New restaurant owners have to manage a lot of moving parts before their business even opens its doors. Problems will naturally arise once customers are sitting in seats. The more you can prepare ahead of time, the less these unexpected issues will hurt your bottom line. Here are some tips for laying the groundwork for a successful grand opening.
Get Permits and Licenses Early
The process of acquiring building permits can be confusing and littered with pitfalls. Construction can easily be put on hold after only one negative visit from an inspector. You must plan for these delays because challenges will inevitably happen.
If you plan to serve beer, liquor or wine at your restaurant, then apply for your liquor license Houston TX right away. Sometimes these licenses can take weeks or months to get approved, and there is not much you can do about it. The last thing you want is a grand opening with no alcohol.
Invest In a POS System
A POS, or point of sale, system is an investment worth making. You may think that an old fashion cash register will do the trick, but it robs you of valuable information that you can use to grow your business. POS systems record the items and individual amounts for each sale. The information can then be used to identify which items are making money and which ones are not. You can see trends over different seasons or around holidays. They can even calculate how much sales tax you will owe by separating taxable and non-taxable sales.
Hire a Good Bartender and Hostess
These are two positions that often get overlooked. Don’t just stick extra wait staff in those roles. Customers who order pricey drinks from a bar want it to be better than what they could make at home. Therefore, hire a bartender who knows what they are doing. There is more to making a good cocktail than following a recipe. People will return to a restaurant more often if it makes their favorite drink well.
A hostess is the first person who greets customers when they enter your business. They can either give a good or bad first impression of the service you are selling. Hostesses also tend to be the ones handling hungry patrons when there is a long wait. So, you want someone who loves chatting with people and can keep their cool under pressure.
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