A few days ago, a friend came to the author and talked about his idea of opening a hot pot restaurant, asking him to give some advice. The author has been engaged in the catering industry in Chengdu for more than 10 years, witnessed the rise and fall of many catering enterprises, and found out more industry insider operations. Therefore, many friends who are eager to open a shop have asked me for advice on opening a shop, recommending chefs and even overall planning. In their minds, although the catering industry is a little harder, it is relatively easy to make money. However, according to the author's observation for many years, it is even more difficult for the catering industry to be a good brand, and only the operators themselves know the ups and downs.
Not long ago, the author and a famous national brand hot pot restaurant in Chengdu-taste? A person in charge of the Jianghu told the reason why he successfully opened a shop, so I put the taste? Combined with my accumulated experience, I explained some secrets of opening a shop in Jianghu to my friends. At the same time, these things are sorted out and dedicated to friends who are going to open a hot pot restaurant. I hope it helps you.
Chengdu is the capital of food. Sichuan cuisine and hot pot have long been world-renowned, and a large number of catering elites and a large number of brand restaurants have been created here. How does it taste? Jianghu is one of them. From 2000 to now, they started from 50,000 yuan, from a street shop with less than 10 employees, less than 10 dining tables and an area of less than 100 square meters, to a scale of 50 million yuan, 42 stores nationwide and more than 5,000 employees. There are nearly 65438 hot pots in Chengdu headquarters. Each of their stores is very successful, and their successful experience is worth learning from.
Psychological preparation before opening a shop
Smell? Jianghu believes that many people who want to open a shop only see the benefits of the catering industry: good cash flow and ideal return, while ignoring the hard side of this industry. All in all, he said, before catering, we should be prepared to endure hardships for a long time, get out of a "relationship misunderstanding" and beware of two "time bombs."
Catering is a very hard industry, so you must be prepared for long-term hardship before entering the business. He cited an example: in 2004, after the opening of Taiyuan store in Shanxi Jianghu, a young man had to propose a toast to Mr. Liu when entertaining employees sent by Chengdu. He said that he had been wandering the rivers and lakes for three years, and that day he felt that Mr. Liu was much older than three years ago-the hard work of cooking can be seen.
Catering is no small matter, and if it is not handled well, it will become a major event over time. For example, there are two "time bombs" hanging over the catering industry: fire safety and food hygiene. Fire control work must not be sloppy, and kitchen fire, electricity and oil must be careful. Once an accident happens, it will not only suffer economic losses, but also bear criminal responsibility; If you don't pay attention to hygiene, it will lead to mass incidents of food safety, and enterprises will be devastated.
In addition, some investors have opened stores with the idea of "I have a good relationship and many friends" and "How much do my friends and I eat out a year", which has entered a misunderstanding. The catering industry is a real market-making industry, and the relationship can only be icing on the cake, not a gift in the snow. For example, when Miao Village opened a bamboo chicken 10 table, it could still smoke one table at a time. After they reach a certain scale, they can only rely on management and marketing, try to make full use of the effective business hours of 4 or 5 hours at noon and evening, and improve the attendance rate and transaction rate within a limited business area.
Opening fund preparation
The competition in the hot pot industry is becoming more and more fierce, and the scale of single stores is also growing, and the living space of small stores is becoming more and more limited. If you open a new store, it is best to have a certain scale, which is conducive to market competition. Smell? Jianghu hot pot new stores are generally not less than 600 square meters with 60 tables. Have a similar taste at this stage? Jianghu Hotpot Restaurant with 600-800 square meters and 60-80 tables should prepare about 600,000 yuan, including at least seven months' rent (of which one month's rent is a deposit), decoration, purchase of facilities and equipment, staff recruitment and training, pre-advertising and so on. At the same time, we should also prepare some working capital.
Selection of ports and storefronts
Smell? Jianghu believes that if a good port is chosen, the success rate of this hotpot restaurant will exceed 50%. It takes a lot of time and energy to locate the site, because the generally mature ports have been occupied, and the new buildings are relatively immature, which takes time to "raise". How to weigh the choice needs some effort: it is best to investigate the distribution, income and consumption habits of tourists within 2 kilometers around the store in areas with large permanent and floating population and dense catering; Parking spaces should be fully considered. Hot pot restaurants of 600-800 square meters must have at least 40 parking spaces, and resolutely give up if they are not ideal; Advertising space and door image are also very important; The internal structure of the house should be reasonable, the height should not be too low, and there should not be too many columns, otherwise it will cause obstacles to the decoration and layout and affect the effective business area.
How does it taste after intentional port selection? It will take the Jianghu at least one month to investigate the traffic flow at noon and at night, see how many lights are turned on in the surrounding buildings at night, whether there is air conditioning, observe how much domestic garbage there is, and then comprehensively analyze these factors to determine whether this port is feasible.
In addition, it is necessary to analyze all competitors around: brand catering scale, decoration style, food quality, per capita consumption, management service level and operation. To find out the details, smell? Jianghu will eat opponents for several rounds: they should carefully inspect them at noon and night on Monday and weekend.
For this reason, how does it taste? Five people from the Jianghu Planning Department run outside every day. However, finding a good port still needs some luck. For example, the taste of more than 2,000 square meters that will be opened on August 8? It took them more than three months to make a careful investigation and analysis of the surrounding situation.
Reflections on the decoration of hot pot restaurant
Smell? Jianghu thinks that the environment will affect people's mood, thus subtly affecting the taste of hot pot, but the decoration is a bottomless pit. How to make the highlights of popular hot pot restaurants with limited investment, so that people will feel different when they come in, is a painstaking thing; In the past, the popular hot pot in 30 yuan often only focused on the taste, ignoring the environment. Earthen stoves, earthen pots, earthen benches and the same shops are boring and even frustrating.
The beautifully packaged hotpot restaurant has rich themes, customers can feel the unique cultural edification and emotional appeal, the combination of eating and music, strong sense of participation, relaxed and harmonious atmosphere and so on. For example, hot pot-flavored shops sweep away people's prejudice against the generosity and delicacy of popular hot pot, making people feel the fashion changes of hot pot: the appearance of fashion jumping, the new elements of internal environment and details, the use of materials such as metal and glass, spacious and bright, which set off a fashionable dining atmosphere; Stools are all selected from IKEA supermarket, a 70 yuan, which is not expensive but comfortable to sit on; Customized colorful sofa creates a fashionable and casual feeling of hot pot bar; Bright colors, bright spaces, and relaxed colors make your mood bright.
Taste. Jianghu particularly emphasizes that it usually takes 2-3 months to install a hot pot restaurant of 600-800 square meters. When renting a house, you must tell the landlord that it will be rent-free within 3 months of renovation; The clothing of hot pot restaurant staff must be consistent with the decoration style.
Staff recruitment and training
Catering is a labor-intensive industry, with busy recruitment and unskilled employees. A 600-square-meter store needs about 70 people. In order to save time, the hot pot restaurant will recruit and train employees while decorating.
First of all, recruit management personnel, including store manager, finance, warehouse management, purchasing, front office manager, supervisor, kitchen chef, supervisor and so on. Investigate their work experience and experience and try to go to the places where they have worked. Because some people can talk eloquently but can't do practical things well, and some people can't express well but are very capable, so they need to communicate many times to understand their work ability and professionalism.
After these people are determined, the recruitment of service personnel and chefs will be carried out: welcome, bar staff, waiters, food delivery staff, parking staff, cashier and cleaning.
After employees are recruited, what needs to be solved immediately is food and shelter. We should rent several houses near the hot pot restaurant, with 70 employees and high and low beds. Every family 10- 15 people. According to the actual situation, meals can be solved by cooking staff meals or buying lunch boxes. In addition, the monthly salary promised to the receptionist, excluding bonus and commission, should be above 600 yuan.
At the beginning of the training work, the front hall and kitchen are generally unified training. The first is corporate culture education. In addition to the brand building, development process, rules and regulations of the enterprise, we should also emphasize the career planning of employees, so that everyone can understand the development prospects in the enterprise. Then, everyone will pass the examination in groups, and those with outstanding performance will be selected as team leaders and foremen.
In the process of training, taste. Jianghu militarizes the management of employees. Dress up your lines every morning to exercise and strengthen discipline, and it is also a free advertisement.
It is understood that the taste? The first waiters in Jianghu generally have low quality, limited education and know nothing about catering, but after 2-3 months of training, they can gradually enter the role.
Marketing planning before opening
In the later renovation training, we should prepare for the opening half a month in advance. First choose an auspicious day, preferably a weekend, and then make a marketing plan.
In order to create an atmosphere and attract popularity, inflatable arches, gas columns, colored balls and congratulatory flower baskets should be set up outside the store. If conditions permit, it is best to set up a stage and perform some song and dance performances. Smell? Jianghu special reminder: If you are engaged in these things that occupy the road, you must go to the urban management department for formalities and registration.
It is also important to formulate preferential measures during the opening period. Most hot pot restaurants offer discounts when they open, but discounts are a double-edged sword, which has brought a lot of popularity in a short time. After the discount period, the popularity will recede like a flood. Therefore, the most important thing is to grasp the strength of discount, attract customers and maintain good popularity. How to win more repeat customers is another story.
In addition, we should prepare about 50 thousand yuan of funds before opening, and choose newspapers, TV or radio to do some publicity. This kind of publicity should be bright and innovative, and it is best to have a series of programs.
Grasp the taste of hot pot
The taste of hot pot is mainly determined by the base material, soup material and dipping dish besides the factors of the dish itself. The preparation of the original soup of hot pot determines the flavor of hot pot, and it is also the most critical link in making hot pot. Red soup is a typical basic soup of popular hot pot in Sichuan. This soup has a wide range of uses, and most varieties of Sichuan hot pot use this soup.
At present, there is still a debate between Chengdu hot pot and Chongqing hot pot in the industry. It is generally believed that Chongqing hot pot is sharper, and some people say that it is "spicy as a knife", while Chengdu hot pot is relatively mild, and spicy is also "warm and spicy". Smell? Rivers and lakes believe that as long as consumers like Chengdu hot pot or Chongqing hot pot, the key is to maintain the same quality on the basis of standardization: the color is red and bright, not muddy soup, not foaming, not black after long cooking; Rich in taste, strong in flavor, spicy and sweet.
Smell? There are often five lipstick pots with slightly different raw materials in Jianghu. After matching meat dishes such as beef tripe, yellow throat, goose intestines, duck intestines, lunch meat, potatoes and Flammulina velutipes, more than 20 people are invited to taste and score together, and the most recognized pot bottom is selected, and the used clear oil, butter, seasoning, pepper, sea pepper, chicken essence, monosodium glutamate and bone soup are quantified one by one. And collect customers' feedback on the taste of the bottom of the pot every day to prevent the same customer from having different tastes this time and next time.
Hot pot raw material procurement
Purchasing is an important part of catering management. There is a saying in the industry: "Money is everywhere, and holes are everywhere." Money is everywhere, which means swill, waste paper boards, wine bottles, bottle caps and so on. You can exchange money after the hot pot restaurant is open normally. There are holes all over the body, which means that every link in the kitchen wastes a little, cuts corners a little, and "walks a little" in the procurement link, and there will be a phenomenon of "watching the business do well, but the boss can't make money".
Food and beverage purchasing personnel are generally held by relatives or cronies of the boss. How does it taste? Jianghu thinks that the most important thing is to have management systems and methods, otherwise, after a long time, anyone who can be trusted will have problems. In the early stage of starting a business, it is best for the boss to do the purchasing work himself: know the products, travel around the market, find out the prices and learn to identify the quality of the products. Smell? Buy vegetables from rivers and lakes in Chengdu South Railway Station market at three or four o'clock every morning. Meat is in Huaguoshan, seafood is in Qingshiqiao, frozen products are sent to Fuqing Road Frozen Products Market, and dry products are sent to Wukuai Stone Wholesale Market. Because the price of raw materials has risen sharply in the past year, operators should often go to the market to understand the market and understand the price changes.
Purchasing staff should also care about the output of raw materials, such as Flammulina velutipes with the same price and weight. Due to different manufacturers, the number of copies served on the table will be different, and the output of the same product in different hot pot restaurants will be different.
The fist product of hot pot
Most hot pot restaurants taste similar to dishes. On the premise of ensuring the taste, almost every brand of hot pot has its own fist products. Whether this fist is hard or not directly affects the reputation of hot pot, and it is worth taking time to practice and polish. For example, the crispy and fresh "Thirteen Extra Urgent Goose Intestines" is this taste? Jianghu hot pot has won unanimous praise.
So, have a taste? In order to ensure the freshness of goose intestines, they are transported by special car from Jiuchi Town, Pengzhou. In order to ensure the freshness of the goose intestines, they started from nine feet away from the ice 13, and they had to deliver them quickly. They look red, wet, thick and elastic, unlike those thin, hard, watery or alkaline goose intestines, which will turn red and white after washing. The fresh goose intestines were slightly scalded in the tumbling red soup and immediately became a bite.
According to reports, with the support of relevant departments in Jiuchi Town, Pengzhou, how does it taste? Jianghu signed an exclusive agreement with Jiuchi Town Poultry Consortium to raise tens of thousands of geese in standardized farms. Health and epidemic prevention can stand the inspection of slaughter line and are specially designed for taste. Jianghu, such tender goose intestines only have flavor? Jianghu has!
So, what's the smell when you turn on the light? In Jianghu hot pot, almost every table has a red bowl filled with "thirteen urgent goose intestines", and some tables even have two or three servings. Unfortunately, due to the limited number of goose intestines, is it delicious? Shops in the Jianghu are usually sold out before 8: 30 in the evening, so many guests have to come earlier the next day.
Although there are hundreds of dishes in the menu, only a dozen have a high click-through rate. What's the taste? There are goose bowel groups, duck bowel groups, eel groups, pig yellow throat groups and Flammulina velutipes groups in the rivers and lakes. Each team is responsible for the acceptance, processing and storage of raw materials. It is required that dishes that are not sold out before 8: 30 every night be made into employee meals, and it is absolutely not allowed to store them until the next day.
Pricing of hot pot
Smell? Jianghu believes that the catering industry has already bid farewell to the era of profiteering and become a meager profit industry. In the past year, in Chengdu, not only the cost of hot pot dishes has risen by 30%, but also the raw materials have risen sharply, especially the raw materials of hot pot bottom materials have risen by a large margin. The price of dried peppers has doubled, and dried peppers have also increased by 30%. Coupled with the rise of oil, it used to cost 7 8 yuan to fry a pot of hot pot bottom material, but now the price of a pot bottom material has exceeded 10 yuan; Because most consumers in Rongcheng are used to the price models of 8632 and 532 1 (one for meat dishes in 6 yuan, 8 yuan and one for vegetarian dishes in 2 yuan, 3 yuan), no hot pot dares to take the lead in raising prices at the risk of losing customers, and the gross profit of hot pot enterprises has dropped significantly; In addition, in recent years, with the rise in housing prices, the increase in the wages of service personnel and the increase in the price of water and electricity, the profit margin of hot pot enterprises has been further compressed.
At present, the gross profit of hot pot popular in Chengdu is not high, and the pricing of dishes has become a very sensitive issue. If the price is high, most guests will not talk, but if they are not satisfied, they will generally not patronize again. Smell? The Jianghu way is that the food jury decides whether to promote each new dish and price it. He is an amateur, changing all the time. He is composed of taxi drivers, factory workers, housewives, white-collar workers, private enterprise bosses, government officials and famous gourmets. , and have full suggestions on the weight and price of dishes.
Smell? Jianghu once again stressed that it is necessary to remind friends who enter this industry, especially when billing stores, to be more cautious. He said, what if it tastes bad? Jianghu doesn't have that many stores in Chengdu. It can reduce the purchase price and cost through bulk purchase and bulk purchase, but dare not insist on the price of 8632 or even 532 1, for example, taste? Jianghu clear oil, buy 20 tons each time.
The expenses of hot pot restaurant include rent, water, electricity, staff salaries, taxes, miscellaneous fees and advertising fees. We should do everything possible to reduce some controllable expenses, such as turning off the lights, air conditioners and exhaust fans after the guests in an area leave without affecting other customers; Miscellaneous expenses, including office, procurement, transportation, transportation, maintenance and other expenses, should also be saved as much as possible; Smell? Every shop in the Jianghu should copy the water, electricity and gas meter every day, calculate how much water and electricity is consumed per 10,000 yuan of turnover, and compare it with the manual salary of the shop per 10,000 yuan of turnover, praise and reward well done, and reduce consumption within a time limit for bad criticism; Before publicity, we should discuss with senior food reporters repeatedly to determine the publicity plan, media and price, and ensure that every penny is used in the cutting edge while ensuring the effect.
Hotpot restaurant management
Smell? Jianghu believes that the biggest management is the management of people. Besides formulating strict rules and regulations, there must also be a humanized incentive mechanism.
They try to make employees feel at home in the store: the water heater in the dormitory must be intact, equipped with TV sets and electric fans; How does it smell to meet employees? The first sentence that the Jianghu bosses asked was "How have you been eating recently?" The store manager must talk to 3-5 employees every day; Each branch has set up a general manager's mailbox to reward employees who put forward reasonable suggestions; Employees can play table tennis, chess, go and military chess in their spare time, and often organize chess competitions; Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival are employees' literary evenings, with a large number of lottery prizes; There are also 18 birthdays of employees born in that month and so on. I hope employees can leave beautiful and precious memories even if they leave! In order to retain talents, they even sold some shares that are increasing in value at a high speed.
Smell? Jianghu has formulated a "nine-year development plan" for employees: strive to grow into a front office or kitchen manager in the first three years, a store manager in the next three years, and a taste in the next three years. Partners in the Jianghu. The so-called "partner" is to have flavor? Jianghu shares, if the manager has no money, what's the taste? Jianghu will lend them money to become shareholders, and then deduct it from the year-end dividend.
postscript
Happiness takes five years, but it takes ten years to form. After seven or eight years, it developed from a "fly restaurant" to the present scale. Is it a smell? The Jianghu brothers never imagined that they had deep feelings. After careful consideration, they are willing to tell their friends who are interested in cooking the food and beverage about the experience gained by "groping" and taking many detours over the years. I hope that while helping everyone, I can attract more catering practitioners to contribute some good experiences and contribute to the development of the catering industry.
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