Part 2 of 2

So you’ve calculated your restaurant’s profits using the throughput formula. Now comes the second step to maximizing your foodservice sales: using these figures to improve your operation’s efficiency, boost your customer count and increase your total sales. The key is incorporating the throughput concept into all aspects of your operational processes.

From the Front Door to the Dining Room
Increase your restaurant’s throughput from the moment guests walk in the door by making the seating process as efficient as possible. On top of maintaining a well-trained staff of hosts and servers, it helps to add a second host at the front door to keep customer traffic running smoothly. Try an “on-deck system in which waiting parties are called just before their tables are ready. Letting your guests know their tables are being prepared keeps your waiting list in order and reduces the time you wait between calling and seating your customers.

Still, wait times are often unavoidable. Luckily, you can take advantage of this time by making menus available from the start so customers can think about their orders before they’re seated. You can also set up an area (think a bar or patio) where waiting diners can get started on drinks or appetizers, further reducing the time they spend at actual tables and keeping turn times tight.

Even when diners get a head start on their meals, there’s no getting around the fact that bigger tables take longer to turn. On crowded nights, simply assign multiple servers to larger parties to keep things running smoothly and improve customer service.

From the Dinner Table to the Kitchen Counter
Increasing your restaurant’s throughput doesn’t stop at the dining room. It’s not enough to have a well-trained kitchen staff; your employees need the right equipment to keep orders coming out on time, every time. In an article for Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, author Juan Martinez explains the importance of weighing your particular kitchen’s needs when selecting equipment. Where speed metrics gauge how fast an item is made on demand, throughput capacity measures how many items are produced in an hour.

Because the value of speed of service versus thoughput capacity depends on a restaurant’s traffic volume, batch production should take priority over individual production during busy peak hours. To keep output steady on long nights, make sure your kitchen is equipped to handle batch production on demand. You’ll get dishes out of the kitchen and onto the tables faster, something you and your customers can appreciate.

Tags | dining, kitchen efficiency, Operations, per person average, profits, restaurant, sales, seating capacity, speed of service, table turn time, target, throughput