The Wallich’s Post

For generations ‘Angelo’s’ has created exquisite pasta. A couple of years ago this iconic restaurant hit hard times. The price war with cheap competitors nearly undid the business then covid, cost of living challenges, supply issues and an inability to get staff caused bookings to plummet. After heated arguments among the family, it was decided that prices would be increased (not discounted) and an investment made in ‘surprise and delight’ for existing guests. A fun ‘conversation starter’ competition was initiated and wait staff were incentivised to collect guest data. Names, phone numbers, addresses, emails, anniversary and birthday dates soon accumulated. Angelo enthusiastically visited his diners from the kitchen each night and connected. Invitations were mailed to those having a birthday or anniversary the following month offering free bubbles and two sensational desserts to help celebrate. Angelo’s cost of goods sold on dessert - $14. Average meal for two - $115. That’s a 721% return on investment every time a couple returned! In addition, with every celebratory meal booked under this system, Angelo donated a small amount to the local kids soccer club to keep the equipment and facilities in good nick. Angelo simply let his diners know they mattered and that he cared. The result on bookings was stunning. When the group bookings kicked off again, he knew he was on a winner and the requests for him to cater for offsite functions exploded. Do you collect easy-to-access information from your clients by simply asking them? What do you do to surprise and delight your customers? Does it work as business growth strategy? #buntu #sendhandwritten #leadgeneration #clientretention G’day. I’m Greg.   Collaborator and contemporary human-to-human communication specialist for business.   I help you cut through the BS and render your competition irrelevant.   If you liked this post and would like to learn more…   Ring the 🔔 on my Profile to receive my content directly in your LinkedIn Notifications Tab

10 Top Tips For Maximising Your Breakfast To-Go Sales In the competitive world of convenience retail, breakfast to-go has become a significant revenue stream for many retailers. Whether you run a community based convenience store or a busy forecourt site, here are our 10 tips to help you maximise your breakfast to-go sales. https://lnkd.in/evNnapxD

Last year the weather didn’t quite behave as we’d hoped across the first bank holiday weekend in May, but thankfully the trade still saw an uplift in sales across the board. The question is are we going to see a repeat of this in 2024? Our first May bank holiday weekend of 2023 saw drinkers consume 54.1 million pints of draught beer and cider across the UK, which was an increase of +8.5% versus 2022.  In individual pub terms, that equated to an extra +112 pints sold per pub versus the same period in 2022 and, most importantly £504 extra in the till. Even more significantly, the weekend sales were up +4% versus 2019, which demonstrated a strong sign of recovery for the hospitality sector, even with the limitations of the rising bills in the Cost of Living crisis. Saturday was the biggest day of the weekend for sales with each pub selling an average of 449 pints of draught beer and cider. Across the entire weekend, the average pub served 1,430 pints of Draught Beer & Cider, helped by a little bit of sunshine here and there, and these sales equated to a £6,435 income generator. This year, the weather is forecast to be better in places so there is real hope of some pub garden action for the On Trade, particularly with Saturday ending off the championship with the final decider at lunchtime. The media is bombarding us with hope for some decent weather and barbecues are being dusted down across the country in the hope that those pesky April showers are well and truly gone! Still, we can take hope from the On Trade’s performance a year ago when the weather certainly didn’t deliver – but thankfully, sales in the UK hospitality industry still managed to do so! Let’s watch this space….. Sign up to receive our post-bank holiday report: https://bit.ly/3ZQV4QL #ontrade #pub #hospitality #beernews #analysis #bankholiday #marketwatch #draughtbeer #report #oxfordpartnership #teamoxford

Talk me through it. We have thousands of coffee shops all over our towns and cities and they have grown exponentially over recent years, yet here in the UK we are known as tea drinkers aren’t we? The UK café and coffee shop market is experiencing healthy growth, and value sales are estimated to have reached some £9.4 billion. Coffee shops remain a popular choice for UK consumers, with over half buying drinks from a coffee-focused venue in the past year, but what about tea! We have seen Gail's do some great things to shake up the market, but it’s not a tea shop in the true sense of the word. So strange no one has taken the leap into tea. Nothing beats a freshly made cuppa drunk from a bone china cup and saucer don’t you think? Even better if we can accompany it with a freshly baked pastry or tea cake and then of course we have the whole cream tea experience. Jam or cream first? So in the absence of a chain providing this quintessential British tradition, we have to track down a local independent to satisfy our appetite and thirst. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong about that - on the contrary we are supporting the local community but I can’t help but think there is a massive commercial opportunity to plug a gap or to put another way, to quench our thirst by creating a brand with national presence. I understand Whittard of Chelsea gave it a go a while back but only have one tea shop left in Scotland - running a successful Hospitality business is certainly very different from Retail. I am imagining a homely, cosy interior with traditional table service (I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of queuing up for my Americano and having to hover at the end of the counter to wait for my coffee, which happens to have my name written on it for all to see!). So if there are any budding investors out there who share my dream, please contact me. As Delboy famously said, one day we will be millionaires!

When is service not a service? One of the sales practices that has been getting quite a lot of attention on this platform over the last year or so is the proliferation of the dreaded restaurant service charge. These can be anything around 10% up to ridiculous percentages. I get frustrated by these because I cannot see the value in them. What service DON'T I get, If I don’t pay the service charge? Do I collect my own food from the kitchen? Do I cook it myself? If the service delivered is key to serving the customer, then surely it should just be calculated as part of the price. However, yesterday, I ate at a small local restaurant who charged 12.5% service charge which I was happy to pay. Why? Because I saw great added value. We were brought an endless supply of bread and a variety of home made dips, all refilled without having to ask. We were also provided tea and a small cake when the bill was delivered. None of these were charged for on the bill, they were part of the service. As a result, my perception of value was greatly increased and was happy to pay because the service was so much better than in other establishments. It was a differentiator. I am definitely going back to the Blue Garden, Holborn, next time I’m in London. #servicecharge #valueselling #sales

Hospitality industry results for Q2! Every quarter we round up what like-for-like sales, transactions and ATV looked like for London and the South-East. Our findings this quarter show a marginal increase in like-for-like sales: they grew 1.8% versus last year. The big stand out was Father's Day though. Falling on the same day as the first England match of the Euros, sales on that day were 8.6% higher than last Father's Day! Check out our full analysis below ⬇

In the build-up to Xmas and the New Year, we will analyse and publish hospitality performance weekly and on all key days. As reported by The Morning Advertiser: The period up 23rd November sees Pubs see another week of flat trading. Outlet opening hours are flat this week which is an improvement on the year-to-date trend of -2.0%. This change in trading hours is driven by the increased levels of consumer usage this week with occupancy (busyness) showing an increase of +0.7% vs. the same week last year, however, the length of visit has decreased (dwell time) by -0.8%. No doubt the snow and cold snap that landed during the week kept people out of city centres and the overall drop in dwell time shows that people weren't hanging around probably due to their concerns about the weather. STOUT CONTINUES ITS UPWARD TRAJECTORY Sales of draught beer and cider saw a drop of -7.3% this week driven predominantly by City Centre outlets down a staggering -23.6%.   Stout continues to drive forward with the category up an impressive +15.9% this week with no other category matching its phenomenal growth. World Lager saw a decline of -3.8%, Core Lager -13.5% and World 4% -11.3%, all suffering from an uncertain marketplace.  Alison Jordan, CEO of The Oxford Partnership, comments: “It is disheartening to see yet another flat week as we head into December. However, this reflects the fact that it was the week before payday this year versus a payday weekend last year which probably played a part in it, as well as the inclement weather, as some parts of the UK had snow.” #ontrade #pubs #hospitalitym #analysis #beernews #xmastrade #pub #bar #beer #food #drinks #restaurant #cocktails #music #drink #party #craftbeer #wine #nightlife #publife #teamoxford

Have you tried to get a drink after 11pm in central London recently? If you’ve been finding it increasingly difficult, you’re not alone. Perhaps that the pub you thought you could sit at for a few hours longer now rings its ‘last orders’ bell at 10:30, or your favourite old haunt has closed down altogether. Whatever the anecdotal annoyance, it is clear that the hospitality sector is an industry on the rocks. According to the Night-Time Industries Association, over 3,000 pubs, bars and restaurants have closed their doors altogether since the start of the pandemic in London alone. This is partly a consequence of the rising costs imposed on our night-time businesses – from rising commercial rents, utilities and business rates, to taxes such as beer duty. The average pub in the UK is now operating with a 3% net margin, down from 8.5% in 2019, meaning that any small change in circumstances could force them to reduce staff, operating hours, and even pack up for good. CapX readers won’t be surprised to hear that overzealous local councils in London in particular are making the problem even worse. Some, including Tower Hamlets, are imposing local alcohol duties on venues which are serving alcohol after midnight, on top of the taxes they already pay, further deterring them from staying open later in the evening. ✍️Mimi Yates https://lnkd.in/esKgPmK8

Table for four? That’s $800 please! And no I don’t mean a deposit going towards a minimum spend.  Websites such as Appointment trader, Cita and ResX allow guests to sell table reservations at sold-out restaurants.  A table for four on a Saturday can go for $800 sold at the right time. Ambitious sellers report making up tp $100K per year part-time trading reservations. But how do these sellers get the hot reservations at the first place? Websites such as Bot-it are encouraging to “save time by automating repeating tasks” and employing a bot to make restaurant, tennis, pickleball or any other reservations.  The bot will be able to perform a super-human number of continuous searches and book as soon as reservations are being released. The only risk for the sellers being booking deposits and no show charges in case the reservation does not sell. But using bots against reservations systems and reselling reservations is not new. This practice has been ongoing for concert tickets for many years. However, due to the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act, a bill passed in New York state this May, this practice is considered fraud. The bill is supported by online restaurant reservation service, one of the first platforms the trading was taking place through.  It is worth noting that New York tables are still being sold for premium at most of those trading websites. 🔸 Links: https://lnkd.in/e7j8zdU9 https://lnkd.in/exS-WpWe https://lnkd.in/em2NtrmZ 🔸 Sources: https://lnkd.in/eMxSkS52 https://lnkd.in/ewRNxk52 https://lnkd.in/eHviMEsv https://lnkd.in/emhtUeSP https://lnkd.in/eB8RfdT7 https://lnkd.in/eKc_XPXf https://lnkd.in/ecrfsD6c https://lnkd.in/eG_gfRnk https://lnkd.in/e4HqruNC #hospitality #restaurantreservations #HospitalityTech

Preventing Dine & Dash with CardsSafe It's a good idea to hold customers' bank cards securely while they run a tab to ensure they don't make off with payment. The hospitality industry has been plagued with dine-and-dash since the cost-of-living crisis. A few bad apples leaving a bar, pub or restaurant without paying can cost the venue hundreds if not thousands of pounds every year. Too many dine-and-dash cases are being reported, but simple, affordable solutions exist. Hospitality managers shouldn't worry about dine-and-dash. The good news is that CardsSafe is a genuine deterrent for walkouts because the venues securely store cards. Deers Hut pub in Liphook, Hampshire, first came to CardsSafe in 2013 to seek help with a large volume of indoor and outdoor customers' bar tabs. One of the main motivations for utilising CardsSafe was to stay on top of where their customers sat outside. Deborah Steel, the Director, told us, "The CardsSafe system is great for servicing customers who enjoy our outdoor areas." Over 5,000 venues in the UK use CardsSafe. The system is used by Young's pubs, golf courses, Hilton Hotels, Lord's Cricket Ground, and many independent restaurants and bars in the hospitality industry. CardsSafe is affordable, too. Each unit, containing ten card drawers, costs just £9.95 per month. So, just one £120* walkout is the cost of a 10-card CardsSafe unit for an entire year. In addition, each hire comes with customer service troubleshooting and free replacement keys, and additional units can be added at any time. The question is, can you afford not to have CardsSafe as a part of your business? For more information, please visit buff.ly/3cwUUdQ (http://buff.ly/3cwUUdQ) or contact the sales team on 0845 500 1040 *Plus a sign-up fee of £39.95 (plus VAT) for new customers. Read More: