The restaurant business is full of daily distractions that make it easy to avoid working strategically. Sometimes it feels like it takes more work to be strategic than it does to just get the work done. And what does working strategically even mean? In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I talk about what it really means to work strategically on your restaurant business and what you can do to ensure you are. Your role as a restaurant owner is to work on budgets, marketing, developing your managers, leading your team and holding them accountable. Creating time in your schedule to take on these responsibilities without getting lost in the day-to-day details of running a restaurant takes strategic planning and thinking. Tune into this podcast episode to hear me articulate a step-by-step process to ensure you're working strategically on your business. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

Just about every week during my group coaching calls with restaurant owners someone asks for tips on finding and hiring great employees. Restaurant owners share their successes with things like how to write job descriptions to attract employees who want to work in a great culture, suggestions for where to place those job descriptions, how much to pay their employees in their different roles and what to look for in prospective employees. Recently one of the restaurant owners in the group shared how he went about interviewing a huge number of people to work in his restaurant when he opened a new, bigger location. What he suggested was definitely not what anyone expected. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, Avery Ward, CEO of Little Italy Pizza in Groveport, Ohio, joins me to explain how he used a group interview model to hire an additional 20 employees after previously hiring around 25 new people for the new restaurant. In a time when everyone is asking how and where to find quality employees, Ward managed to get 40 people to show up for two group interviews and hired about 20 of them. Listen in to learn how this style of interviewing works and how you can apply it to your restaurant hiring process. Bonus content includes important insights about moving a restaurant into a new location and what you can learn from Ward so you don’t repeat the same mistakes. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

I am sure you’ve been told you need to calculate your food cost. Heck, you’ve probably heard from several experts that your food cost target is a 34% food cost, or that you’re supposed to mark up each of your food items on your menu 3 times. Well, neither of these methods are correct. Flush them from your mind because they are total BS. In this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I will explain why those approaches are wrong and why it’s important to know your food cost. I’ll also explain what you should be doing to calculate your food cost, including the three food cost calculations you must know to control your food cost: budgeted food cost, actual food cost and ideal food cost. You’ll learn how comparing all three of these numbers will allow you, for the first time in your restaurant life, to gain valuable insights into your menu that will allow you to virtually unlock your profit potential. Listen now to unlock your restaurant’s profits with the three food cost calculations. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

I love what I do! I get to help restaurant owners change their lives. I get to help most of them make more money than they've ever made before in their restaurant. To date I've worked with literally thousands of restaurant pros, so I've seen a lot, including a lot of restaurant owners who don't pay themselves. There are a lot of reasons these owners don’t take a regular paycheck, but what so many restaurant owners don’t understand is there is a major downside to not paying yourself from your own business. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I'm talking directly to restaurant owners about the importance of paying yourself. I’ll cover the top reasons restaurant owners give me for not taking a paycheck and the logic – or mistaken logic – behind each one. Plus, I’ll talk about the impact not paying yourself regularly can have on your business and your mental health. Lastly, I explain what you can do to get yourself out of this situation and the benefits to putting in the work to make the change. Making it a priority to pay yourself is one of the keys to running a successful restaurant that also provides the freedom you deserve and stop living in entrepreneurial poverty. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

Labor costs are a real challenge for restaurants that want to make money. Restaurant owners have to battle with a lot of variables to control their labor cost and create success from things that are out of their control. For example, there is rising minimum wage – going as high as $22/hour in some places, labor laws that require a set number of hours for staff, a fear of working people so hard they leave and don’t forget the cost of providing the best service possible. So what is a restaurant owner to do? How can you give good service, keep your team happy and make money? In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I'm answering those questions. Plus I cover how to stay on budget in labor from week to week, how to help your managers successfully manage labor cost and how you, as the restaurant owner, can teach and lead your team to run the right ideal labor cost. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

These past three years have led many restaurant owners and managers toward restaurant burnout. As a restaurant owner, it’s easy to have a feeling of despair that has been almost impossible to shake. Between group coaching calls, one-on-one coaching calls and discovery calls, I talk with a lot of restaurant owners just like you. I can tell you that I hear you and feel your pain. While challenges in the restaurant business are a given, sometimes there are so many that you find yourself feeling jaded. Challenges ranging from staffing and cost controls to marketing and legal issues can overwhelm your love of your restaurant and make it so you don’t even enjoy it anymore. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I'm sharing with you how to tell the difference between work related stress and burnout, how to avoid burnout, and, finally, how to keep or reignite your passion for your restaurant to keep burnout at bay. Losing your passion for your restaurant is the worst thing that can happen to it and everyone involved. Instead, follow this advice to get off the path of burnout. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

Every couple of months I like to invite a restaurant owner who has benefited from my restaurant coaching program onto podcast. It’s a great chance for the restaurant owner to reflect on all the work they’ve done and the results of their work. It’s also a chance for me to take a minute to remind myself in the hustle and bustle of every day that what I teach works. That reinforces my motivation and my why for doing the work I do every day. Today’s guest is Jon Dempster. Jon opened his first restaurant, The Shanty, in the rural seaside community of Cape Charles, Virginia. He also has a second restaurant called Dead Rise Italian Kitchen. Prior to opening the restaurant, he spent 15 years traveling the country working his way up in the hospitality business from the dish pit in coastal New England towns to general manager of an independent Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. He also made an awesome noodle stop in Seattle along the way. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, Jon shares his passion for the industry and how he maintains his drive to continue learning and growing daily. Jon has a special focus on creating the best culture for his restaurant team and community. Listen to our conversation to hear Jon tell how he went from a restaurant owner already using systems to someone who now understands the why of those systems and how using the why helped him explode his profitability. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/podcast-ryan-call Sponsor – Margin Edge: http://www.marginedge.com/dsp

Hiring a restaurant manager is a challenge, but there’s no greater challenge than finding the right kitchen manager. A lot of restaurant owners look to chefs as an ideal manager in the kitchen. After all, they are people destined to help create an experience in a restaurant that results in pleasure and lasting memories. But often a chef is unprepared to lead the restaurant because the higher the position a person has in a kitchen, the less they will cook. In a well-run restaurant, the title of chef is less about creativity and more about management. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, you will learn the pitfalls to avoid when you’re looking to hire a restaurant manager in the kitchen and the traits to look for in a new hire. I’ll also teach you the kitchen manager’s true role in the restaurant and what to expect from them. And finally, you’ll learn what to do if you find a person who fits your restaurant’s culture but has some learning to do to be effective in your restaurant. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/call-with-ryan Sponsor – Repeat Returns: http://repeatreturns.com/dsp

It doesn’t matter if you're brand new to the restaurant business or you’re a seasoned veteran, food cost challenges will plague you. From regular price increases on a variety of products to natural disasters that drive prices up on commodities like chicken and oranges. Here’s the deal, though. You can count on the prices you’re paying for food to fluctuate and to increase dramatically without much warning. That’s a given and it’s out of your control. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I am talking about what you can control. Most restaurants operate 7-9% above their ideal food cost and, in most cases, it’s due to a lack of systems and a lack of leadership. Listen in for the full explanation along with the kitchen systems you can use to lower your restaurant food cost and lead your restaurant success. 👍 Book a Call - https://dsp.coach/call-with-ryan Sponsor – Repeat Returns: http://repeatreturns.com/dsp

When I first started developing operational systems in restaurants, I relied heavily on spreadsheets. Excel was revolutionary, and I pushed that program to the max. Spreadsheets were the best way to organize the systems, track numbers, track inventory and do all kinds of operational tasks in the restaurant. But they were dangerous because you could end up with duplicate copies, lost data, corrupt files, etc. So when technology came into the restaurant picture, I quickly adapted my methods and systems into technology – I even developed a restaurant management software! Now we have AI – the machines are doing some incredible work for restaurant owners and making sorting restaurant data so much more efficient. In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I want to introduce you to Branden McRill, the co-founder of 5-Out, a forecasting tool for restaurants. 5-Out predicts what you’re going to sell and when you’re going to sell it to optimize labor and purchasing. Using machine learning, AI and predictive analysis, in just five minutes, 5-Out integrates a wide range of systems you already use, such as point of sale, labor scheduling, purchasing and inventory, weather, social media, ordering, news and events. He gets it. He understands the importance of having the right and timely numbers to run your restaurant the right way. Tune in to hear our discussion about running restaurants, pick up some useful tips and learn about the potential of synergizing your restaurant data for maximized decision making. And I mean that sincerely. Learn the 3 principles the most successful restaurant owners follow and how you can learn to follow them, too: https://dsp.coach/principlesx3 Learn more about 5-Out: https://www.5out.io/ Sponsor – Repeat Returns: http://repeatreturns.com/dsp