The Fine Food Expo is Australia largest trade show for Restaurants and we visited yesterday to have a look for great ideas to help you with your Restaurant. There are a lot of ways to save money, save time (especially important if it is your time you are saving) and ways to spice up your menu. Your menu is one of your most important tools in sales and marketing. We also look at one of the great tools you can use in costing your menu. We've looked at this in the past, if you haven't costed your menu yet, this is the easiest way to do it.
We talk to Nick Sarillo, authour of A Slice of the Pie, and talk about Purpose and Culture.
We discuss what is Culture, how to come up with your purpose and values, how it can help you with hiring and retention. We also discuss Open Book accounting - what is it, how does it work and how can it benefit your Restaurant.
Nick runs one of the largest independant Pizza Restaurants in the United States and has focused on the Culture at Nick's Pizza and Pub for many years. He has studied widely in the area and has immense practical experience in building a business with a great culture.
We visited Alinea to deconstruct the experience and work out what you can do in your Restaurant to make it a better experience.
Innovation is the overarching theme for us at Alinea. The team at Alinea really are coming up with a lot of great ideas, many of which can inspire you in your restaurant.
Presentation - how can you jazz up your presentation.
Training - the front of house staff were exemplary.
Put all of this that you can do to create an amazing experience because that is where the margin is.
We also discuss the movie Tangerine and what it means for your Restaurant and our Instagram experiment.