Running a restaurant is not an easy job, but there are five key factors that can make it profitable. First, the owner or manager should keep track of the restaurant’s historical sales trends, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. This will tell you how things are going and what needs to be changed. Especially, what’s happening annually can be repeated, but you have to know what worked a year ago in order to do it again this year. Second, keep track of repeat customers. If customers keep coming back, they like the restaurant. Customer recommendations are some of the best advertising. You need to know what these customers like to keep them coming in. Third, evaluate your servers, know what makes a good server, and evaluate them regularly. A qualified server is extremely key to the success of a restaurant. To coach servers, you need to know what makes a server good, and you can learn this my measuring your best ones. Tip number four, regularly review your menu offerings. Know what keeps bringing your customers back. At the same time, keep ingredient costs in mind, and offer your special favorites in the season during which the ingredients are the most economically priced. Finally, evaluate your labor costs. Don’t overstaff or understaff. Know some figures as to the ideal earnings per unit of time. To do a well, a restaurant should be earning $45.33 per hour per full time employee. As a restaurant owner, you should study your books and try to achieve this goal. Keeping all five of these suggestions always on your mind should work towards satisfaction and success as a restaurant owner/manager.

Key Takeaways:

• drive loyalty in a cost-effective way by seeing how much money a repeat guest can bring in.
• Figure out why your best server is the best, and have the others act accordingly.
• You will always be overstaffed or understaffed, but can just cut staff on slow nights if needed.

“To keep costs down while getting the most out of every hour, meal and cover, you need to know what drives important deliverables like repeat purchases, faster turn times and high tickets.”

Read more: http://www.nrn.com/operations/5-key-metrics-running-profitable-restaurant