U.S. House Bill Seeks to Boost Workforce
With new visa program. A bill introduced in the U.S. House Monday night seeks to address restaurant staffing challenges by creating a program of non-immigrant three-year visas for workers. The National Restaurant Association on Tuesday applauded HB 7239, which would create an Essential Workers for Economic Advancement program, the group said. “There is no silver bullet to solving the industry’s recruitment challenge, but this program creates one opportunity to address the issue,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based National Restaurant Association. The Essential Workers for Economic Advancement (EWEA) program, created withing the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act, is intended for small businesses in industries with comparatively low sales per employee. It would be available for non-agricultural jobs with lower education thresholds that have been unfilled for extended periods of time.
TikTok for Restaurants
What you need to know. What is the biggest site on the internet? Would your guess be Google? If so, you would be right… prior to December of 2021. According to data from Cloudflare, Google was taken down by TikTok, a video based social network. Most people who aren’t addicted to the endless scroll of short form videos think the platform is all about dancing and goofy memes. While there is certainly more than enough of that to go around, the platform has really started to be an incredible way for all kinds of businesses to creatively attract and engage their customers, including restaurants. While major restaurant chains have already started to create content on the TikTok network, smaller and independent restaurants who have embraced the format are finding that it’s a lot easier to drive business than Facebook or Instagram. Stories are happening all over the place how just one video caused a major shift in the revenue for a restaurant. This isn’t a fluke. It’s deliberate and you have the right plan, you too can harness the power of TikTok.
Fake Reviews
How to fight them and protect your brand. In a world where 93 percent of consumers rely on online reviews to decide where to spend, per a Igniyte meta-report, negative reviews can present a genuine threat to your business. Especially so for consumers trying to figure out which restaurant to try next. Unfortunately, fake reviews are common, and your need to deal with them is more likely a “when” than an “if.” Actual figures vary per sector as well as platform type. For instance, Amazon itself has reported that 64 percent of supplement reviews on its website were fake, per Statista. Data aggregated by the World Economic Forum suggests that review platforms self-report that approximately four percent of reviews are fake, on average. Fake reviews are a particular problem in the restaurant business. Nobody heads to a venue they think will serve them a bad meal. Furthermore, any suggestions of issues with hygiene and food safety raise a serious red flag to new and established customers. Unjust and untrue feedback can come from multiple directions: dissatisfied customers seeking vengeance, unscrupulous competitors, and organized online criminals. Thankfully, restaurants needn’t simply accept the problem as part of doing business. It is possible to fight back.
A Guide to Conducting Precise Restaurant Sales Forecasts
Whether or not certain costs will be repaid in sales. Sales forecasting is always tricky in the restaurant world. Partly, this is because the industry is inherently unpredictable. Under normal circumstances, you could use previous years’ sales figures to forecast the upcoming year – but, as we emerge from two years of COVID closures, staffing shortages, and general turmoil, previous sales’ figures definitely can’t be trusted. For many restaurants, forecasting upcoming sales in a post-pandemic world is just as hard as forecasting sales for an entirely new venture. So, perhaps it’s worth going over exactly how you’d forecast sales for a new venture. Let’s follow the case of a fictional restaurateur. Her name is Chloe, and her dream is to open a bistro by the sea. She’s picked what could be the perfect spot – a recently vacated cafe on the seafront. She hopes to renovate it and turn it into the fish bistro of her dreams, catering to happy beachgoers all year round.
Restaurants Keep All-You-Can-Eat Items on the Menu
As costs rise. The price of the fettuccine Alfredo at Olive Garden could get a little pricier this year. But the restaurant chain’s never-ending breadsticks and salad will remain never-ending. Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse and other chains, reported quarterly earnings Thursday. Sales across the chain’s eight restaurant properties came in at $2.45 billion — below Wall Street’s expectations but up by 41.3 percent over the same quarter last year. Sales at Olive Garden, whose restaurants account for about half of Darden’s annual revenue, were up by 30 percent. But restaurant margins are thin and operators are running out of wiggle room as costs climb. “We’ve been trying to hold off on pricing as much as the inflation would have dictated,” said Rajesh Vennam, the chief financial officer of Darden Restaurants. “As inflation creeps up, we’re going to have to try to manage through that, but it’s going to be a combination of pricing and productivity initiatives.”.
Struggling to Connect with Your Team?
This is probably why. There are many challenges to running a restaurant of any kind, in any segment. And most of these challenges have been around since the beginning of time — food costs, labor and rent being the most critical in the eyes of many (rightfully so). But take a moment to step back and objectively think about one area that impacts all of these challenges: effective communication. Communication with our teams, owners and supervisors, vendors, partners, guests, community. Everyone. This one element will directly impact the success of the downfall of a restaurant. Communication comes in many forms and through many channels. If we are not clear, if we do not have a message, if we do not follow up and follow through, we are not going to be successful.
One of Jersey City’s Last Remaining Red-Sauce Joints is Still a Must-Visit
50 years in. Jersey City used to be one of the best places to find old-fashioned Italian restaurants. Then, one-by-one, most closed as the population shifted from Italian to newer immigrant groups. Rita & Joe’s was located in the tangle of freeways leading to the Holland Tunnel. So picturesque, it was featured in the opening credits to the Sopranos. Cafe Dante was situated on top of the Newark Avenue hill before that thoroughfare’s descent into the Meadowlands. It was not frequented by organized crime figures, at least the times I dined there, but instead, it was editors from Gourmet magazine, who didn’t want to be spotted indulging in red-sauced Italian fare because it seemed too low brow. Both restaurants — as well as Gourmet itself — are now long gone. But one such restaurant lingers: Laico’s. Its location — at 67 Terhune Avenue, between Foster Avenue and Spring Street — is the most obscure of all. Situated mid-block in the residential neighborhood of Greenville, it’s surrounded by warehouses and factories that line Newark Bay and will give your GPS a run for its money. The restaurant occupies the ground floor of a house with a miniature parking lot on one side.
Restaurants Rethink Gender’s Role in Service
A dinner out can be discomforting. As Anaelia Ovalle stood outside a restaurant here deciding whether to go in, the host extended a friendly greeting: “Hello, sir.” But the phrase didn’t feel all that welcoming to Ovalle, 27, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns “they” and “them.” Ovalle has an androgynous appearance. And as they asked for a menu, they could see the wheels turning in the host’s head, registering the pitch of their voice and noticing details like their eyeliner and painted nails. The host quickly retreated, calling them “ma’am.” “It’s just funny that they resort to flipping it,” said Ovalle, a machine-learning researcher. “The assumption is that gender is binary. It’s like, ‘Oh, wait, not sir, ma’am!’ It points to the need to have more ways of addressing people in a gender-neutral way.”.
Did You Know?
Activating your restaurant’s first-party data. Driven by a shift to digital ordering that has been amplified by the pandemic, restaurants are gathering first-party data from customers through apps, websites, and loyalty programs; many brands now have enough customer data to run robust CRM programs which are most successful when custom segmentation and targeting models are developed and leveraged. When it comes to data, restaurant brands have traditionally focused on financial data to make decisions. Transactions, sales, and average order value (which are lagging indicators) are typically the top three. While this data is foundational to decision making, it does not provide insights on consumer behavior.
Employee Tip
NJ Unemployment Rate Dips to 4.6% in February. New Jersey’s unemployment rate declined to 4.6% in February, as employers added 25,900 jobs to their payrolls, according to preliminary estimates produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Based on more complete reporting from employers, the state’s January’s jobless number was revised downward from 5.2% to 5.1%, resulting in a 0.5 percentage point drop to February’s 4.6% unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate fell from 4% in January to 3.8% in February. The state Department of Labor & Workforce Development reported Thursday that New Jersey’s total nonfarm wage and salary employment reached a seasonally adjusted level of 4,154,100 with February gains concentrated mainly in the private sector. New Jersey has now recovered 658,300 jobs, or about 90% of the number lost in March and April 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bielat Santore & Company – Restaurant Industry Alert
MIDDLESEX COUNTY PUB FOR SALE
ASSET SALE: Two-story multi-unit building on a corner lot. The building consists of a bar with no kitchen. Occupancy of bar is 49 patrons and is approximately 900 SF. The building also has 3 apartments consisting of a one 2-bedroom apartment on the 1st floor and a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor. Apartments are currently rented for $1,000 each for a total of $3,000.00 monthly. Strong upside potential with the property to increase rent roll. The bar has been operational for decades but is in need of some updating…Asking $799,000.
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For more information contact Dan Lynch, Bielat Santore & Company, 973.886.4411.
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