Are You Keeping Up With Your Restaurant Menu?
Restaurant operators are notoriously slow to change their menus. It’s not because they don’t care—it’s because they think it’s expensive. But here’s the truth: food costs are climbing, and every month you wait, you’re slipping further behind. So it’s important for you to keep up with your restaurant menu.
Most operators glance at the checkbook at the end of the month and wonder why there’s less cash in the account. Less money in savings. Less cushion for the future. What they’re not seeing is the tidal wave that’s just offshore: more cost increases, more pressure, and more danger to their bottom line.
Why Every Restaurant Needs a Profit Checkup
Most restaurant operators wouldn’t dream of skipping a checkup at the doctor. You know prevention is cheaper — and easier — than fixing a problem once it’s too late. So why do so many restaurants avoid giving their menu and marketing the same attention?
Your restaurant lives and dies on pennies of margin. A single menu item priced wrong, or a seasonal promotion that falls flat, can quietly bleed thousands of dollars from your business every year. Yet many operators don’t notice until it’s too late.
The Free Guerrilla Marketing Playbook That Will Put Butts in Seats
If your restaurant’s marketing plan is just posting food pics on social media and praying, you’re leaving money on the table (guaranteed).
What Carrington Got Wrong on Their Menu
HotOperator developed a menu for Carrington Restaurant in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, in 2022, with updates in 2023. This particular business group is known for changing marketing people like most people change their socks—which has, unsurprisingly, led to wildly inconsistent marketing results. And the menu is just one example.
How to turn around a restaurant business.
Turning around a restaurant can be a difficult task, especially in smaller communities and neighborhoods. But it can be done. To turn around a restaurant business, you’ll need to do some tricky marketing.
Restaurant Menu Engineering for Pizza Restaurants
How to Engineer a Pizza Restaurant Menu That Boosts Profits (Without Alienating Guests) When Restaurant Menu Engineering for Pizza Restaurants, many Pizza restaurants play by a different set of rules when it comes to menu engineering. While the product is universally...
This Menu Is Bleeding Money—Every Single Week
If your menu isn’t making you money, it’s costing you—week after week.
In restaurant after restaurant, we see the same three problems that quietly drain revenue:
Top 8 Restaurant Menu Design Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
At HotOperator®, we’ve reviewed thousands of menus. And we’ve noticed that most restaurant operators—even successful ones—make a few costly mistakes without realizing it.
Your Menu Is Costing You More Than You Think
Every customer who walks through your door gives you feedback.
They tell you what they love. What they hate. What’s too expensive. What’s not worth it.
“Sell” it – “Put it in the window” or “We only have two orders left, push it.”
HotOperator is a dynamic foodservice marketing company specializing in growing restaurants. This is our blog. The blog posts you read here will help you push your sales and customer service to new levels. When the little window pops up, sign up so you’re the first to know when new information is available.
“If you sell food to humans on planet earth, we can help you.” -Mark Laux, Managing Partner, HotOperator