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.