Times have changed in restaurants and are you ready for it?

A few days ago, I spoke to a restaurant owner and I could see the worry on his face. After a short discussion, he mentioned: I have nothing to benchmark my restaurants against this year! By that time, REMS was not out yet, so instead I bit my tongue and I thought: “You will soon have the greatest benchmark tool ever created”

We know times are hard and restaurants have and will struggle big time to remain in business (there is not only a change in the industry but a change in social behaviours and consumers) but we also know that restaurants will always exist as long as we want to remain socially active. Communication, concepts, menus, technology will evolve as it has been doing so far, but the word restaurant will still be known as “a place where people pay to sit and eat meals that are cooked and served on the premises” and we hope it will continue like that for a while.

As active people, we know our company projection was different a few months ago, but we have remained firm and confident that despite having to change the packaging so many times, the content has remained the same: we are here to transform the restaurant industry and make your restaurant perform as its best.

At first, this might sound daring, but we can allow ourselves to name it that way because of the number of hours we have spent trying to resolve an issue. What is missing in the restaurant industry?

The answer is relatively easy: Restaurants do not know if they are performing at their best.

But, hold on. Some people might suggest they make a lot of money, they grow sales year on year and they meet their budget requirements. By all means, this is fantastic! But I am sure it would be more rewarding to understand what your true potential in the market is. Once you know, it becomes your choice whether you want to go for it or not.

The industry is seeking solutions to bring more customers in, to increase online media presence, to become the trendy place everyone wants to dine in, to gather data and get some conclusions. This is all because the market is busy and very competitive. Unfortunately, many restaurants fail to succeed and we could attribute this to a lack of planning, unattractive offering or some sort of financial issues. Nevertheless, we will mostly agree that failing to achieve success is to do with a lack of market information.  This translates into not knowing what part of the available market (customers) should visit your restaurant. This missing information lets you fly blind when you are planning your strategy.

Imagine there are 5 restaurants in one area that target a specific clientele because of their type of food, price, marketing campaigns, etc. and there are many people that are willing to visit one of them or the other. This is what represents a specific/targeted market and all those restaurants are competing against each other.

How do you know you are getting the right portion of the customers within your market?

 For example: If you know you are not achieving your desired weekly results because every Sunday your restaurant is falling behind compared to your competition, you could action that and make it better. How? By understanding what you are not doing right and fix it. 

It is time-consuming and costly to figure out a solution if you do not know the source of the problem. Why would you change your entire menu if you only need a couple of premium dishes? Why would you discount your food and drink offer daily if you only need to do it on Sunday? Why is your restaurant open only 4 hours a day?

All the answers to these questions should be easily responded without spending unnecessary time and money. And this can only happen if you look at how restaurants make money and target the indicator that is driving you behind. Either by selling more seats (occupancy) or by selling them more expensive (spend per head). And because restaurants have space limitations, the key is to combine both indicators to create the one that can show you how much revenue you are making for every seat available at your restaurant (Revpash).

REMS Market Share is an innovative tool designed to unlock the market data and reveal your market position. Using accumulative figures from different restaurants, we intend to show how a particular restaurant behaves in relation to an aggregated group of competitors, personalised to the specificities of each subject restaurant. With REMS, we can help each property to access their market share data and use it to tailor current or new business strategies. We can boost your revenue and profitability in a highly competitive industry and this can all be done by using simple indicators.

So, now tell us. What are you waiting for to unlock your true potential?