Before he joined OpenTable, Charlie Roberts spent a decade working in restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area — he was a GM at Oliveto in Oakland and also held positions at Aperto and NOLA. After two years as an OpenTable Account Manager and another year as a Sales and Restaurant Relations team trainer, Charlie is a pro at helping restaurants maximize their reservation books. We asked him for an insider’s tricks of the trade to get the most out of OpenTable.
Day 8: Team Up for Takeout
New services are making it easier than ever for restaurants to work takeout orders into their operations, growing their business and earning loyal new customers in the process. We asked the experts at Grubhub for their top tips to make it work for you.
Day 7: Size Up Your Performance
How do you measure your restaurant’s success? Last summer, OpenTable acquired Copilot, a powerful service that helps restaurants identify how to grow sales by benchmarking with similar restaurants. Here, OpenTable’s Director of Product (and Copilot co-founder) Eli Chait lists the top metrics you should be tracking and explains how each one reveals new opportunities for your business.
How to Open a Restaurant, Part 2: Location, Location, Location
In this second installment of her How to Open a Restaurant series, hospitality consultant Alison Arth takes on one of the biggest decisions for any new business: location. Read on to learn tips for choosing an area that will set you up for success from day one.
For those in the restaurant business, “location, location, location” is a phrase we’ve all heard more times than we care to count, and for good reason. Choosing a location is a critically important decision that can quickly turn a solid, well-conceived business plan into a failed restaurant if not handled properly. In addition to being one of the most significant determinants of your financial viability, decisions regarding location aren’t easy to undo. Changing your mind will be expensive, difficult, and damaging to the perception of your brand.
Day 6: Reward Your Regulars
Today’s tip for shaping up your restaurant business is all about making your regular customers feel valued — and how to create regulars in the first place. Try these tactics from Sabato Sagaria, Chief Restaurant Officer of Union Square Hospitality Group.
