25 Reasons Why You Need a Restaurant Consultant

Opting for a professional restaurant consultant in the making of your restaurant or food & beverage venture is of high value in the standardisation of your brand. The operations in this industry continue to be a challenge for both new entrepreneurs and the existing ones. A proper understanding of the challenges and standard of procedures can help you set a milestone in no time. The consultation services for setting up and running a restaurant, resort, or hotel are necessary for both new entrepreneurs and existing business tycoons.

Attention budding entrepreneurs and investors! Understanding the importance of a restaurant business consultant is crucial for establishing a thriving venture in the restaurant industry. Even if you believe your restaurant is doing well, discovering the value of a consultant can reveal and address potential loopholes in your successful business. For expert guidance, just a click away, consider reaching out to DNY Hospitality led by the insightful Yash Dalwani. Optimize your restaurant's potential with strategic consultation and propel your business to new heights.

DNY Hospitality: Global Restaurant Consultant

DNY Hospitality is a known hospitality consultant in the food & beverage industry internationally. We have our offices in India and the United States of America. We have more than 15 years of experience in providing restaurant consultation services. We have expanded our operations setting ups cloud kitchens, Cafe & QSR , Co-Working Cloud Kitchens, Central kitchens, and so on.

Why Need A Restaurant Consultant?

1. Brand Ideation And Concept

Well let us understand we are not here to sell just food, but sell a concept – ideology of a restaurant consultant. Beyond anything if your concept is in an alignment with your ideology, then everything starts connecting itself. When you come with a ready concept of a restaurant to a food consultant, they help you upgrade the concept in viable way. In case you come with an open mind, it’s even better for a food consultant to visualise the brand identity. Here a restaurant consultant would create a concept and brand identity from scratch for you.

Brand positioning ideation & concept has a set of activities like brand name, brand identity, brand concept, the core value of the concept, target market, brand recognition and differentiation. A restaurant consultant develops a strategic plan to provide a brand name for your idea that signifies the vision, values, and principles of the entity. Important thing is to understand the common link between these aspects which help a brand to be identified in a single direction.

2. Market Feasibility study –

Before even you could decide a cuisine and an area to target on, you must know what does the market talk about. A detailed feasibility study with current market scenario is best known to the restaurant consultant who would help you with before starting. Being 100% sure of the local market and cuisine-wise performance of areas enable you to decide a location quickly. No doubt any cuisine works well with a great concept and taste, however its your right to know the target audience and their behaviour dynamics. A restaurant consultant does not ignore these factors.

3. Systematic Financial Planning

The important decisions related to the finances of a restaurant are initial capital for the deposit of the premises, monthly rent, ingredients for cooking, interior decoration, remuneration of the staff members, etc. A restaurant consultant helps you to procure them at low costs because they have contacts in the industry. They help you develop the financial plan for the coming 6 months in advance so that the operations of the restaurant keep going. Normally, entrepreneurs miss out on long-term planning for finances.

A restaurant consultant plans for only a couple of months that can be a little risky because in the short-run some major ups and downs may take place. The financial plan, ROI details, revenue projections, business model are of crucial importance that a restaurant consultant guides you with. Depending on your investment budget, it's important to chose the right restaurant concept or model.

4. Professional Kitchen Planning

Kitchen planning is a complex science. Science is a systematic study. Only a restaurant consultant can help you in performing it well. The points you need to take care of are: the best possible space utilisation, planning sections for handling multiple cuisines. It also includes using kitchen equipment for more than one purpose, placing ingredients, proper drainage system, the arrangement of ventilation, selection of right chimney according to estimate time of cooking in the kitchen. Plus the comfort of staff members, decisions related to induction cooking or gas cooking, etc. If anything goes off the track in this commercial kitchen planning, there are chances of accidents. Therefore, it is advisable to take the services of the restaurant consultant when you start your restaurant or cloud kitchen business.

Important Elements of Kitchen Planning are:

1.      Space Utilisation

2.      Handling Multiple Cuisines

3.      Multi-Purpose Kitchen Equipment

4.      Optimised Storage

5.      Proper Drainage

6.    Great Ventilation

5. Menu Engineering and Planning

Menu planning is the key to being successful in the food & beverage industry. If everything is super attractive except for the menu, everything will go in vain. Menu engineering covers menu pricing, developing finger-licking recipes, applying Food Technology, MRP evaluations, planning to prepare base gravies, sauces, flavours, marinations, food packaging ideas, garnishing of food, etc. All these activities require professional experience and subject knowledge.

Elements of Menu Planning are:

1. Menu Offerings & USPs
2. Recipe Standardisation
3. Food Technology
4. MRP Evaluations & costing SOPs
5. Food Packaging Standardisation
6. Plating & Presentation

6. Culinary Training By Hospitality Consultant

Culinary training is another very important field of specialisation for which you need a restaurant consultant. Consultant help you manage recipes and ingredients along with their standardisation and weight. Professional help is not only in terms of training your kitchen team for recipes and menu. But also design a systematic line of cooking, procedure to consistency & methods of cutting and chopping ingredients.

By working on attention-to-detail on each aspect of culinary training, your brand gets a strongest base to rest on. By not giving importance to portion size and grammage of ingredients, the food cost becomes much higher than expected. The loss of which is realised after 6 months of operations, and changing everything then becomes a concern.

You may know successful food brand have their base established right. Everything has a fixed taste, fixed recipe and you will notice the same consistency in multi-stores as well.

7. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's)

The standard operating procedures in every industry helps in better and process driven business. A restaurant consultant will help you understand the importance of following these standards in kitchen, management and everywhere else. The most important restaurant SOPs are related to hygiene and safety, sales and purchase procedures, wastage control, the structure of reporting to management, cash handling procedures, storage-related procedures, inventory management, guest relations, human resource policies, recipes, food production, use of edible ingredients, etc. You may definitely have a great command over these technicalities. However, the restaurant consultant already has a wonderful grip over the team following the same. You must pay attention to some other important work related to your restaurant development and opt for professional services by the hospitality consultant.

Elements of SOP’s & Management

1. Hygiene & Safety
2. Sales & Purchase
3. Wastage Control
4. Structure of Reporting
5. Cash Handling
6. Storage-Related
7. Inventory Management
8. Guest Relations
9. HR Policies
10. Recipes
11. Food Production
12. Edible Ingredients

8. Effective Inventory Management

As a restaurant consultant, DNY Hospitality has provided consultation services to more than 200 restaurants. Inventory means stock. There is no guarantee of sale for food delivery. The direct influence of effective inventory management is on maintaining a low cost. It can prevent unforeseen expenditures and shortages during your peak business durations. Therefore, it is important to forecast the requirements in the coming days and manage inventory. The management of stock needs to be balanced because the demand is of fresh food items only.

There is no place for stale or rotten ingredients for food material in the food & beverage industry as far as ethics are concerned. Proper inventory management demands a close association with menu pricing and ordering process to prevent wastage and ensuring supply. It is the restaurant consultant who has the prices in an algorithm sheet. They are also aware of the expected fluctuations in the supply and demand and he is well acquainted with managing inventory.

9. Eye-Catchy Branding And Designing

Usually this step is very taken care by professional restaurant consulting companies who have a creative team to work on in all directions.

Creating unique designs for your business once the restaurant consultant finalises the brand concept and name of your brand. They design food logos, menu design, designs for food packaging, uniforms of staff members, etc. The only motto of a hospitality consultant is to create designs that are completely unique and easily recognisable amongst the competitors. A well-designed restaurant takes less effort into marketing by the restaurant consultant to establish its image in the minds of the customers.

10. Hiring and Team Building

The other name given to the employees is internal customers. The philosophy behind calling them customers is to make the employer understand their importance. If he wants to earn he needs to make the external customers happy and satisfied. If he wants to keep his external customers happy, he needs to put efforts to make his internal customers happy. This is an international concept of marketing followed by multinational companies by providing multiple benefits to its employees. A restaurant consultant while consulting for a food business will explain to you the importance of the employees and ways to optimise their hard-skills. Besides, it is also important for an employer to get the best talents of the industry so that he can instill team-building spirit in them and become the industry leader. On taking the services of a restaurant consultant like DNY Hospitality you can be sure of having the most creative and talented minds of the industry. You can expect a commendable performance throughout the year. It is helpful for you to reduce costs in finding and training them.

11. Fascinating Interiors Designs

The website design and the pictures of DNY Hospitality exhibit the height of imagination and creativity in designing. The interior design of a restaurant has the potential to attract customers. A restaurant consultant has hundreds of designs and it is easier for the food consultant to help you create a design that corresponds with the name and vision of Interior design.

12. Sourcing of Resources

An established restaurant consultant like DNY Hospitality owns biggest E-marketplace for restaurant products. Main sourcing is kitchen equipment, staff uniforms, main packaging material of furniture and lighting, room amenities, technology support, crockery cutlery and utensils, bar and cafe equipment, hygiene essentials, food packaging, coffee machines, etc. The food consultant while consulting for the food business has these products ready in the store and has designers ready to convert them according to your brand. DNY Hospitality offers to increase revenue by selling on its restaurant store.

13. Result-oriented Marketing

Marketing was the need of the hour, is the need of the hour, and will remain the same for every business in every era. As a restaurant consultant, DNY Hospitality provides digital marketing services if you opt for restaurant consultation services or any other consultation services. For a steady growth in the restaurant industry, you need to let the digital marketing activities flow consistently. In marketing services, we offer to build awareness for your brand, offline marketing plan, social media marketing, Zomato marketing, Google marketing, influencer marketing, etc. We also extend our services to maintaining public relations helping you design promotions & offers, online reputation management, strategic planning for more revenue. On-page and off-page SEO etc. This is how the restaurant consultant can provide highly result-oriented marketing activities.

14. Understanding Customer Orientation

Establishing a restaurant, resort, cloud kitchen or a hotel can be done in various ways. However, it is important to do it in the most result-oriented manner. One can achieve desired results on becoming successful. Success is a journey and not a destination. Therefore, performing the operations in the food & business industry according to customer orientation is the trick to be successful. Customer reviews are feedback analysis is as important as any other process. You get a direction to work on for the minor growth steps.

15. Having Enough Capital

Capital is the initial amount that an entrepreneur needs to invest in any business. In the food & beverage industry, the capital may be a little higher because of more operational costs and wastage on a daily basis. It is so because initially, it takes time to establish a brand and attract customers. A restaurant consultant can help you a lot under these circumstances because it has a team. They are not influenced by pessimism or any other emotional factors like a new entrepreneur who has invested his hard-earned money and who is worried about returns.

The team of the food consultant will prepare everything in a step by step procedure for at least six months as mentioned above. If the initial capital available with you can help you survive in the market with different ups and downs then only the team of the food consultant will take your project or will make some changes in the execution of the plan. These changes can be helpful in sustaining the execution of your business plan. This is how the hospitality consultant will help you take the first step. It is well said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. 

16. A Critical Brand Analysis

The team members of the food consultant are highly trained because they do not deal with operations related to delivering food but still they are very close to the same. They have specialisation in critically examining meaning and finding out the errors if any. Hiring a cloud kitchen consultant or hospitality consultant you will expose your business practices under critical analysis. Only restaurant consultants can give you the most accurate brand analysis and future predictions.

17. Handling Persistent Costs

There are some persistent costs in the F&B industry. One of them is the rent that can be handled if you contact a cloud kitchen consultant for cloud kitchens. The rent of a cloud kitchen is far lesser as compared to a restaurant. If you find the rent more than the profits out of revenue it is advisable to switch to a cloud kitchen. The second persistent cost is due to wastage. In the F&B industry, it is almost impossible to avoid wastage. Some wastage is totally unavoidable. A restaurant consultant can help you by helping you in supply chain management procurement and liaison.

18. Scope of Improvement

There is nothing perfect in the world. The scope of improvement is present in everything. No restaurant consultant also guarantees complete perfection and it is impossible to please everyone as far as the customers are concerned. However, the hospitality consultants provide important pieces of advice related to menu, recipes, supply chain storage, etc. These small tips are extremely worthwhile because they come out of the experience. 

19. Hidden Loopholes

There are always some hidden loopholes in every company. It might be possible that you are losing some money due to improper calculations or poor accounts maintenance. There are also most common mistakes made by restaurant owners. You might not have noticed the excess wastage taking place due to inappropriate operational measures.

They might be more expensive than usual due to poor supply chain management. The food stored in the Storage Area might be getting rotten without getting used. The herbs and spices might lose their freshness because they are old. All these are minor loopholes. However, it is important to note that each one of them has the potential to affect the quality of food and thereby the credibility of your restaurant. A restaurant consultant can easily point out these loopholes and suggest appropriate measures for correction.

20. Operations Simplified

The day-to-day operations at a restaurant or cloud kitchen are like cooking cleaning, storage, shopping, billing, etc. A restaurant consultant has special command over Food Technology and therefore, the operations are sure to get simplified. A consultant for food business will help you know about the latest development in the automation of cooking equipment. The consultant also provides all kinds of help and training. DNY Hospitality has a full-fledged plan to help you at every step and simplify operations.

21. A Helping Hand is a Blessing

You have your own staff members handling all the departments and therefore, you think why need a consultant. It is completely valid on your part. However, you must notice that getting a helping hand is always a blessing. Especially if the helping hand is of an expert like DNY Hospitality that has provided consultation services to 200+ restaurants and cloud kitchens. We are well known as a cloud kitchen consultant and restaurant business consultant.

22. To Know Customers’ Outlook

There are two ends of any kind of transfer. In the hospitality industry, the restaurant or cloud kitchen owner is at one end and customers are at the other end. A restaurant consultant can help the restaurant owners to know the way customers think about their brand. Feedback is also one way to know about it. It is important to note that getting the feedback while operating a cloud kitchen is a little difficult because of no customer interaction. However, a cloud kitchen consultant with its experience can help in knowing the customer’s Outlook and provide suggestions accordingly.

23. Understanding Franchise Business Better

The franchise is yet another booming industry in the coming decades. In the food & business industry, the cloud kitchen franchise is a hot topic. You can look at it to take a multi-brand franchise or provide a franchise of your brand. DNY Hospitality takes the opportunity to inform you that we offer a multi-brand cloud kitchen in 7-8 lacs and we also avail of our services as a cloud kitchen consultant along with a restaurant consultant. You may contact us to opt for a franchise business with our original brands or take our services as a hospitality consultant. We are eager to be associated with you.

24. Reach New Heights                   

You have great opportunities to reach new heights of food & industry business by taking the help of a restaurant business consultant. Growth is the foundation for the application of efforts and motivation. The specialised effort by a restaurant consultant can give a boost to your entire team and there will be a new wave of energy in them too; to work harder towards their goals.

25. Specialisation and Experience of a Restaurant Consultant

A restaurant consultant is an entity with abundant experience and specialisation that comes with practice and hard work. DNY Hospitality has built a rapport of providing excellent quality and specialised services as a restaurant business consultant in more than a decade. We take pleasure in providing comprehensive support to our clients in establishing a well-designed entity when they come to us only with an idea. This experience and knowledge are with every food consultant.

Conclusion

DNY Hospitality genuinely hopes the answer to the question of why need a consultant is satisfactory. The role of a restaurant consultant is far more than mentioned above when performed practically. Choosing the field of consulting for a food business needs a combination of hard skills and passion because everything needs to be fresh from designs to taglines, from ingredients to garnishing. Our hospitality consultant department will be pleased to cater to your requirements. For any queries please contact DNY Hospitality.