Here are 4 problems restaurants will face in 2022, with Solutions.

Staffing

Problem: Let’s be honest it’s always been hard to find good help, but these days, it’s on a whole new level in the restaurant industry. With all the unknowns facing restaurants in the past 2 years, it has been harder and harder to find staff that is willing to deal with the same uncertainty. The turnover rate for restaurant staff has always been notoriously high, but for employees who generally need less job security than other professions, they still need some reassurance. Even though we all wish otherwise, reassurance is something that is hard to give to anyone right now. That’s why it’s hard to find people to work in restaurants. That along with the risk of covid and the extra stress it causes will make staffing your restaurant an uphill battle in 2022.

Solution: Take a deep breath and exhale easily knowing that it won’t last forever. In the immortal words of the Beatles, Let it be. Take time to re-evaluate what you value most about your employees then take stock of those attributes and find a way to curate people to fill those roles. It’s about quality, not quantity, find empathetic people who understand your position as a restaurant owner and who can roll with the punches. Be honest from the get-go and there will be no blind spots for your employees, reassure them that you will do everything in your power to help and keep them working.


Customer Service

Problem: You want everyone who eats your food to be happy and to enjoy their experience from beginning to end. There are so many different ways they can experience your food, through takeout, delivery, phone orders web orders, food delivery companies, and of course in restaurant dining. All these ways make it hard to have one unified vision for a system. Even in-restaurant dining alone can be a huge challenge because of the polarizing decisions you have to make as an owner, to either adhere to mask and vaccine mediates or not. Along with that, you have to make everyone feel safe and offer non-contact options as much as possible. It is hard to provide an overall perfect experience, which leads me to the solution.

Solution: You can’t please everyone and there is no perfect experience. Make great food, make a plan and decide how you want each aspect of your restaurant to run. Compartmentalize delivery, takeout, online ordering, in-house dining and provide a detailed set of instructions to everyone who needs to execute. Make it easy on your staff by giving them the proper tools they need to do their best. A good place to start is offering contactless menus, which can go a long way to easing the pressure on your servers and wait time for your customers. Sirved offers a great contactless menu option as part of our restaurant toolkit. It’s free and easy to create your own QR code which you can print out and put everywhere someone might need a menu. Once you’ve got that setup, give your team a test run and teach them the flow. The more everyone understands the flow, the better the chances they will actually pull off your vision. If the ship is sailing smoothly then your staff will be less stressed and more able to provide a pleasant experience for your customers.


Too much to do

Problem:  Running a restaurant takes a lot of moving parts and provides a plethora of challenges. Many of these challenges and jobs are falling on owners, managers, as well as overworked and underpaid staff. Having people do too many jobs that are out of their wheelhouse or not what they’re best suited for is ok in small doses but putting too much on anyone’s plate (pun intended) including your own is not good business. Push yourself and your staff to be the best they can be but don’t spread everyone so thin.

Solution: Automation if possible. Take stock of everyone’s jobs and responsibilities and find things that can be outsourced to automation. Implement online ordering into your website. Find a POS system that can keep track of all your inventory and cost balancing. Grow your online presence by making your website and/or menu available in as many places as possible. Sirved can integrate your website into Google My Business and make it easy for you to control your online presence from one place. We also offer a free platform to showcase your menu and have your restaurant be found by local patrons searching for places to eat like yours. By claiming your listing you get to keep your menus up to date on your website, on Sirved, and across the internet. It’s all part of our 100% Free restaurant toolkit. Learn more here.


Restaurant Marketing

Problem: You don’t have money for advertising, you’re not tech-savvy and you’re not an advertising guru. There are so many ways to market your restaurant that it can get pretty overwhelming. Sure there are traditional media, like radio ads, magazine ads, and newspaper ads, but who still uses those? Then there’s online marketing which can cost a lot of money and with endless possibilities how do you ever choose where to spend your money? If you even have any to spend.

Solution: Do your research. Spend some time googling the most cost-effective forms of online advertising. Talk to your colleagues and ask them what they’re using and if it’s been successful. Look for free adverting and find places to get the word out that only cost a small amount of your time. Social media is free and should always be utilized to get the word out there. Interact with your patrons and always reply to negative reviews to show that you care and that you are always looking to improve. Free services are tough to find and can seem fishy, but one service you can trust to be 100% free and offer excellent exposure is Sirved 100% advertising. The best part is that Sirved will do all the work. You just send in what you want to say on your ad and the graphics team will do the rest. Within a week you’ll receive a full-designed ad that you can approve and that’s it. Your ad has the potential to be seen by over 3 million users per month and you can change up your ad anytime you want. Free design, with unlimited changes and huge exposure, what’s not to like? The best part is that it’s 100% free with no strings attached. Sirved genuinely wants to see your restaurant succeed, and this won’t fix every problem on this list, but it will help. Claim your restaurant and create your free Sirved ad today.