A research report published today by TouchBistro on “The State of Full Service Restaurants in 2019” highlights benchmarks on key operational factors that affect profitability for FSR restaurant owners in the U.S. The benchmarks cover the adoption of online ordering and mobile payments; staffing challenges, how to find and entice new hires, optimum employee qualities; inventory management and controlling food costs; cost of rent by geographical location and as a percent of sales; funding sources for opening a restaurant and unexpected expenses; POS and payment processor choices and utilization; and average profit margins.
While the complete report “The State of Full Service Restaurants in 2019” is available for free download by clicking here, following are findings of interest:
* The report highlights the financial health of FSRs, noting that most have a healthy profit margin of 11 percent.
* When it comes to managing costs, 58 percent of restaurateurs have challenges with managing their inventory, and most end up ordering higher quantities than required.
* For the majority of restaurants surveyed, rent ranges from 5 to 10 percent of monthly sales.
* Only half of those surveyed use reports from their POS systems to make decisions about employee scheduling, yet 70 percent experience labor shortages.
* A significant number of restaurateurs (80 percent) are frustrated with their payment processors, citing a lack of pricing transparency as the primary concern.
* FSRs that have implemented online ordering, using services such as Grubhub (41 percent), Uber Eats (39 percent), and DoorDash (32 percent), have seen an impressive increase in sales ranging from 11 to 20 percent.
* Restaurants are diversifying the payment methods accepted, increasingly taking mobile payments like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay, with 18% set up to accept all three.
“Restaurant operators today have access to a wide variety of technology solutions designed to enable more efficient service delivery. However, there is complexity in figuring out which technologies to select for marketing, cost analysis, managing staff, or all the other day-to-day operations,” says Alex Barrotti, founder and CEO of TouchBistro. “Some of the best advice restaurateurs receive today comes from other operators that have faced similar challenges. This survey enabled us to capture important feedback from restaurateurs around the U.S. and develop benchmarks that operators can use to make decisions about practices and technologies to implement that bring in more customers, drive loyalty, and increase profitability.”
The study was conducted by research firm Maru Matchbox on behalf of TouchBistro in December 2018. Over 500 FSR owners, managers, and presidents/CEOs from across all U.S. states were interviewed, with a strong focus on six major cities: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, and San Antonio. Two-thirds of the restaurateurs interviewed have five years or more experience in a senior management role, 95 percent work at restaurants with greater than 20 seats, and 41 percent work at restaurants with 41-80 seats.
About TouchBistro
TouchBistro is an iPad POS built for restaurant people, by restaurant people — with every feature designed to meet the unique needs and fast pace of the foodservice industry. TouchBistro has been deployed over 16,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries worldwide. It helps restaurateurs run better businesses and makes managing a restaurant easier. TouchBistro is an award-winning POS backed by in-depth training and free 24/7 technical support provided by POS specialists who have also worked in the restaurant industry. With offices in Toronto, New York, Austin, Chicago, London, and Mexico City, TouchBistro is a global POS leader and is changing the way restaurateurs worldwide run their businesses.
