Lunch @ Dinner

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Non-OperatorPermalink Reply by Kaffeenjunkie on February 16, 2009 at 5:12pm

Will it make your head counts go up or will you be getting less money from the same people?

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Permalink Reply by Patrick O on February 26, 2009 at 9:08am

Hi Geoff.
Although this would appear to be a great idea, it wouldn't be practical.
Not only would your labor dollars suffer a huge blow, but also your guest check average. This would be at a time when you want a higher check average to off-set the increased labor due to having more staff on shift.
I'm not saying this wouldn't be a good idea, but if someone could show me that serving a smaller portion, along with a lunch price, along with those guests who like to sit for long periods of time and not allow a server to turn a table, then I'd be more receptive to this idea.
My thinking is to schedule the best servers (you know the ones that hustle, like to make money and not stand around and make idle chit-chat about what they did on the weekend, or what they are doing tonight...the career servers) you have on those slow Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday nights so they can take more tables, turn them, thus resulting in better labor cost and check averages. This would also go for the BOH.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Banks on February 26, 2009 at 1:18pm

Maybe an idea would be to offer specific dinner specials/price discounts on nights that your guest count is already low? That way it is an incentive to bring people in, rather than a bonus for the people that are already there.

You want to increase business when you need to not when you are already busy. That's why early bird and happy hour specials are from 3-7ish.

Consider a frequent diner program or an early bird special. Those might help lagging sales and boost your guest counts. You can always run a daily special menu if it feels right, too.\

I could be way off..but just a few thoughts.

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