How to Run a Family-Friendly Hotel (and Why You Should)
Family-friendly hotels are a growing trend in the hospitality industry. Implementing special activities and perks specifically for kids and families is a great way to attract more people and expand your customer base. Providing kid-friendly travel amenities doesn’t mean completely reinventing your establishment as a daycare center. The most popular family hotels offer benefits for […]
How to Add Year-Round Outdoor Dining to Your Restaurant
Most restaurants have some unused space on their grounds that can be considered for outdoor seating. Imagine if you’re able to utilize the spaces around you. Whether an empty lot or a courtyard out front, converting these areas into extra seating just takes a few sturdy tables and chairs for those great sunny day experiences. You might think the summer is the only time outdoor seating is useful, but those days of hope in the spring and last gasps of summer can still bring in customers and their dollars if you have a space ready to use.
Modern designs have expanded beyond patios to include rooftops, backyard-style areas and gardens where fresh ingredients are grown daily. People watching from a busy sidewalk provides an excellent outdoor experience, but being nestled away in the fresh air also has its appeal. People come to restaurants with a desire to explore and discover. A hidden patio surrounded by tall fences appeals to this desire, giving a sense to your customers that you’re not just offering great food but also a hidden world to complete their dining experience.
How To Winterize Outdoor Machines & Equipment
It’s that time of year again. Autumn is the right time to get your outdoor machines ready for winter hibernation. Landscaping becomes less of a priority as winter approaches and it’s time to take a break from yard work. When you’re ready to store your machines, don’t just dump them and forget about them. You need to prepare them to be stored.
Image “Mower” courtesy of Flickr user Phil Roeder licensed under CC by 2.0.
If you neglect your lawn equipment, it can break down, rust, corrode or deteriorate over winter. Repairs and restoration are costly. Often, people end up buying brand new equipment to replace worn out machines because the cost of repairs and replacement parts can be as much or more than a new machine! This practice is neither sustainable nor cost-effective.
Preparing to Sell Your Restaurant – What You Should Know
There are many reasons why someone would want to sell a restaurant. Someone could fall ill. Burnout occurs from all those 16-hour days some restaurant owners put in. Economic conditions can change like the weather; eating out is seen as a luxury and is often first on the cutting block when families feel the need to tighten their budgets.
Deciding to sell isn’t always because something went wrong with the business. Sometimes owners get bored once they’ve successfully launched a restaurant and want to see if they can do it again. A restaurant that makes money might get sold to provide capital for an even bigger restaurant or other business venture. Selling your restaurant doesn’t mean you’re out of the business; it just means you’re changing things up and/or taking your life in a new direction.
The Importance of In-House Restaurants To Hotel Profits
Many travelers want to taste the unique and local cuisines your city has to offer. Breakfast may be the most popular choice for hotel guests, but your restaurant should be there to lure them back for lunch and dinner. For room service, you should try to cater to you town’s specific strengths and try for convenience as well–this way, you can try to assume a guest wants at the end of the day either something that is familiar or something that is local to the area. Your restaurant can be seen as a gateway for your clients to explore the city.
Take the opportunity to partner with local businesses to provide locally sourced ingredients, or even breweries to provide craft brews. These partnerships encourage clients to spend more money with you but also turn your staff into local experts and guides to your area. If your staff sends guests to local businesses, those businesses will recommend your hotel when they have people coming in from out of town.
How To Keep Food Poisoning Out of Your Restaurant
The Health Department enacts strict cleanliness and safety guidelines for a reason. It can be easy to make mistakes or cut corners during a busy rush, but that’s the time when sticking to the right way to do things matters most. Food poisoning occurs when contaminated substances come in contact with food going out to customers. It might be from an employee using food that should be treated as waste. It might be because an employee doesn’t properly wash their hands.
Another cause of food poisoning comes from one of the harsh realities of the restaurant business: sometimes, staff comes to work feeling sick. Sick employees can spread their illness to other staff, increasing the likelihood of customers interacting with a sick employee. It may cause some stress in the kitchen because you’re short staffed, but the more ways you remove food poisoning risks and contamination risks, the better things will be for your restaurant in the long run.
Prepare for Competition: How to Survive When New Hotels Come to Town
When it comes to refreshing or revamping your space, there are a few thing to consider. Start an update with the area that customers care about the most: the rooms. Keep these elements as neutral as possible so they don’t seem out of style in the next few years. Replacing old appliances can also help an old room feel new, whether it’s a microwave, a coffee maker or an air conditioner. Even something as simple as rearranging the location of the bed can free up unexpected space and make an old room look like a fresh addition.
New hotels often have more to offer than just rooms. Check what amenities your hotel currently offers and see what extra touches you can provide. Wi-Fi, for example, is something that many hotels offer to lure in guests. Most travelers expect free Wi-Fi somewhere in the building. Offering it to guests for free in their rooms might be the difference between a booking and a lost sale. Pools, while a more intense addition, can grab both tourists looking to splash away with kids and business travelers looking for a place on-site to relax. Before you open a pool, be sure to adhere to pool safety standards.
How to Reduce Housekeeping and Laundry Expenses
One of the major costs of running a hotel is with laundry. Labor costs should be calculated by taking the employees required to service a guest room and dividing that by the number of guest rooms serviced in a specific time period. Don’t forget to factor in things besides wages, like insurance and other benefits. Cleanliness is an important part of what makes guests decide to return to a room.
Occupied rooms increase laundry costs because a guest will dirty sheets, use towels and eat into your room rate depending on their occupancy length. Since these costs are more about supplies than labor, small changes to things like laundry soap or big changes like installing new washing machines can be easily controlled.
Proactive Plumbing Maintenance Tips To Prevent Common Commercial Plumbing Issues
Modern plumbing is awesome. It’s just one of those things that pretty much everyone takes for granted. It’s also one of those things we immediately realize we cannot live without once it’s not working properly.
Being proactive about your plumbing is essential to the success of your business. Plumbing problems must be addressed immediately. Water damage is far more costly than proactively hiring a plumber to fix the problem immediately.
How To: Start a Rooftop Garden
Understanding how the conversion from standard roof to rooftop garden works is the first step in making this idea become reality. Having a rooftop garden will allow for urban greenery and help you become a pioneer in the neighborhood showing suitability practices in work.
After you understand the process, your next step is to find a consulting/construction company that specializes in this type of project. Believe it or not, there are more than a few companies out there, so you’re likely to have the opportunity to shop around and find the right fit for you. Then, once you’ve designed your plan with the consultants, the upgrade can begin.