Nov 02, 2021 16:36 GMT

Top 5 Tips To Speed Up RestaurantService

One of the biggest challenges facing restauranteurs today is providingcustomers with a quality dining experience that doesn’t include rushingcustomers out of their seats. The reasoning behind it is simple; the faster thetable turnover, the more customers you serve, and the higher the revenue foryour business thus the more successful your venture.

If every table results in a gross margin of £20 and you can improve tableturnover by 10%, then in a casual dining chain of 100 restaurants with 50tables, you should see an annual gross margin improvement of £3.65m.

Whether you’re a full-service chain restaurant, country pub, luxury hotel or afast-casual establishment, it’s clear that every second counts in thehospitality industry.

Here are our top 5 tips to speed up your restaurant service:

1. Table Settings

Never underestimate the impact of good tableware in your restaurant. Fromdelivering a good first impression to your customers to speeding up tableclearing at the end of service, smart table settings ensure your customer haseverything they need for their meal, freeing up your staff to provide a betterexperience as they’re not having to go back and forth to deliver napkins,cutlery, and condiments.

Whilst linen tableware is an option, paper alternatives work better in a fast-paced environment, as they can be easily replaced between customer sittingsfor improved hygiene with no laundry required. Duni provides premium FSC®certified napkins and table covers with high absorbency, whilst also givingyou the option to easily change up your restaurant aesthetic on any occasionwith new designs and colours. An option not typically offered with traditionallinen tableware due to logistics and high cost.

2. Incorporate bright colours

Numerous academic studies have shown that colours have a strongpsychological influence on everything from human behaviour to home decor.Red, orange and yellow will naturally encourage your guests to eat morequickly thus increasing your table turnover; this is why these colours are thepredominant theme in many fast food establishments including McDonalds,KFC and Burger King. White, on the other hand, offers a more relaxedatmosphere and therefore features heavily in formal dining restaurants andevent catering, in environments where people are encouraged to dine moreleisurely.

Use colour to your advantage in your restaurant décor. Incorporate colour ineverything from table settings and menus to overall restaurant design andstaff uniforms.

3. Simplify your menu

Whilst offering your guests a wide array of food choices initially seems like agood idea, it can be overwhelming for guests. Restaurants with tailoredsmaller menus have become increasingly popular in recent years, and thetrend only looks likely to continue. A small menu is a quick way to increasetable turnover as it ensures customers are ordering faster, speeding up theservice side of your business. 

You can even take traditional ‘ordering’ out of the equation completely byhosting your menu online or even in an app, with customers scanning a QRcode to access. This has added advantages as it allows you to adjust yourmenu in real-time if an item becomes out of stock and ultimately reducescontact between your staff and customers, in a time when hygiene is ofutmost importance.

4. Assign more than one server to large parties

Large dining parties can be overwhelming for one server to handle resultingin slower ordering times and poorer customer service, not to mention theywill typically leave a larger mess behind. If you have enough staff, considerassigning at least two servers to each party. Guests will feel attended to, andmore likely to leave an online review, and you can increase your tableturnover by halving the work with more than one server.

5. Redesign your seating layout

Consider your seating arrangements – comfortable booths and big soft chairswill keep guests seated for longer but, to maximise table turnover, tables arethe way forward. Balance comfort with your need to flip tables. Be mindfulthat people in booths tend to spend more per minute so, rather thanreplacing them entirely, consider a mixed restaurant seating design, andplace groups there instead of couples to maximise spending.

Learning how to manage seating in a busy restaurant environment is not asimple task but, the return is worth the time investment. If a two-seater tablespends £50 on average, and the restaurant has capacity for 20 two-seatertables, then an improved table turnover (one more sitting per table) is worth£1,000 per service, approximately £7,000 per week and an incredible£364,000 per year.