Pro Forma: Latin for ‘as a matter of form’. In the restaurant business it can mean a document that captures and measures financial success (or failure). When I meet with consulting clients, and they are in desperate need of figuring out why they can’t make ends meet, the first thing I ask them for is to…
Tag: food cost
What Are You Going to Do About It?
When I meet with consulting clients, they are all about solutions. A take that I find quite refreshing after years in the restaurant business. Too often, in the passive aggressive world of restaurants the emphasis is put on blame, not on solutions. Solutions I teach on many different subjects–all relating to the restaurant biz–and a…
Every Place is Different
Cost structures. Not exactly the sexiest of topics. But understanding what they mean, especially to you the chef/owner, is important. Every establishment is different. I don’t mean that this place serves Italian food, this place serves Mexican food, this place serves Thai food, etc., of course those places are different. That is more like what we talk about…
Restaurant 101
Restaurants are really no different than any other kind of business. You need to drive sales, and control costs. That’s it. Oh, I guess I should say more than that… How How to go about that really is the test, isn’t it? Let’s have a quick lesson in that thing called a restaurant. The prime…
The (Big) Three Culprits
Restaurants are complicated businesses. There are many moving parts that operators need to keep their eyes on. As a consultant, I am reminded of this with every client I meet. Many of whom are very successful businessmen (and women). They have all managed to be very good at what they do, running their small business,…
Controlling Costs
Back In May, I published a post titled: “10 Reasons Why Restaurants Fail.” https://tabletalkpdx.com/2013/05/11/10-reasons-why-restaurants-fail/ One of those reasons is not controlling costs. It is about time that I re-visit this. One thing great chefs know is that if you want to play this restaurant game, you have to treat it as a business. Yes, it is…
tabletalkpdx 