Opening a Restaurant in a Good Location Doesn't Necessarily Mean Good Sales! Case Study: Food Times Restaurant
Jun 26, 2019
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Opening a Restaurant at a good location doesn't necessarily mean good sales if your restaurant is like Food Times, a homemade Japanese-style restaurant, and doesn't have attractions. Food Times is a small restaurant located along Dinso Road near Satriwithaya School in a residential district where international tourists pass by. However, few customers entered the restaurant or even thought the restaurant was a coffee shop. After speaking with Ms. Roongnapha Mangkornpit, the owner of Food Times, some problems were discovered. The restaurant's storefront was neither distinguished nor eye-catching even though the restaurant was situated in a good location and offered many selections at affordable prices. It's a pity that the restaurant missed out on many opportunities to gain regular and irregular customers, and hardly anybody entered the restaurant during the day. Academy joined together to plan and solve the restaurant's problems within 48 hours.
Food Times' problems are summarized as follows:
• Few customers during the day. • People who walked past the restaurant couldn't tell what kind of restaurant the restaurant was. • The menu looked unprofessional.
Few Customers during the Day
The benefit of Food Times is that it's located in a residential district near a school and temple. Most customers visited the restaurant after school hours, so the atmosphere during those hours was different from during the day when there were few customers. The expert chefs suggested that the restaurant engage in online marketing activities to provide additional channels for customers to visit the restaurant such as by using Google My Business, pinning the restaurant on Google Maps to make the restaurant's location known and make it easier for customers to find the restaurant and creating a LINE@ account to maintain the customer base. The chefs also recommended creating new menu items or promotions that could immediately be communicated to customers and suggested that the restaurant sell boxed food as a way to boost daytime income. Because the restaurant was located near offices and government agencies, designing boxed food menu items for catering events and seminars was an interesting option. Additionally, creating boxed food sets for monk offerings could provide an effective way to boost sales. However, the restaurant had to offer a wide range of selections in terms of food and prices to give customers more options. Moreover, the chefs said that packaging was important and that attractive designs consistent with usage requirements such as by creating monk offering sets could be interesting and attract more customers to order food, or the restaurant could create take-away sets that conspicuously contain the restaurant's name so that the restaurant would be promoted as customers purchased food to take home. People who walked past the restaurant couldn't tell what kind of restaurant the restaurant was.
Customers who entered the restaurant frequently thought that Food Times was a café and sold coffee. As a result, many customers walked away from the restaurant, while many others didn't want to enter because they did not know what this restaurant sold. Makro HoReCa Academy's team visited the restaurant and found that Food Times lacked distinguishing characteristics, so it was impossible for customers to know that this restaurant actually sold Japanese food. Therefore, it was concluded that enhancing the storefront for distinguishing characteristics will effectively make the restaurant memorable, and changing the atmosphere in front and inside of the restaurant to feel Japanese by redecorating the restaurant in some key areas could help customers immediately understand that the restaurant specifically sells Japanese food. The menu looked unprofessional.
It's a pity that the restaurant offered varied and interesting menu items for people to order, but the a la carte menu didn't present dishes that looked appetizing and many customers defaulted to familiar menu items as a result. However, this problem was fixable by taking new and attractive pictures of the restaurant's menu items, and the restaurant owner was able to take attractive food pictures herself by learning some simple photography concepts. She also learned how to arrange pictures in food menus, highlight menu items and positioning pictures inside the menus in a way that's conspicuous and appears appetizing. Because Food Times was located in a tourist hotspot, creating the menu in both Thai and English could also help international customers feel that food wasn't being sold at overly high prices while also inviting more international customers because they could read the menu themselves.
The three main problems discovered were easily resolved. Just changing thinking and taking corrective actions were enough to improve the restaurant and help it recover and rise toward better circumstances. If restaurateurs face similar problems to those that Food Times
to improve your restaurant? You can watch the 48-hour mission of Makro HoReCa Academy's experts to transform I'm Busy Restaurant. Click to play it now.
