Business Killer 4: Non-traditional Competitors Cont'd - Restaurant Case Study with Agnes
Posted by Ryan Volberg at October 30, 2007 2:30 PM

The 6 Month Overhaul

Agnes set a plan to change one aspect of her restaurant each month for the next five months. By staging her changes, it gave her the chance to focus on each major issue without getting distracted by the other projects.

Month 1 – The Menu

Month 2 – Service standards

Month 3 – Delivery

Month 4 – Minor renovation

Month 5 – Advertising and Promotion

Each project would build upon the next. It didn’t make sense to change the décor until she established the service standards. And, service standards would be partly dictated by the new finalized menu. There was also a financial aspect to her strategy. While she had most of the money to finance her changes, the most expensive part was the renovation. Positive changes in sales as a result of the other changes would give her much more confidence in moving ahead with the renovation.

Before she could begin any of the projects, she had to do a little housecleaning, literally. Over the years, her restaurant had become tired looking. While she had a minor renovation planned for Month 4 of her overhaul, there were some quick things she could do to improve the first impression that her restaurant gave.

She started in the parking lot. Some of the parking lot lines were barely visible. On her list she jotted down

Property Management – Parking lot lines

Agnes continued to the front window and made a note to put “Window Cleaning” on a daily to-do list. The same treatment applied to the glass on the door. When she stepped inside her restaurant she made a few more notes:

Clean menu covers – daily

Fix mail box slot

Repair and paint chipped corners on all walls

Dust artificial plants – daily (remove during renovation)

Polish brass - weekly

Dust all flat surfaces – daily

And so she went, every point that a customer would interact with her restaurant, she looked for a simple way to improve the appearance. After organizing her work, she had four lists

1. Repairs and Improvements to do immediately
2. Daily tasks
3. Weekly tasks
4. Monthly tasks

She also assigned each one of the tasks to a group of employees. For example, it was the day hostess’ responsibility to clean the menu covers each day.

By the end of the week, most of the repair items were completed and the restaurant was looking decidedly cleaner. Surprisingly, she had spent very little money to get this much improvement.

Now she could implement the first stage of her overhaul.

Ryan Volberg is the CEO of Vivonet, a company dedicated to ensuring retail and restaurant success.

Category: Survival Tips Story of Agnes the Restaurateur

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