Diversify to increase your restaurant's revenue

We all know that having a menu that is too diversified is usually not a good idea in a restaurant, but there is a strategic and quite convenient way to do it in order to increase revenue.

When we talk about diversifying the menu, we mean adding dishes that are different from the ones your restaurant should be offering.

Starting to offer different dishes is a complicated task if we consider that, generally speaking, we have kitchens equipped specifically for the dishes we specialize in… but we all know that in a kitchen there is a series of processes that can be applied to different dishes, which is why the first step is to list the processes we use in our kitchen and reuse them. That is the key…

For example, if we offer fried chicken wings, we naturally need a means of frying, and that is usually a deep fryer. (This last statement may seem very obvious to you, but you should know that there are many businesses that do not use fryers, but instead fry using only the baskets of a fryer or another type of large container over a traditional 4- or 2-burner stove).

Now then, considering that we already have a means of frying, it is clear that our range of options grows, because we have the possibility of offering other fried dishes without having to invest in new equipment.

Once the preparation of the new dishes is settled, and considering that we will not have to spend extra money on new equipment, the second stage or second step will be to define the new dishes creatively, that is, they must be dishes that, in addition to being delicious, have something that makes them intriguing or more appealing (for example: a creative name, large portions, a good price, etc.). With this you can mention them on your social media, place ads about them, hand out flyers, etc., and do not doubt that people will come to try them because they will find them attractive, and they will care little that your restaurant does not specialize in those dishes.

If the dish is delicious, what do you think will happen?

You will get a flow of new customers, and naturally these customers will keep coming back to order it and will tell their friends about your dish. This will undoubtedly increase the restaurant’s revenue.

These people probably would have never visited your restaurant if you had not started offering something that made them come.

A very interesting example is what happened to us at the restaurant of my partner and friend Giancarlo Molina, another of the founders of this site. The restaurant sells roast chicken as its main dish, but on one occasion, taking into account that we had surplus seafood deliveries by contract (that is, almost forced…) with a supplier at another of our restaurants, we decided to experiment and chose to add shrimp cocktails to the menu as an extra for the customers of the roast chicken restaurant. What was special about the cocktail was that it was larger compared to the ones offered in the local market. That was the key.

Over time, people began to ask even if they could order only the cocktail for delivery, because there were times when they did not crave chicken, but they did crave a good cocktail accompanied by a very cold beer.

Something we honestly did not expect.

And what was the result?

The restaurant’s revenue grew, because today it has many cocktail orders from regular customers when they visit the restaurant, and at the same time, sales have grown through the delivery service.

If before, customers normally spent $20 dollars per visit, for two chicken dishes + two drinks, today they spend an average of $35.90 because they end up ordering 2 cocktails and each one costs $7.95.

Attractive, is it not? We got almost an 80% increase in revenue… all thanks to a simple desperate move to avoid losing benefits with the supplier… but which in the end was a diversification move.

Now it is your turn to think about something similar for your restaurant. Do not just stay with the doubt, implement something applicable to your business… if it goes wrong, then you stop doing it, but if it goes well, I assure you that you will be grinning from ear to ear when you see the great extra revenue this can bring you.