Mirus Reporter

April 13 Diary Entry

The restaurant industry started the year 2020 stronger than any year in more than a decade, although the impact of Covid-19 was already working its way into the numbers. Between March 12 and March 16, city by city, state by state shut down the restaurant dining room. All of the sports leagues also suspended operations. Curbside, takeout, drive-thru and delivery were now the only service channels for restaurants. That is when it hit the fan. Since then, is there any good news?

It seems like, since forever, that Product Mix or PMIX as it’s known, has been a staple in the restaurant arsenal for evaluating what’s selling and menu performance. And while, PMIX does deliver some interesting information like how many of x, y or z did I sell over a day, week, month, etc., it lacks the details needed to see shifts in demand, which makes it a poor choice to use when you’re wanting to make critical decisions about menu changes. For now, let’s look closer at what PMIX can deliver.

Our clients love us and we love them right back! We're constantly amazed by their ingenuity and accomplishments. Their ideas and requests are what keep us on the leading edge of restaurant business solutions. Periodically we like to shine the light on our clients, their accomplishments and what they're doing to increase their restaurant profit margin.

Measuring success or failure of a system that improves decision making is challenging in many respects. But, the Same Store Sales (SSS) metric can be useful, especially when applied to a long period of time, and across thousands of restaurants. SSS is caluclated as a percentage change from last year to this year, and only uses locations that are open for both years.

Successful restaurateurs need to have extensive KPIs and they must be able to quantify everything.  Data scrutiny and analysis is an ongoing process. Restaurant CEO's need to have their restaurant information distributed and analyzed by different personnel that will empower their businesses to increase revenue and improve customer service.  However, operators can be misled by information received solely from their POS systems (sales, reservations) or BOH systems (inventory, food costing, labor scheduling).  They need to be able to get a look at the bigger picture.

Nowadays, the CFO in the restaurant industry performs multiple functions. In addition to finance, and regulating costs, the CFO is in charge of restaurant development and making tactical decisions ranging from marketing initiatives to growth plans. The modern day CFO has to have the ability to forecast market fluctuations, analyze restaurant benchmarks against peers, and have some knowledge of IT systems and IT investments, ensuring that there’s a return on these investments.

They must outline metrics so that restaurant data can be interpreted in real time to set business strategy and make intelligent decisions.

Are your promos being used to commit fraud?

The majority of restaurants have utilized some type of promotion in order to build revenue, introduce a new product, drive traffic or reward loyal customers. In short, your restaurant business is providing a coupon offer in return for more / specific customer interaction. This give and take process generally works well. However, while it may be increasing traffic and driving sales, your business may be losing hundreds, heck even thousands of dollars due to fraud and you may not even know it.

The Data Is In

The word on restaurant sales has been out in the public for a while now. Same store sales are down for many segments. And for some of the most recent months, the industry overall is down.

Two factors lead to negative same store sales:  declining customer traffic, or customers spending less on each visit. It has been well documented that restaurants have been increasing their prices over the past few years. The National Restaurant Association measured price inflation at 2.7% in July 2016, while the average cost of ingredients fell -3.5%. The increased margin dollars have helped some restaurants cover the increases in labor.

Save Time, Save Money

Is time really money? I think so, you only have so much time in a day. If you could save time by making your job more efficient, then you can effectively save money. Improving business efficiency can be achieved through exception based reporting.

Our clients love us and we love them right back! We're constantly amazed by their ingenuity and accomplishments. Their ideas and requests are what keep us on the leading edge of restaurant business solutions. Periodically we like to shine the light on our clients, their accomplishments and what they're doing to increase their restaurant profit margin.