Top Reasons Independent Atlanta Restaurants Fail
If you have made it far enough to build an Atlanta restaurant then you are already a huge success! Because, It is extremely hard in the food industry to build a successful business, make money, and promote a positive reputation. Although, there are many locations that have all the right tools for success, yet overtime they fail to maintain it.
That is what we will be diving into today – Top Reasons Independent Atlanta Restaurants Fail.
Reasons Atlanta Restaurants Fail
There are plenty of reasons why a restaurant could fail. A few are due to financial reasons like a lack of sufficient capital, insufficient food ratio pricing, or accounting issues like tax problems or evasion.
Those are the common financial ones that are discussed here, but what about the other ones that are not directly monetary related?
What about the common reasons that don’t exactly have a dollar amount tied to them, but will ultimately effect your profit and cash flow over time?
Here are my top reasons independent Atlanta restaurants fail based on common every day things that can be easily fixed.
Bad Customer Service
The first reason that restaurants fail is clear and easy to understand. The long-term impact of bad customer service can always separate good restaurants from great ones. It is very hard to hire employees that embody the values and try to install and incorporate a warm culture into your restaurant.
The flip side of that is that it is very easy to forget about the importance of the little things that make up customer service as well. The small things like smiling at guests, acting polite, accepting odd requests, and really all together putting forth the extra effort to make people feel special.
The best things to focus on for customer service are consistency, speed, and quality. You never want to compromise any of these aspects when trying to build a positive reputation of customer service for your business.
No Marketing
You might think that having a brick and mortar location is all you need for your restaurant to be successful.
Although, it is not enough to sufficiently sustain your growth, or continually reach a broad enough audience. You will need marketing in order to continue to grow your brand, reputation, and keep your ratings high. Every business really has to do this, and do it continually. As you grow your marketing expertise, you will be astounded at how effective a well placed ad can be to further your reach.
The best ways for restaurants to market are to look into local blogs, newspapers, and social groups. You can find these all over the place, but specifically you can find them on social media sites and from a few Google searches.
The idea is to always be increasing your exposure to the broader market by anyway possible. This means from your posts, to your events you host, to local ads, and any way you can think of. This is vital to the continued success of your business.
Lazy Owner
A perfect way to lose everything you have worked so hard to achieve is by being a lazy owner.
This is probably the number one way that restaurants go out of business. The owner has a lot on their plate. Typically, they are responsible for the inventory, hiring and firing, financials, growth, and the day to day tasks that encompass running a business. Not to mention they have to keep up with their personal life. It can be very over whelming. Unfortunately, owners can get complacent or even just stop doing a lot of the required tasks to maintain a thriving brand.
As an owner, you can never stop pushing and finding the next level. If not, someone will at some point come in and take away some of your market with better food, service, and hospitality.
Owners have to find a way to hold themselves accountable. If the business becomes to much to burden, then it might be time to either take a break, call it quits and sell the business, or bring on a partner.
It is amazing how the right partner can remove tons of stress, and obligation from the original owner if they work well together. I would almost always say bring on someone to help, but sometimes enough is enough.
Too Many Staff Members
Another hard thing to balance is the correct amount of staffing.
If you have too many people in the front of the house or even in the back of the house you risk over staffing. This is always extremely frustrating for your front of the house in terms of tips and likewise you will end up spending too much money on the back of the house constantly bleeding out funds.
Although, if you under staff you will could risk long wait times for guests, compromised food quality, poor service, and exhausting your work force.
Balancing the staffing properly is a huge part of managing and owning a restaurant. It takes time, and data to be able to know the perfect number of people for the business you are expecting.
Another part of it is realizing who works best together at certain jobs. Sometimes, certain people may work better together and more efficiently in the kitchen than other people. This goes the same with the front of the house. Learn your workers, and learn to maximize their potential by setting them up for success with the right co-workers.
Reasons Restaurants Fail
These are some of the top reasons restaurants fail in Atlanta. In addition to these, there are plenty of basic financial mishaps that can ruin a perfectly good business!
Work smart, and make sure you are not exposing your business to failure by doing any of the listed reasons above!
