This past fall, I had the privilege of presenting at the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s Traveling Show, with stops in Eau Claire, Green Bay, and Wausau. Each city brought a different energy, and every conversation reminded me why I love working with independent restaurant operators—they’re passionate, hardworking, and hungry for practical tools that actually move the needle.

In my session, I walked through the foundations of menu engineering, the power of strategic menu design, and the importance of building a planned, consistent social media presence that sparks conversation. I also shared several of my favorite guerrilla marketing tactics—the simple, scrappy ideas that can drive real attention without expensive budgets.

Whether you attended the show or are seeing this for the first time, the video below is a look into how smart menu decisions and better storytelling can transform a restaurant’s bottom line. If you’ve ever wondered why certain items sell, why others don’t, or how to get more people talking about your brand, this is a great place to start.

Thanks again to the WRA team for hosting such a well-run and inspiring program. I’m already looking forward to the next opportunity to connect with operators across Wisconsin.

Watch the full presentation linked below.
(If the video takes a moment to load, hang tight—it’s worth it.)

The post Behind the Scenes of the WRA Traveling Show: My Talk on Menu Engineering, Design, Social Media & Guerrilla Marketing appeared first on HotOperator.

Perfect Restaurant Menus for Imperfect Restaurant Times

“COVID-19 has really screwed things up.”

That statement by one of my clients recently summed up our current times pretty well. January through the beginning of March looked pretty good. Not the best year for many of my clients, but not bad. Then Coronavirus struck like a bolt of lightning and started to shut things down. The clients I have in states that opened early had a very brief relief from the virus until the cases started to spike and shut things down a second time.

The restaurant business isn’t going to be the same any time soon. The idea of a bar with wall-to-wall people and standing room only waiting for tables seems like a distant past. And the sad truth is, most restaurant operators simply cannot make it on 60% or even 70% capacity.

I spoke with a long time client just the other day and he told me he thought about shutting down except he has a couple of his kids working in the restaurant and needs to keep them employed. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The restaurant business needs to be rethought. Right down to the menu.

We have two menus that have been productive for our clients recently. An expanded carryout menu, and a placemat menu. Both of which are great at being cost effective, and still engineered to help promote the right foods at strategic prices. And by the way, it is important to take a price bump now. Our industry is going to need a shot of cash, and a strategic price increase is a great place to start.

Carryout Travel Menu

HotOperator has been redeveloping the carryout menu to make it more productive and cost effective. All of the engineering techniques we use on any FSR menu are used, but we lay the menu out in a way that makes it fit a smaller, less cluttered look. In this way, we can provide our clients with a very inexpensive menu that will bring a higher return on investment for our restaurant partners.

Does It Travel?

We recommend trimming down your menu to items that travel well. We also recommend cooking up everything you sell and letting it sit in a car for half an hour to see how it holds up. This is the only way to know for sure if what you are selling will represent your brand when it gets to its final destination.

If You Can’t Sell Pizza, There’s Something Wrong

Do you have a sports bar? Start selling pizza. Do you have a family restaurant? Again, start making pizza. Pizza travels well, it’s cheap to make and will help boost your carryout and delivery business. Just make sure the pizza you offer supports your brand. If you are an Asian restaurant, you don’t need pizza. Same goes for a Mexican restaurant. But other than that, you may want to consider pizza.

Placemat Menu

Normally for kids menus, we have been making placemat menus for the main menu for our clients and it’s working pretty well. They are cheap by comparison, you don’t have to clean them and you can even offer conversation starters, riddles and doodle diagrams to keep everyone entertained while you cook.

If your guests steal them, no big deal, right? You were going to throw them away anyway. The only downside is, they are not able to hold as much stuff because they have limited space. But we are recommending trimming down our client’s menus anyway. Focus your business on the stuff that sells well and brings a higher plate contribution and drop the stuff that doesn’t move as well.

Make Money Despite The Crisis

Back in the day (like March), a restaurant operator could make the business look profitable with enough volume. At 4¢ on a dollar, you simply dragged people in kicking and screaming and fed them. At the end of the day a little money was left over and you went to bed, got up and did it again.

With Coronavirus, that tactic no longer works as well. At between 40 and 70% capacity, there simply isn’t enough coming in to cover for a low profit business. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a business here. It simply means that in order to make the business work, you have to reach for 10 to 12% profits. To get there, you are going to need to focus on items that bring a higher plate contribution. That and introduce items that can bring a solid volume and still support those higher profits.

Don’t Try This At Home

To get higher profits from your menu, focus your business on items that consumers would struggle to make on their own. This has always been the long-card for restaurant operators, but a lot of restaurant operators allowed products that are easy to make at home onto their menus. Essentially, many restaurant operators got lazy. They put meatloaf on the menu, but not a meatloaf with any added value. Then they said ‘mama’s meatloaf’ as if it was something special when it was just a simple meatloaf.

Moving forward, the restaurant industry is going to need to refocus their business on items that offer a true consumer value and a point of difference. The meatloaf is going to have to become a mushroom and provolone rolled meatloaf with burgundy gravy, lumpy mashers and candied carrots. Something special, different and better than ‘mama’ would ever have made.

You Need A Menu Matrix

A professional menu matrix and menu review will help you get the core items you want to keep, figure out the items you want to drop and will uncover the next star for your business. This breakdown is essential for any restaurant operator in a time or crisis or not. Fall is a time of change for consumer spending and their tastes. But before you start working on a new menu, get an objective look at your menu.

To do a proper menu matrix, we need three things:

1 – A PMIX for a 3 month period. This is a product sales report from your point of sale.

2 – A copy of your current menu. This can be a PDF, but it needs to include your current prices and must align with the PMIX>

3 – Food costs. If you know them. If not, we can figure that out for you.

What you get back is a clear direction for your menu and restaurant moving forward. This is a difficult time. HotOperator can help with very effective menu design engineering, printing and advice for getting your business back in black.

About HotOperator

HotOperator is offering a consultation to help you navigate these difficult times. Reach out before it’s too late. A simple email to get things started, and we’ll be there for you. We are committed to the foodservice industry. We love restaurants. We want them to survive. But we can’t do that unless we work together. Let us help you with romancing your restaurant brand.

M+K Laux dba HotOperator is a farm to table marketing consulting firm. Mark and Kelly are a marketing team and managing partners of HotOperator. They have been working in the food business since 1989. Either can be contacted through the HotOperator website, or by calling 800-316-3198. or contact Laux here.

The post Perfect Restaurant Menus for Imperfect Restaurant Times appeared first on HotOperator.

Coronavirus Marketing For Foodservice: Getting your business back to 100%+

Here are 7 things you must do to get your business back above 100% sales

Coronavirus is here for a while, and if you are in the foodservice business, getting your business back to 100%+ is not an easy task. We get calls all the time from restaurant operators and food manufacturers wondering how to get their sales back above 50%. As a food marketing company, that is simply the wrong question to be asking.

Everyone in the foodservice industry is a part of the food business. And at the moment, we are getting our butts kicked by grocery stores. Let that sink in. Grocery stores are doing great, while most restaurants are struggling to hit 50% of their pre virus sales. The question shouldn’t be how do we get back above 50% of sales. What we need to answer is, what would my restaurant look like if we were at 100% plus in sales?

On a side note, there are a lot of restaurant operators doing that. Most of them have either drive-up or drive through businesses. It’s the full service restaurants that are struggling, especially the independent operators.

Here are 7 things you can do right now to help you get back to 100%+ of your pre virus business.Perfect for Coronavirus Marketing for foodservice, adn getting back to 100%+

1 – Getting your business back to 100%+ will require thinking about your business differently.

If you think of your restaurant as a little factory and local distribution center, you can think of your business differently. Suddenly you are simply taking in raw goods in the back of the house, and selling raw, partially finished and finished products out of the front of the house. Just by changing how you see what you do helps you to realign your offering to maximize throughput.

2 – Keeping your point of difference while expanding your offering.

Even if you are the worst marketing person on the planet, you still have a brand. And that brand is essential to what can go through your little restaurant factory without a hitch. Simply put, if a product doesn’t make sense to your brand, it doesn’t belong in your business. As an example, if you are a coffee house and café, selling bulk coffee, baked goods, sliced meats, salads, etc. would make perfect sense. But selling pizza would be a stretch.

3 – Cooking kits are hot right now.

People are cooking more at home, and cooking kits with recipes, ingredients and cool packaging are selling really well. Look at your business for anything that isn’t bolted down that a consumer might cook at home, and start selling. Make sure you have the recipe written well, so it’s fun, cute and descriptive. Make sure, too, that the ingredients are described in a way that will get people excited about your products.

4 – Keep people entertained.

Part of going out to breakfast, lunch or dinner is being entertained. It’s like a mini vacation for your guests. That’s why you need to be clever with your offering. Make sure people get a little something they didn’t expect. You may be acting a little like a grocery deli, but you are not a grocery deli. You are more than that. That’s why anything you sell must have something special about it.

5 – Bribe children.

We don’t mean that literally. We mean that in a marketing sense. Offer the kids something they might like in exchange for mom and dad’s order. Maybe the kids under a certain age get a free meal with every adult meal purchased. Or maybe the kids get a fun coloring book with a set of crayons free with the purchase of two adult meals. Getting your business back to 100%+ might need a little bribery. If you would like ideas on what to offer, reach out to HotOperator.com here.

6 – Stay top of mind.

People are simply not moving around as much as they did. So you have to stay in front of them. You need to be where they are. And they are on social media. If you don’t have a plan for social engagement, you need one. Better yet, outsource it. HotOpeator offers a number of plans for restaurant operators to outsource their social media. Follow this link and ask for a quote.

7 – Make your menu more manageable.

At HotOperator, we have helped countless restaurant operators trim down their menus. In this way, they are able to offer their guests great foods that travel well. But, do not start trimming your menu without doing a Menu Matrix first. This is incredibly important. A Menu Matrix will tell you what is too important to take off the menu. It will also tell you what might be a good item to add. HotOperator offers a lot of levels of research on menu design-engineering. Contact them here for more information.

About HotOperator

HotOperator is offering a consultation to help you navigate these difficult times. Reach out before it’s too late. A simple email to get things started, and we’ll be there for you. We are committed to the foodservice industry. We love restaurants. We want them to survive. But we can’t do that unless we work together. Let us help you with romancing your restaurant brand.

M+K Laux dba HotOperator is a farm to table marketing consulting firm. Mark and Kelly are a marketing team and managing partners of HotOperator. They have been working in the food business since 1989. Either can be contacted through the HotOperator website, or by calling 800-316-3198. or contact Laux here.

The post Coronavirus Marketing For Foodservice: Getting your business back to 100%+ appeared first on HotOperator.