NRN.com posted an article highlighting early results from a survey currently being conducted by Technomic out of Chicago. The survey focuses on how certain restaurant brands are performing as it relates to using technology to better the consumer experience. The four categories the survey focuses on are; loyalty programs, free WiFi, online ordering, and mobile …
News Story Review
How to Handle the Press after a Bad Health Inspection
On the OpsAnalitica blog, we have written about this trend of local news stations reporting on restaurant’s health inspection scores. Â It makes sense for the news stations to do these reports because the data is readily available, it advertises well, it’s easy content to produce, and my guess is that it drives viewership. Â In Denver, Fox 31, has their restaurant report card segment and website. Â As we have been following this in the media, we have seen a ton of these restaurant health inspection segments all around the country. If you operate a restaurant in Florida, watch out, they seem to have these reports in every major city.
For the restaurant industry this good and bad. Â I believe that more transparency around health inspections and health inspection scores puts pressure on the industry to do better, and it increases the restaurant cleanliness standards in that area. Â When LA moved to letter grades system, one of the results was that there were less foodborne illness cases over time. Â What they found is that bad letter grades affect revenue, a C resulted in a -1% sales dip and an A resulted in an 5 to 6% increase in sales. Â The market rewards clean restaurants and punishes dirty ones. Â We got this data from a grand jury report when Orange County was looking at moving to the letter grade system, click here to see the report.
I also understand the concern of restaurant owners when it comes to making this data public, it affects their business and sometimes it is hard to get a reinspection promptly. Â I don’t feel bad for restaurant owners that lose revenue for being dirty, they should. I do feel bad for restaurant owners that fixed their issues, but have to wait a considerable amount of time to get reinspected. Â Counties have to provide the ability to get reinspected very quickly even if they have to charge a convenience fee.
I’ve embedded the Fox 31 report from June 12th in this blog.  There are three restaurants mentioned in the report.  2 of the restaurants got F’s, and one got an A.  According to the Fox website you have to have 5 critical violations on your last two health inspections to get an F.  To get an A you have to have 0 critical violations on your last two health inspections.  This video is amazing and shows you how to and how not to handle an inquiry from the media at your restaurant.  It is 100% worth watching to see how the Blue Bonnet handled their bad score compared to Chubby’s. Â
Here are my feelings after watching their segments:
- Chubby’s
- Didn’t answer repeated phone calls – could have been trying to evade reporters
- Manager had face blurred – guilty and wrong
- Written statement that was summarized – too little too late
- Verdict: Â I probably will never eat at that restaurant after seeing that report. In fairness, I don’t live close to that restaurant so my chances of popping in were low to begin with.
- Blue Bonnet
- Owner got interviewed – She was taking responsibility
- She showed the media her kitchen –Â open nothing to hide
- She mentioned the all the staff meetings – she took action
- Verdict: Â I may eat there again in six months or so after they have had a chance to be inspected one more time. Â In fairness, we used to frequent Blue Bonnet when we lived close by and really like the food.
I hope you find this video helpful in crafting your crisis plan and how you would handle this type of interview. Also, kudos to Johnny Rockets in the Cherry Creek Mall for getting an A, I’ve eaten there several times and will be back.
How much will minimum wage hikes hurt restaurants?
CBS News posted an article today “How much will minimum wage hikes hurt restaurants?”. They site a Moody’s Investor Services study that took a look at the effect on the industry. They mention in the article that the restaurants are going to have to eat this costs out of their profit. I don’t see that …
Free mobile app to reduce wait times
I caught this article on Fast Casual about another consumer mobile app aimed at speeding up guest turn around times. Split is an app designed to allow consumers to pre-order takeout, pay bills and split checks from their smartphones. They boast that it’s free. I’m guessing it’s free for consumers, but restaurants have to pay to …
Multi-unit Franchising is Growing in Popularity
Great article in the June 2015 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, Why Mulit-Unit Franchise Ownership is now the Norm.  These are the points that I found most interesting: Multi-unit franchisees—those who can buy the territory for several units and build them over a relatively short period of time. Over the past decade, there has been a …
St. Louis and Kansas City face citywide minimum wage mandates
Got the article below emailed to me from the Missouri Restaurant Association regarding minimum wage mandates being proposed for the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City. Like many cities/states across the country the push for $15/hour minimum wage is gaining momentum in MO as well. The bills being proposed in MO seem to be …
Restaurant Slammed Out Of Nowhere
There’s a great article in The Onion talking about a scary situation where Martha’s Cafe in Fayetteville, AR all of a sudden got super busy on a random Tuesday. Apparently 30 people showed up all at once and the mayhem ensued. It was a situation where nobody, even the manager, expected this to happen in the slightest …
Same-store sales bump up restaurant index
Restaurant performance continues positive growth. An article on Food Business News highlights the recent Restaurant Performance Index and Current Situation Index stats from April. Here are a few of the stats that stuck out to me: 71% of restaurant operators reported a same-store sales gain between April 2014 and April 2015 The 71% of restaurant operators …
Grub Hub Can Be Too Much for Some Restaurants
The Wall Street Journal wrote a great article on the new restaurant business model of delivery only, entitled GrubHub Looks Beyond the Sit-Down Restaurant for Growth. Here are the points that we found most interesting in this article: GrubHub expects its base of more than 5 million home diners to place more online orders for food …
OpsAnalitica Supports Standardized Health Inspection Data (LIVES)
We are in complete support of the LIVES program.  Here are some of the key points from the article: LIVES stands for Local Inspector Value Entry Specification. LIVES will standardize health inspection scores across the country on a scale from 0 to 100. Click here to watch a video on SOCRATA Right now, health authorities operate …