By David Hopkins

Opening a new restaurant requires good decision-making, the kind of decision-making critical to avoiding pitfalls along the way. Here are some of the most common missteps new owners make when opening a new restaurant.

Our world is increasingly becoming one of convenience.

With access to so much information at our fingertips and the ability to have consumer products shipped directly to you same-day, today’s consumers want what they want, when they want it, where they want it, and it’s no different when it comes to their meals.

Your diners are looking for creativity and new taste sensations by sharing plates like tapas, cheese and dessert selections. Technomic reports that 47% of consumers who eat small plates strongly agree that they are more likely to try new flavours on small plates than in entrées.

According to the Canadian Snacking Nation 2016 study by Ipsos, more than two-thirds of all consumption occasions occur outside of traditional meals.

Menu change can be daunting.

But using LTOs (limited time offers) can provide a culinary playground for adding innovation without the commitment. Successfully executing an LTO offers a potential sales lift of as much as 20%, and can bring back old customers while enticing new ones.

317,865,626. That’s the number of #food hashtags globally on Instagram, rising minute by minute.*

To say that Instagram’s food community is an impactful marketing channel for your restaurant business is an understatement. Restaurateurs need always to be thinking about how every element and square inch of their restaurant can be used to create their unique brand and be “Instagram worthy.”

Breakfast for dinner is now a thing all across Canada. McDonald's Canada rolled out its all-day breakfast option at the end of February 2017, and is banking on the change to provide the same bump in traffic and same store sales as in the U.S.

John Betts, McDonald's Canada CEO, suggested that the introduction of the program was driven partly by social media and Twitter requests by the thousands from customers for all-day breakfast since its launch in the U.S.

More than $30 billion worth of food is wasted in Canada each year, and more than half of that waste happens as it is produced, processed, transported, sold, prepared and served, according to Ontario based consulting firm Value Chain Management International’s (VCMI) annual “Food Waste in Canada” report. But by reducing food waste, businesses can reduce operating costs by 15 to 20 percent and increase profitability by the equivalent of 5 to 11 percent.

When running a restaurant, you can have the best food, the lowest prices and the most courteous staff, and still not find people coming through your doors as often as you’d like.

It is a cliché that restaurants sell not food and drink but rather “an experience.” It’s cheesy, but it’s true. Restaurants address a basic human feeling – hunger – but they also set in motion feelings of excitement, anticipation, romance, and comfort and warmth with family and community. In doing so, they often appeal to our sense of nostalgia.

If it is in fact true that it is better to give than receive, then gift cards must be at the top
of a restaurateur’s wish list.

These simple plastic cards could be an important marketing tool – and revenue generator – at this busiest of commercial periods on the calendar.