Common Problem #1: The Menu

One of the most common problems restaurant owners face is the menu. A good menu
is a balancing act. Do you have too many or too few menu items? Are your dishes
priced appropriately? Does your menu have a coherent theme?

Keep your menu size in check. Instead of offering a five-page menu, consider offering a
smaller number of dishes and doing them really well. People need to know what your
restaurant is about – keep your menu aligned with your restaurant’s unique proposition.

Lacking focus, large menus take longer to order from. They also require more
ingredients. The more items on your menu, the more ingredients you have to buy.

A too-large menu means longer ticket times. When you have too many different dishes
cooking at the same time and not enough of the same items in the same pans, you’ll
spend more time producing orders. Each table takes longer to serve, and you’ll turn
them over at a slower rate.

Concentrate on the layout of your menu. Is it easily readable? Here are some tips for
your restaurant menu:

 Group your most profitable items together.

 Don’t use dollar signs.

 Let your menu be a tour guide. This can be accomplished through photos and/or
creative text. Consider hiring a copywriter to craft a compelling menu.

 Keep your menus clean – no grease and no food or water stains. Get rid of worn or
torn menus.

 Update your menu and prices at least once a year.

 Build your menu around popular items.

 Make sure your staff is thoroughly trained and has memorized the menu.

Don’t forget to put your menu on your website and make sure it is easily accessible from
a mobile phone
Travelers using their mobile phones are more likely to visit your restaurant if they can
see at a quick glance what you are offering.

Common Problem #2: Customer Service

First impressions are important. Poor customer service is often a deal breaker for
customers. Your food may be outstanding, your table settings exquisite and your
ambiance delightful, but if your service is bad, customers will remember.

The key to success is happy customers who want to return again and again. To ensure
your success, your entire team – from management to hostess to wait staff and busboys
– must be dedicated to your customers’ well-being. Every contact your staff makes with
customers must be pleasant, welcoming and accommodating.

The way you handle your customers along every step of their dining experience has an
impact on whether you’ll retain that customer. If they weren’t greeted when they walked
in and when they left, they might mention it in an online review. As the digital arena
continues to grow, online reviews are consistently important to your success.

Common Problem #3: A Unique Selling Point

Are you a bakery or a bar? A diner or romantic experience? Your customers need to
know why they should eat at your restaurant and not at your competitor’s.

While a superb menu and excellent customer service are vital to your success, they are
not a unique selling point. They are merely meeting the expectations of your customers.
It is time to exceed them.

You need an original idea – something even better than great food and service. Come
up with a unique reason for people to eat at your restaurant. Consider Sonic. They offer
a nostalgic 50’s feeling. Burger King tells you, “You’ll have it your way.” Chipotle is
known for integrity with its food.
A unique selling point offers your customers a feeling that enables them to remember
you long after they are gone. Let your food, your service, and your unique selling point
and identity make an emotional connection with your customers.

Common Problem #4: Management

Don’t overlook one of the most important pieces of the puzzle – management. You need
to know how to analyze your business to make sure it runs profitably. Many small
restaurants don’t pay attention to the following items as they manage the day-to-day
operation of their restaurant:

 How many customers are you feeding each day? Break it down by mealtime.

 Keep track of ordered menu items. No one ordering the fish fillet? Maybe it’s time to
take it off the menu.

 What are your most profitable menu items?

 What does it cost to make each menu item? What’s the profit margin?

 Do you have a budget for labor? Are you sticking to it?

 How much do you spend on labor compared to your restaurant sales?

 How much loss is involved in your inventory?

 Do you have sales goals? Are you meeting them?

 What is your profit and loss for each week you are open?

Common Problem #5: Hiring and Training Staff

Most successful restaurant owners know the importance of hiring and training the right
employees. Yet, a common problem exists as many restaurants hire the wrong people
and have a high turnover rate. An incompetent staff can also irreparably damage your
current and future customer base.

When you put great emphasis on your staff, you’ll reduce costs over time and enhance
your diners’ customer service experience. Pay extra attention to finding the perfect
employees and don’t settle for a warm body. Once hired, train your staff and offer
training manuals, checklists, goals and incentives.
Inspire your staff as well as your management team. Train them to address any
situation, good or bad, that arises. Make sure they are enthusiastic and motivated to
pursue your goals and adhere to your restaurant’s unique concept.

Establish and maintain a solid management structure so everyone knows and

understands their own, as well as their team member’s responsibilities. Your
management team should be exemplary, committed, motivational and adept at running
the restaurant in your absence.

Common Problem #6: Marketing

Many owners fail to pay enough attention to marketing making this a common problem
in the restaurant world. Following are a few areas to attend to now in order to avoid the
pitfalls that not-enough marketing incurs:

 Formalize your brand standards. This includes mission statement, logo, graphics,
guidelines, etc.

 Make a marketing plan. Daunting? Start small and work up to a six month or
yearlong plan.

 Get a responsive website that looks great on desktop, tablet and mobile phone.

 Engage in social media and digital marketing.

 Start an email database.

 Create a customer loyalty program.

Be creative with your marketing. Whatever your budget, there are inexpensive ways to
market your restaurant.

Common Problem #7: Capital

Finally, we come to an area where many restaurant entrepreneurs run into big
problems. This looming problem is capital, and more specifically, a lack of it. Restaurant
owners need enough capital to run their business so it can fully establish itself. Owners
should plan to have at least enough money to run for one year. Additionally, restaurant
owners need to have enough financial resources to cope with unexpected costs and
increases.

Have you experienced another problem common to restaurants that isn’t listed
here? We’d love to hear from you. Please share your problem below as well as
the way(s) you solved the issue.

1. Customer Service Matters

If you want to be successful as a burger franchise owner, you need to set yourself apart
in some way. In such a flooded market, one of the easiest ways that you can do this is
through customer service. People who find out that your location is especially good at
taking care of them will always come back for more if you treat them right every time.
When you’re hiring your staff, you should be hiring people that want to make sure that
your customers are taken care of, because it’s going to most commonly result in repeat
business at your location. Plus, when was the last time that you had excellent service at
a burger franchise? Those fast food chains simply don’t know how to treat their
customers, so it’s an easy way for you to stand out and impress the people of the
community that you’re trying to help. Always make sure that you’re providing the highest
level of friendliness and customer service if you want for your franchise location to be as
successful as possible. It’s one of the easiest ways that you can turn your business into
a success.

2. Stay in Line With the Brand

When you’re starting a franchise location, you’re becoming part of an international team
that’s all providing the same product. One of the most important parts of the franchise
brand is consistency. That means that you’re not deviating from the corporate menu so
that customers can have a consistent experience no matter which location they go to in
the world. This is one of the easiest ways that you can make sure that your franchise
location does great. All it takes is to make sure that you’re following the training that you
and your employees receive from corporate, and it helps franchise owners all around
the world do well just like you will.

3. Advertise In Your Community

If you want to be successful as a franchise owner for burgers, you need to go beyond
the national advertising campaigns that your corporate office does. You should be
advertising your specific location in the community through signage, billboards, and
other means to make sure that your specific location actually gets off the ground. This is
the only way to make sure that you get the customers that you need. Don’t rely on the
national brand to do all of the marketing for you, pull yourself up by your bootstraps to
make sure that your location is getting all of the love that it needs to succeed. If you do
this, your franchise location is going to thrive in your community.

1. Expanded their menu to include “Garden Fresh” salads, mango smoothies,

chicken wraps, crispy chicken strips and mocha frappes among other new
offerings, thereby broadening the potential customer base.

2. Improved the consistency of the experience by turning the

franchisees into partners rather than the adversaries they had become. In
particular, Burger King set up a restaurant council, a marketing council and a
people council consisting of franchisee and company representatives.

3. Developed a new marketing program under the tag “Exciting

things are happening at Burger King” that included a set of “A-list” celebrities to
help communicate the new Burger King with humor that resonated with the
broader target market.

4. Allocated funds to location renovation with a new look and feel

that included digital menu-boards, new uniforms and fresh packaging.
Abstract
The rapid development of the restaurant industry in Tuguegarao City often depends
closely with the employees training, turnover rate, and unpredictability of distinct
challenges faced by the restaurant managers. Therefore it is necessary that they must
implement strategies and develop set of solutions in order to facilitate the improvement
of these problems. Indeed the overall success of the restaurant industry lies in the sound
and outstanding management of the restaurant managers. The study sought to find out
the problems and challenges encountered by in-premise restaurant managers of
Tuguegarao City and develop an intervention plan to address the identified problems
and challenges. The research approach, design and method that were used in the study
were the descriptive design using survey method. In this descriptive survey, the
researchers floated questionnaires to the selected in-premise restaurant managers of
Tuguegarao City. The study was conducted from February to June 2017. It investigated
the extent of the most pressing problems in terms of human resource in the aspects of
employees work values, compensation, performance and competency and seminars and
trainings. The researchers concluded that the in-premise restaurant managers share
common problems and challenges in terms of employees’ work values, performance and
competency as well as trainings and seminars. Moreover, some variables contribute to
the most pressing problems and challenges which pinpoint areas of intervention for
each in-premise restaurants.

Introduction
Conceptual framework

The framework introduces, describes and explains why the research problem under
study exists. It shows all about the study and how could it be done to come up with an
output and feedback to answer the questions stated in the input. It is used for
conceptual distinctions and to organize ideas to achieve the research study purpose [1].

The primary goal of the study is to determine the problems and challenges encountered
by in-premise restaurant managers of Tuguegarao City [2]. For us to achieve this , we
must gather data about the participants profile and the extent of the most pressing
problems encountered by the in-premise restaurant managers in the aspects of work
values, compensation, performance and competency as well as seminars and trainings.
In gathering data, we will float questionnaires to derive an output which will be shown
on the Research Paradigm.

.
Statement of the problem

This study entitled “Problems and Challenges Encountered by the In-Premise Restaurant
Managers of Tuguegarao City” will seek to investigate the problems of in-premise
restaurant managers of Tuguegarao City.

Specifically, it sought to answer the following:

What is the profile of the in-premise restaurant managers in terms of:

• Gender,

• Age,

• Years of Experience, and

• Highest Educational Attainment?

To what extent are the most pressing problems encountered by inpremise restaurant
managers in terms of:

• Work Values of Employees,

• Compensation,

• Performance and Competency, and

• Seminars and Trainings.

Is there significant difference in the extent of problems encountered by the In-Premise

Restaurant Managers when grouped according to profile variables?

What suggestions or recommendations can be implemented to address the identified

problems and concerns?

Methodology
Research design

The research approach, design and method that were used in the study is the
descriptive design using survey method to assess the challenges and problems
encountered by in-premise restaurant managers of Tuguegarao City. In this descriptive
survey, the researchers floated questionnaires to the selected in-premise restaurant
managers of Tuguegarao City. It focused on the most pressing problems and challenges
they encountered depending on the profile of the managers. The researchers conducted
the study after the approval of the dean and participants after that, the researchers
analysed the gathered information.

Research participants

The participants of this study are the in-premise restaurant managers of selected
restaurants of Tuguegarao City.

Research instruments

The instrument used in gathering data is questionnaire. The questionnaire was

patterned from the study of Cathy Anz [1] entitled “Issues and Concerns for Restaurant
Owners and Managers”. It is composed of three parts: Part I. Profile of the In-Premise
Restaurant Managers of Tuguegarao City. Part II. In-Premise Restaurant Managers will
assess the extent of the most pressing problems they encountered. Part III. Suggestions
or recommendations that can be implemented to address the identified problems and
concerns. The questionnaire was be pre-tested, improved and validated in order to
ensure its validity and reliability