You have one shot at responding to inquiries from prospective clients. One poorly thought-out email is all it takes to instantly eliminate you from a high-dollar catered event. To ensure you are considered for $5,000- to $10,000-plus catered...
Photo: ThinkstockWhen I ran successful restaurants for two decades, I learned quickly that it was all about the hooks.
What am I talking about?
A hook is anything unique and eye-catching, different or just plain wild about how you do busine...
Restaurant owners have a catering gold mine right under their noses. A customer database, overhead already paid, food that your guests love, staff, recipes, etc., are all in place. After you have established a catering menu, a separate catering p...
Hiring and retaining a great team is one of the greatest challenges we face in the restaurant business, but the definition of team can vary widely among operators. In this transient, high-turnover industry, many restaurants simply hire to fill...
I frequently talk about the power of branding, but this simple concept is lost on so many small businesses I visit, restaurants included. These owners and managers are running restaurants, not businesses, and there’s a huge difference. Who...
Once the holiday season is over, there is usually a big lull for caterers until wedding season kicks in. It’s like hibernating, hunkering down until wedding season arrives. They are waiting, waiting, waiting until the time they start generating p...
I was recently talking with a chef friend who gets it. He’s owned his own fine dining restaurants and one of his secrets to success was treating every guest as if they were the most important guest, even when his restaurant was full. I had the sa...
Sadly, many caterers don’t look at their bottom line enough. Some never look at their bottom line. They think they know what their net profit was on a particular event. But when it comes to overall company net profit and how to improve it? They h...
