How to turn the hospitality bounce-back into profitability

For the first time in a long time, I’m feeling the shackles of a hell of a tough period for hospitality starting to release.

Summer is right around the corner, and we’re finally starting to see the burden of interest rates heading in a favourable direction. You can feel a change in sentiment in almost every hospitality business you walk into.

I’ve been through these phases before. Often, our industry jerks from the most terrible periods to absolutely humming within a matter of months. I’m hopeful that’s what we’re about to see leading into Christmas.

But what I’ve also seen is hospitality businesses that suddenly have a lot more customers (and money pouring into their bank account) not grabbing the opportunity to turn this into profit.

To help prevent that from happening in a time when we all need it the most, I’ve put together a checklist of all of the key information you need to be tracking and things you should be doing. Once you’re confident you have accurate data in each of these areas, and you and your team can see it every day, week, and month, then you’ll be well on your way to maximising profitability on the bounce back.
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Revenue

ロ Actual revenue vs budget, and vs last year

ロ Average spend by staff member

(and for a cafe)

ロ Top sales for a half hour period by staff member

Labour

ロ Rostered cost vs actual cost

ロ Rostered hours vs actual hours

ロ Rostered labour percentage vs actual labour percentage

ロ Daily pattern of half hourly labour cost vs revenue (🤯)

(By the way, did you know right now we’re running a free bootcamp on how to best manage your labour in Loaded? We’re committed to helping you find a 2% labour cost reduction before Christmas, so if you’re not already using Loaded for this reach out to Grace right now and we'll get you started!)

Stock

ロ Enter into contract prices with suppliers on at least your top 10 selling food and beverage stock items.

ロ Actual margins achieved on your top 10 selling food and beverage menu items

ロ Track the expected margin via the recipe cost

ロ Track the actual margin after any wastage on these items

ロ Discounts on your five most discounted food and beverage items

Team and Comms

ロ Run a weekly management meeting or huddle every week to go through this stuff with all of your key team members (grab our free weekly meeting template here)

ロ Consider implementing an incentive scheme to tie all of this together, and get your team to help you improve the key areas you’re now tracking (we have a free guide to the most proven, tested hospitality incentives right here)

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All the best with the coming busy season, and if there's anything we can ever help with in your planning just drop us a line any time!

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