If you are the owner of a restaurant, you know that the restaurant business can be extremely competitive. With lots of competition and rapidly changing customer demands and trends, it can be tough to survive and thrive in the restaurant industry.
One major factor to consider is keeping the balance between retaining old customers and acquiring new customers.
As with any goal, the easiest way to achieve them is by aiming at them head on. One of the best ways to meet this goal is to focus on selling appetizers, sides, and desserts, as chain restaurant Milky Lane does. Most restaurants will fail to think of appetizers and sides as important, instead they only pay attention to the main course, and everything else is ignored.
Let’s see how appetizers, desserts, and sides can be essential to your restaurants success:
Appetizers
Overall only 10-20% of people will focus solely on their main course without ordering any appetizers. However, over 70% of people will order at least one appetizer when at a restaurant, the remaining customers are on the fence and can fall on either side depending on the circumstances. This retains to the importance of ensuring you aren’t focusing solely on your main courses.
Apart from increasing profits by selling appetizers, there are other benefits of serving appetizers. Appetizers are small amounts of food that are served before the main course. They tantalize the customer’s taste buds, and it increases the appetite.
So basically, by selling the delicious appetizers, you are also increasing the probability of customers buying more food.
Sides
Sides are a food item that accompanies a main course meal. No meal is complete without a side dish. Would you enjoy a burger without fries? A roast without vegetables? Probably not.
Customers love to have side dishes, and if you, as a restaurant owner, fail to offer sides your customers will be less likely to come back again. Sides also contribute to balanced eating, as they usually are an addition of vegetables or salad; sides have the potential to make or break the meal.
When taking orders, it’s a good idea to let customers have the option to choose what they want as sides for their meal rather than having a set menu that they cannot change. However, you can suggest to customers what would go best with their meals.
Desserts
Desserts are an excellent way to increase the happiness of customers; There is nothing like seeing a customer leave with a huge smile on their face. Many restaurant goers love to see a delicious range of desserts on the menu from thick shakes to doughnuts.
Those who have a sweet tooth or children, are more likely to dine in your restaurant if you have a great dessert menu. Also, desserts containing fruit can make the desserts healthier for kids and it can also help customers to digest their food.
Some restaurant managers look at appetizers, sides, and desserts as any other item on the menu. However, they should be seen as the different courses for people to enjoy, and if you don’t have a separate place for them in your menu, the customers won’t buy them.
I have been to a chain burger restaurant in Bondi, and I absolutely fell in love with their menu. Burgers are the real hero of this restaurant, but sides, desserts, and cocktails are no less. They serve some unique sides and cocktails that perfectly compliment the burgers, and the Milky Lane desserts are the most epic way to end a meal.