Second individual assignment which takes the place of a final is about threats or opportunities. Your task is to write a short editorial style paper that presents your professional opinion on why the topic you chose is a threat or an opportunity for a restaurateur.
https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/texas-popeyes-customer-boy-kitchen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nmoTCTTL8s
Assignment Details:
1.Choose one topic
Social Media
2.Determine if you will present the topic as a threat or opportunity.
3.Write your paper (editorial style). List references used (APA).
Specifically address the following:
Identify and describe the greatest threat or opportunity to the success/sustainment of a restaurant operation in the next five years.
What control does the operator have against this threat – if any? How can they adapt or plan for it?
For opportunities – what should operators be looking for? What steps should they take to capitalize on it?
Based on this identified threat or opportunity- what do you think the future implications are for the restaurant industry in general? Is this something that will continue/grow?
Analysis of Strengths
The strengths of your restaurant lie in what you do best, whether it’s serving tasty food, offering quality service at the table or providing decor that makes the fun of eating at your restaurant a memorable experience. Other strengths may consist of your pricing structure, such as offering a lower-priced menu than similar restaurants in your area.
The strengths of opening a restaurant come down to things like whether the business model can be sustained with minimal staff, along with:
- Are the meals ones that can be prepared affordably with low-cost but good quality ingredients?
- Is a location promising, with things like strong foot traffic, accessible transit and nearby parking?
- Is there a dearth of that food style in the region, but a savvy populace who yearns for it?
Analysis of Weaknesses
Weaknesses give you an idea of things to improve in your restaurant. For instance, your wait staff may create a weakness for your restaurant, since you’re dependent on them for the personal service they provide to each table. Another weakness may exist if you do not provide adequate employee training, such as showing wait staff how they should attend to tables or explaining to culinary personnel how you want food prepared and presented.
Other weaknesses may include not getting consistent supplies that result in menu items not being available. Relying on an outdated point-of-sale system or using paper to keep track of ordering and stocking is a weakness, because there are better ways of calculating your stockroom, order and financial needs.
Analysis of Opportunities
Look for opportunities that help your restaurant increase its profits, such as expanding or providing different types of food and beverages. Taking advantage of trends related to eating healthier may mean featuring more organic dishes or salads on your menu. Finding ways to generate more traffic during slow times, such as in the afternoon, may represent an opportunity for growth.
Selling some of your restaurant products, such as salad dressings or baked goods, for people to buy and take home represents an opportunity. Offering delivery services and take-out or setting up a drive-through to meet the needs of people on the go represents another potential opportunity.
Opportunities can come in all kinds of ways for restaurants, from new food trends, like going vegan, through to finding new funding sources from grants and investors. When looking for opportunities, keep an open mind and look outside the box.
- Is there an opportunity to serve local businesses with lunch delivery?
- Is there a gap in the local food industry that you can fill, like perhaps offering take-and-bake dinners?
- Is catering an option?
- Is a food truck available to you for festivals and public spaces, where you can increase sales but also evangelize your brand?
Analysis of Threats
Competing restaurants located nearby represent a threat to your business, especially if you sell similar types of food or have similar dining experiences. New restaurants opening up in your area also represent a threat, since area diners have more options on where to spend their dining dollars.
Other threats consist of the potential rising price of certain foods. For instance, if you make seafood dishes and something negative impacts the shrimp market, a threat exists if you need to raise prices or find new suppliers, because you may lose business.
- Leasing challenges from bad landlords, insufficient space, lack of rent protection.
- Infrastructure problems, like possible road construction to interrupt consumer access, plumbing troubles.
- Rising food costs – from poor weather through to oil prices affecting shipping costs or providers going out of business – all affect the profit margin.
- Staffing is always a challenge and in cities with a high cost of living, eateries often reduce opening hours or close entirely because they can’t maintain staff.
- Food quality: If customers don’t like how dishes taste, this is a weakness and a threat that must be solved.
https://bizfluent.com/info-8212877-swot-restaurants.html (Links to an external site.)
Under Module 3, there are links to articles or videos with examples that could be opportunities and in some cases definitely be a threat.
Your second individual assignment which takes the place of a final is about threats or opportunities.
Each of the examples below can be presented as a threat or an opportunity to an operation. Your task is to write a short editorial style paper that presents your professional opinion on why the topic you chose is a threat or an opportunity for a restaurateur.
This link is meant to be an example of an editorial which gives an opinion on the chosen topic. There are some references to other sources of information but most of the content is your words. You would be writing this example as a threat or opportunity from the restaurant point of view.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/opinion/tipping.html (Links to an external site.)
1. Choose one topic
Social Media
2. Determine if you will present the topic as a threat or opportunity.
3. Write your paper (editorial style). List references used (APA).
Specifically address the following:
Identify and describe the greatest threat or opportunity to the success/sustainment of a restaurant operation in the next five years.
What control does the operator have against this threat – if any? How can they adapt or plan for it?
For opportunities – what should operators be looking for? What steps should they take to capitalize on it?
Based on this identified threat or opportunity- what do you think the future implications are for the restaurant industry in general? Is this something that will continue/grow?