Saving the Restaurant Industry

A business consultant from Minnetonka, Minnesota, Aaron Eichler is the founder of Strategic Consulting. As a business consultant, Aaron Eichler counsels businesses on strategy to help maximize a company’s earning and growth potential.

In 2020, many of the businesses in the restaurant industry were forced to adopt different strategies to survive. Whether it meant employees changing roles to remain employed or completely rearranging the establishment to accommodate the new social distancing policies, many restaurateurs found themselves in a position to come up with solutions quickly.

One way that many restaurants managed to remain afloat was to change their menus by focusing primarily on popular food items. At the same time, restaurants depleted existing items and refrained from purchasing new items that had a low shelf-life and required a lot of labor. Another strategy involved completely dropping certain food items. Owners had to take into consideration which foods traveled best in containers.

Restaurants also transformed their entire menus to target a particular group of people. For example, one restaurant transitioned into cooking Vietnamese food, and another chose to turn their buffet-style format into one that delivers comfort foods.

Finally, one high-end restaurant survived by offering meals for less $40. In fact, high-end restaurants fared the worst because tasting menus typically cost more than traditional ones, but this was one way to hold onto customers.

Majority of Carlson School Graduates

Since 1998, Aaron Eichler has worked in management consulting, strategy, finance, corporate growth, and analytics. Before his extensive career in business, Aaron Eichler attended the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master’s in business administration.

Despite the pandemic, the Carlson School of Management saw many of its students gain employment after graduation. Much of this success was attributed to the Undergraduate Business Career Center and Graduate Business Career Center (GBCC), which helped both graduates and undergraduates access employment.

For those graduating from their undergraduate programs, 98 percent had a job, joined the military, or went to graduate school within three months of graduation. Graduates that were employed had an average starting salary of $60,000. Full-time MBA students also managed to gain employment within three months of earning the degree. Moreover, they benefited from increased salaries, bonuses, and negotiated vacation time, which increased since last year.

Finally, those who earned specialty master’s degrees also accessed employment at high levels. All of the students graduating with a master’s of science in finance, and 94 percent of the MSBA students could access employment within three months of graduation.