Buffet is an arena between restaurant owners and voracious diners. So how can a buffet business make a profit? Please refer to these Buffet restaurant business experience được Long Phuong Porcelain Summarize and share below.
1. Characteristics of buffet restaurant business
Buffet restaurant business is no longer strange to Vietnamese people. This model is gradually becoming a new culinary trend.
Different from traditional restaurants, buffet restaurants have the following characteristics:
- Customer self-service.
- Unlimited amount of food.
- Diversity in food choices (a la carte).
In Vietnam, there are 3 buffet restaurant model popular:
- Self-service buffet model
- Traditional buffet model
- Modern buffet model: by chain
2. Experience in running a buffet restaurant with huge profits.
2.1 Experience in capital preparation, cash flow and revenue problems.
- Capital is a prerequisite when starting a business. To determine how much capital is needed, you should list expenses such as: premises costs, shop design costs, furniture, kitchen utensils, raw materials, labor...
Strong capital potential makes business more convenient.
- Revenue accounting and cash flow management. The initial business often cannot make a profit right away. Therefore, you must list and estimate in detail and meticulously your income and expenses, thereby determining when to break even and when to make a profit.
See more: How much money does it take to open a buffet restaurant?
2.2 Experience in choosing favorable locations
Location is a factor that determines 50% of a restaurant's success. Therefore, when choosing a location, you need to:
- Carefully consider the restaurant's location and surrounding traffic conditions. Including: frontage area, street or alley, traffic density, parking space or not...
- Carefully consider the rental price as well as the rental term before signing the contract.
- Survey and learn about the culture and demographics of the surrounding population. From there, determine whether it matches the target customer file that the restaurant is aiming for or not.
2.3 Experience in space and interior design
Space and interior of the restaurant is the "first thing that catches the eye" of customers. It decides whether the customer experience is good or not. Therefore, when designing a shop, you need:
- Determine the style of the restaurant (luxury or popular, Asian or European...) to plan to prepare appropriate design materials.
- During the design process, it is necessary to focus on creating a unique mark as a highlight so that customers can easily identify it.
- Pay attention to arranging the food pickup area spaciously to help customers feel comfortable and convenient when moving to get food.
2.4 Experience in creating attractive menus
Facing the fierce competition of the F&B market, attracting customers is a vital factor for any restaurant when opening. And what any diner needs is a place with delicious food, reasonable prices and good service.
And the experience when planning a menu for a buffet restaurant that you need to pay attention to is:
- The menu depends on the restaurant's business model. But it needs all 4 groups: appetizer - main dish - dessert - drinks.
- Build menus based on customer needs.
- They can be arranged into small sets such as 99k menu, 199k menu, 299k menu... to create more choices for customers.
See more: The kind of restaurant equipment that any restaurant needs!
2.5 Experience in personnel training
For a restaurant to operate smoothly, it needs a team of fast, resourceful staff.
- Determine the positions needed and the number for each position.
- There are unique requirements for each position.
- F&B industry personnel often have the highest tendency to quit their jobs. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the salary and bonus regime from the beginning. At the same time, provide training to improve expertise and create opportunities for career advancement to retain and stabilize personnel.
2.6 Experience in building marketing plans.
You need to create a preliminary advertising plan for your restaurant to attract more customers to your restaurant.
Apply both traditional and online marketing to achieve the highest efficiency.
You can outsource or do it yourself. But there must be someone in charge to analyze and evaluate the cost and return.
See more: Top 12 ways to attract customers to your restaurant that you must know
2.7 Experience in building effective business strategies.
Customers always have the mentality of eating more than they pay. Therefore, in order for your business to be profitable, you must have a very systematic business strategy.
See more: How are the characteristics of the Cafeteria model different from the Buffet?
Control the cost of input materials
Take advantage of cheap ingredients (use a variety of vegetables, cheap cuts of meat, buy in bulk to get high discounts...). As well as making the most of in-season ingredients.
Optimize personnel costs
The characteristic of a buffet restaurant is that it does not require many service staff. Therefore, optimizing the service process helps you significantly reduce hiring costs.
Plan promotions for large groups of people
In a large group there are always people who eat more and others who eat less. Therefore, applying group promotions helps ensure that the average cost of food consumed is always lower than the total ticket price the group will buy.
Increase the price of the included service
Service price includes VAT, drinks and products not included in the set. This is a significant profit for the restaurant's revenue.
Don't waste anything
Controlling the daily menu will help the restaurant calculate the amount of ingredients needed and avoid waste. In particular, unused dishes should be used to process into other dishes while still ensuring quality.
The secret to limiting food intake
- Limit the use of large-sized dishes, use many small-sized dishes.
- Dominate the menu with foods high in starch, fat and vegetables. Expensive dishes will be divided into small portions, placed far away or surrounded by vegetable dishes.
- Arrange the drinks and dessert areas spectacularly to attract diners there.
- Fine if you eat too much. This method will help the restaurant limit the situation of "trying" when many diners want to try every dish and take too much but do not finish it all.
- Use giant drinks such as carbonated soft drinks, creating a feeling of fullness for diners quickly.
See more: Collection of dishware samples for buffet restaurants
3. Video sharing restaurant business experiences from HBR Business School
4. Some questions related to buffet restaurant business
Question 1: How much capital is needed to open a buffet restaurant?
Each buffet model will have different business costs. The amount of capital also depends a lot on the size, area, business location... Therefore, it is difficult to estimate the exact number.
Here are some fixed costs to help you estimate the amount of initial capital needed to open a buffet restaurant:
- Investment fees, including: site costs, interior design and construction, personnel costs...
- Maintenance fees: electricity and water costs, internet costs, maintenance costs, material costs...
- Risk fee. This is considered a source of capital to reserve for losses during the first period of business, in order to maintain the restaurant's operations.
Question 2: Should we open a buffet restaurant?
Have! The buffet restaurant business model is currently very popular and is gradually becoming a new culinary trend. Large population, increasing income, more demand for delicious dining experiences... these are potential advantages for you to engage in this business model. However, every business model has risks and challenges that you need to be fully equipped with knowledge to overcome.
5. Conclusion
Above, Long Phuong Porcelain just shared with readers Buffet restaurant business experience. Hopefully, the article provides useful information. Wishing you success with this business model.
Long Phuong Porcelain is proud to be the leading modern, high-end household porcelain factory in Vietnam, specializing in supplying dishes to hotels and restaurants nationwide. With more than 20 years of experience, we understand and always meet all customer needs.
Contact us at hotline number 0989.595.866 for advice or visit the Long Phuong Porcelain website to see more high-end household porcelain products for hotels and restaurants.
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CEO of Long Phuong Group Joint Stock Company, with more than 20 years of exploration and research to obtain the best formulas and professional experience, Long Phuong Porcelain has produced more than 400 designs of all kinds of household porcelain, Significant contributions to Vietnam's ceramic industry.
