Restaurant owners choose to expand their restaurant business when they feel their current outlet is running well. This process requires extra effort, but the payoff can make the time and capital investment worthwhile. Starting your own restaurant can be a challenging endeavour for anyone. However, it is possible to sustain your venture in the long run with enough effort and determination. If you have managed to run your establishment smoothly for a certain length of time, you may be interested in expanding your operations and growing your restaurant. Expanding your restaurant is a tricky task that requires the right approach. Attempting to do so using the wrong methods won’t just harm your expansion efforts, it may also damage the brand you have built up over the years. This article explains how you can expand your restaurant business in the UK.
How To Expand Your Restaurant Business In The UK
Let’s look at some reliable strategies to help you expand your restaurant business.
1. Look Out For A Second Location With Better Footfall
The most straightforward way to expand your restaurant is to set up a second location. This second location could be on the other side of town to help capture the market residing there. This location may also be larger or smaller than your current location. The actual size will depend on various factors such as rent and customer demand.
Setting up a second location can be a difficult task. However, owners can leverage the knowledge and skills they gained when they set up their first location. This includes relying on any resources or connections you may have gained over the years. You can also handpick certain staff members from your first location to work at this second location. This helps ensure your new outlet is run in a manner similar to your original outlet.
2. Start a Food Truck
Many restaurant owners are hesitant to set up a second location due to the high investment cost and the risks involved. If you have been running your establishment smoothly for a while but don’t want to open a second location yet, you can always try setting up a food truck.
Food trucks are a great way for restaurant owners to experiment with introducing their menu items to the general public in different locations. Some restaurants operate food trucks with a limited menu in addition to their main establishment. These menu items should be easy to prepare inside the food truck and should appeal to customers who want to eat on the go.
Restaurant owners should be careful about maintaining the quality of their menu items in the food truck. If the quality of your food truck food items isn’t up to par, customers may assume your brand has gone downhill, and may even stop frequenting your main outlet.
3. Participate in Food Festivals
Food festivals are a great place for restaurants to promote their products. These festivals are usually held throughout the summer months when people are eager to get outside and try new things. These festivals make your menu items accessible to a wide variety of people, many of whom will be interested in visiting your main restaurant afterwards.
People who attend food festivals often post about the various food items they have tried on social media. This makes food festivals a great place to get some free promotion too. While food festivals aren’t exactly a way for you to expand your restaurant, they can certainly help test the waters in relation to customer demand.
4. Set up a Food Court Outlet
It’s not uncommon for sit-down restaurants to open up special outlets at food courts across the city. These could be food courts inside shopping centres or other public spaces.
The main benefit of setting up an outlet at a food court is that it makes your menu items accessible to casual shoppers or other customers on the go. Many restaurants also wish to cater to the lunchtime “office” crowd who want a quick bite to eat before heading back to work.
Setting up a food court outlet isn’t always easy. You may need to pay high rent for your food court location. A location that may already be in high demand from other restaurants. In addition to this, your sales may vary depending on the flow of customers at the shopping mall or public space in which the food court is located.
5. Keep Your Branding Consistent
Another important tip to keep in mind when expanding your restaurant is to keep your branding consistent. This means you should find ways to replicate the theme, tone, and atmosphere or your restaurant at any secondary locations or outlets you open up. It can be tricky to provide customers with the same atmosphere you offer at your primary outlet at your secondary locations if you can’t control the setting. However, you can make up for it by providing the same high-quality food and customer service.
6. Follow a Comfortable Pace
The most important thing to keep in mind when expanding your restaurant is to follow a comfortable pace. Opening multiple outlets requires plenty of time and effort. If you feel your brand simply isn’t at the point where you are comfortable doing this, you should hold off for a while.
You can take this time to train your restaurant managers and ensure they are comfortable running the restaurant with minimal involvement on your part. Once you feel the establishment is up and running smoothly, you can then think about investing in a second location.
As you can see, there are plenty of strategies you can follow to expand your restaurant business. This task comes with many new challenges, but you can overcome them by utilizing the knowledge and experience you have gained from operating your first restaurant. Use these strategies and expand your restaurant business in the UK.
