Any restaurant owners around?

[Mika2357]

Hi there

If you are a restaurant owner in the UK, would you consider discounting your tables during quieter times? So you would say- "I am happy to seat 10 people for 50% off at 3pm on Wednesday, 5 people for 25% off at 5 pm on Thursday etc."

We will send the reservations your way and charge a fixed fee per seat. You will have full control over discounts, timing etc, and can stop whenever you want to.

If yes, what's the best way to approach a restaurant owner with this proposal?
If no, could you share your reasons?

Thanks a lot!

 

[The Ecom Guy]

Hi Mika, so firstly i am not a restaurant owner, i have however worked with several independant restaurants from an online point of view.

The problem you have, what makes you think you will get the foot traffic / bookings to these restaurants, rather than the actual restaurant itself? i.e most if not all customers who want to go to a specific restaurant will phone that restaurant and reserve a table, or they would go to their website and reserve online.

How are you going to get that clientbase view your business approach?

Also, it is good to think that most restaurants (especially the main stream chains) already do a version of this. i.e the lunchtime menu, 2 for 1's, 2 courses for £9.99 etc

I really do not want to burst your bubble as if you are maybe targeting a specific area then there might well be things you can do to get your plan to work.

If i was you i would think first as to how you intend to generate the new business for the restaurant and then take it from there

 

[Mika2357]

Indeed some restaurants do have offers but mostly customers find them too restrictive/limited to certain dishes/ courses etc.

As how would we attract the users, the idea is to compete with the likes of OpenTable. People would book a half-price / discounted table on our website.

 

[Mr D]

Indeed some restaurants do have offers but mostly customers find them too restrictive/limited to certain dishes/ courses etc.

As how would we attract the users, the idea is to compete with the likes of OpenTable. People would book a half-price / discounted table on our website.

So how does the restaurant gain?
Rather than customer booking with restaurant / turn up at restaurant for a full price meal they instead book through you for a discounted meal the restaurant has to pay you for?

I can see the benefit to your business, maybe I'm missing the benefit to the restaurant.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Indeed some restaurants do have offers but mostly customers find them too restrictive/limited to certain dishes/ courses etc.

.

What research has led to to this conclusion?

Have you test marketed locally?

i deal with a lot of independent restaurants, and must say they tend to have some clear ideas in discounting etc.

As above, not saying your concept won't work, but it is a crowded space - probably best to test it in you own locality on a small scale

 

[Mika2357]

So how does the restaurant gain?
Rather than customer booking with restaurant / turn up at restaurant for a full price meal they instead book through you for a discounted meal the restaurant has to pay you for?

I can see the benefit to your business, maybe I'm missing the benefit to the restaurant.

Well the restaurant gets to fill at least some seats during lean periods. The alternative is for them to do nothing and let the seats expire unutilised.

Of course, if the restaurant does its math and find that it is not worthwhile for them, fair game. But some might find it useful.

 

[Mika2357]

What research has led to to this conclusion?

Have you test marketed locally?

i deal with a lot of independent restaurants, and must say they tend to have some clear ideas in discounting etc.

As above, not saying your concept won't work, but it is a crowded space - probably best to test it in you own locality on a small scale

Agree restaurant deals abound but our vision is to make it simpler for the customer. You visit our website and book a discounted table (no credit card required, you can cancel at last minute). You get a chance to eat at a fancy restaurant, order whatever it has on the menu and get 20/30/50% off.

 

[Mr D]

Well the restaurant gets to fill at least some seats during lean periods. The alternative is for them to do nothing and let the seats expire unutilised.

Of course, if the restaurant does its math and find that it is not worthwhile for them, fair game. But some might find it useful.

Just thinking you will be competing with the restaurant for customers for the restaurant.
Gaining new customers, great. Charging them to have existing customers use the restaurant with a discounted meal would appear not so great.

Just thinking it may be a hard sell.

 

[Mika2357]

Just thinking you will be competing with the restaurant for customers for the restaurant.
Gaining new customers, great. Charging them to have existing customers use the restaurant with a discounted meal would appear not so great.

Just thinking it may be a hard sell.

Might happen but the sell would probably be that they might gain new customers for whom the restaurant might have been too pricey in the first place. And since the discounted tables would be at odd hours, regular diners would probably continue their patronage.

 

[billybob99]

• Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White has joined Eat Club, a food tech startup that offers discounts for customers with an objective of filling empty restaurant seats.
• The app launched in Melbourne, Australia, in 2017, and in Sydney this year. There are currently 1,100 venues available on the app, and 250,000 users. The app will make its debut in the U.S. via New York in 2019.
• Eat Club operates similarly to hotel and airline websites, connecting customers to nearby restaurants with empty tables and offering last-minute deals to get them through the door.

Here. Worth taking a look to see if you can take any ideas.

The first thing I noticed > allows restaurants with empty tables to immediately upload last minute deals that you can redeem.

If you're putting the power in the restaurants hands, they can upload deals based on when they are quiet, have a bunch of empty tables, it should be an easy enough sell - its a no brainer for them.

You don't want to go around negotiating deals with all these restaurants. That's for suckers.

You just want to build the platform, and let restaurants create their own offers.

Your job is to simply drive the traffic.

Think Airbnb-esque.

It's 2019, and there are a ton of freeloaders in the UK who are waiting for a 50% off meal, anywhere, any restaurant.

 

[Mika2357]

• Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White has joined Eat Club, a food tech startup that offers discounts for customers with an objective of filling empty restaurant seats.
• The app launched in Melbourne, Australia, in 2017, and in Sydney this year. There are currently 1,100 venues available on the app, and 250,000 users. The app will make its debut in the U.S. via New York in 2019.
• Eat Club operates similarly to hotel and airline websites, connecting customers to nearby restaurants with empty tables and offering last-minute deals to get them through the door.

No idea what happened since.

--

Found it > Worth taking a look to see if you can take any ideas.

Thanks for this!

 

[Dan Kav]

As a former restaurant manager, for both a chain and independent restaurant, I would not be signing up for this. Bums on seats are fine if the restaurant can still make a profit but it's unlikely unless they spend a good amount on wet.

Also, from experience the next time those customers come back they'll expect a discount. I've always found these external discount schemes to be more hassle than they are worth tbh. Just my 2 pence for what it's worth.

 

[Mika2357]

As a former restaurant manager, for both a chain and independent restaurant, I would not be signing up for this. Bums on seats are fine if the restaurant can still make a profit but it's unlikely unless they spend a good amount on wet.

Also, from experience the next time those customers come back they'll expect a discount. I've always found these external discount schemes to be more hassle than they are worth tbh. Just my 2 pence for what it's worth.

Thanks Dan. Drinks will not be discounted, only food.
Can you pls help me understand a little bit more? Assuming a hypothetical full-priced meal at around £40, would it make sense for the restaurant to do 50% off and still make a profit (assume £5 our fee)?

Would definitely work to make it suck less for the manager!

 

[Dan Kav]

Drinks not being discounted is a good idea for sure. But 50% off food for an independent would kill most if not all profit. I've run discounts mid-week with either set menus or a 20% discount for certain dishes - i.e. the one's I knew had a great GP and could stand being discounted.

A question back for you; have you worked in a restaurant previously? No judgement either way, but if not, then it would be beneficial to get some back office experience in one. Just to see how hard it is to run a restaurant at the moment. Tbh I'm glad to be out of the restaurant game now.

 

[Mika2357]

Drinks not being discounted is a good idea for sure. But 50% off food for an independent would kill most if not all profit. I've run discounts mid-week with either set menus or a 20% discount for certain dishes - i.e. the one's I knew had a great GP and could stand being discounted.

A question back for you; have you worked in a restaurant previously? No judgement either way, but if not, then it would be beneficial to get some back office experience in one. Just to see how hard it is to run a restaurant at the moment. Tbh I'm glad to be out of the restaurant game now.

Thanks for your insights. Haven't worked in a restaurant but have dealt with managers/owners as part of launching a food-delivery startup (was way ahead of its time, had to send orders by text!).

 

[ecommerce84]

As a former restaurant manager, for both a chain and independent restaurant, I would not be signing up for this. Bums on seats are fine if the restaurant can still make a profit but it's unlikely unless they spend a good amount on wet.

Also, from experience the next time those customers come back they'll expect a discount. I've always found these external discount schemes to be more hassle than they are worth tbh. Just my 2 pence for what it's worth.

Im also a former restaurant manager and currently own a cafe/bakery.

@Dan Kav echos my sentiments exactly.

I’d rather focus my efforts on marketing to people that value the product rather than those who simply go to where the best deal happens to be.

 

[Mika2357]

Im also a former restaurant manager and currently own a cafe/bakery.

@Dan Kav echos my sentiments exactly.

I’d rather focus my efforts on marketing to people that value the product rather than those who simply go to where the best deal happens to be.

Thanks for your response and more power to you.

 

[CVRO]

I can see this working if the implementation is done properly. That means a lot of marketing to drive customers to the restaurants.
I like the idea as the number of covers will increase, albeit the profit per cover will drop.
You need, however, to give the restaurants the chance to set their own discount levels.
The downside is that this sort of business rarely drives repeat customers to the restaurants. It's the groupon effect.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

I actually think this is a really good idea. But it would have to be really dynamic - restaurants can log on and instantly say "2 tables free at 7pm with xyz offer". Be able to make that 2 tables at 7pm or 20 at 9pm or whatever and mix it up between a discount on order, or free drink on arrival, BOGOF on mains etc.

For the restaurant they need that flexibility that if they're having a slow day or week they can maybe offer a bit more, busy periods offer less or switch it off.

For the end user it means a mix of different offers especially for spur of the moment things - "Shall we go out for dinner tonight....sure let's have a look at *your app* and see if there's something we fancy"

Something else to consider seriously would be integration with the computerised booking systems many restaurants and pubs use, these allow them to add bookings manually (when people phone up or walk in) but also take instant live bookings online. These places I very much doubt would want to be messing with bookings coming from a third party electronic source - it would almost need your app to be able to integrate with that software and make the booking directly. Unsure how many different providers are making this kind of software though or whether there's a few key ones you could approach to partner with?

Sounds a bit like Opentable/TasteCard/Groupon/TripAdvisor all rolled into one. Was going to say I'm surprised it hasn't been done before but then saw the Marco Pierre White thing!

 

[Mika2357]

I actually think this is a really good idea. But it would have to be really dynamic - restaurants can log on and instantly say "2 tables free at 7pm with xyz offer". Be able to make that 2 tables at 7pm or 20 at 9pm or whatever and mix it up between a discount on order, or free drink on arrival, BOGOF on mains etc.

For the restaurant they need that flexibility that if they're having a slow day or week they can maybe offer a bit more, busy periods offer less or switch it off.

For the end user it means a mix of different offers especially for spur of the moment things - "Shall we go out for dinner tonight....sure let's have a look at *your app* and see if there's something we fancy"

Something else to consider seriously would be integration with the computerised booking systems many restaurants and pubs use, these allow them to add bookings manually (when people phone up or walk in) but also take instant live bookings online. These places I very much doubt would want to be messing with bookings coming from a third party electronic source - it would almost need your app to be able to integrate with that software and make the booking directly. Unsure how many different providers are making this kind of software though or whether there's a few key ones you could approach to partner with?

Sounds a bit like Opentable/TasteCard/Groupon/TripAdvisor all rolled into one. Was going to say I'm surprised it hasn't been done before but then saw the Marco Pierre White thing!

Great point about integrating with existing booking system. Thanks for your response.

 

[glengraving]

Anyone else hate it when you're having a meal at a restaurant, ordering a la carte like a plonker, and you get the feeling that half of the other diners are using discount voucher codes?
I'm not here to subsidise grouponers

 

[Mr D]

Anyone else hate it when you're having a meal at a restaurant, ordering a la carte like a plonker, and you get the feeling that half of the other diners are using discount voucher codes?
I'm not here to subsidise grouponers

No.

I go to a restaurant I am concerned with how much I am paying and the quality of the dining experience. Whether someone else is paying more or less than me is not of any concern.

 

[glengraving]

I go to restaurants to win

edit: in fairness I am not allowed back into the local World Buffet franchise

 

[Mr D]

I go to restaurants to win

edit: in fairness I am not allowed back into the local World Buffet franchise

I go to restaurants to enjoy myself, with friends or family, or because a client requests it when dealing with clients.
Never tried winning in a restaurant. I do usually enjoy the food if decently done.
Occasionally get ideas from the food to use in my own cooking.

 

[MOIC]

The OP’s idea is good and a potentially profitable model.

It needs tweaking before launching. . . . . and more tweaking in the first few months after the launch.

Good luck with it!