-burning oven infuse food with unique flavours even though they are high-maintenance and time-consuming.
Gas-fired ovens are easier to use while the hybrids are the middle ground between the special taste of food cooked on firewood and the increased cooking control provided by a gas-burning oven. All in all, Alfa ovens suit well both restaurants with blurb-length menu descriptions and simple pizzerias (Alfa commercial ovens reach the very high temperature of 450°C/850°F to cook the real Neapolitan pizza, a dish that goes never out of style).
Renovation of the premises
Alfa ovens are appliances that, thanks to their design, really embellish your restaurant. Alfa is the go-to company for getting ovens that fit well into the open kitchen trend, with customers seeing their pizzas freshly prepared by a brilliant chef and developing a feeling that the food tastes better. All this stimulates the customers’ senses of sound, smell and sight and certainly whets their appetite giving you, en passant, a competitive advantage.
Management upgrade
Alfa ovens reduce cooking times and energy consumption and allow you to manage your business more efficiently. Thanks to the choice of high-quality raw materials and the application of the latest technologies in the manufacturing of these appliances, restaurateurs can squeeze out more profits by raising the table turnover rate.
Tools and strategies to revitalize your restaurant
We have just seen which are the most important aspects you have to consider when trying to re-energise a restaurant, a pizzeria or something of the sort. To start with, you must analyse the different features of the market you are in, find the reasons why the sales are dropping and then take action. Building the restaurant brand is key to convey your values and distinctive features to carve out a niche in the market turmoil. Dining out is not just about eating and customers want something more than a meal; in fact, they look for a more extensive feel-good experience so it’s up to you to create an atmosphere that fosters that.
Alfa commercial ovens come in many shapes and forms to solve all your problems and can be precious allies to attract more customers to your restaurant and improve the bottom line. So, don’t hesitate to try us out!
