As a restaurateur, your greatest challenge is to maintain focus on guest satisfaction by ensuring that you have both the necessary ingredients in terms of staff and presentation -- as well as PRODUCT. Without quality inventory at a good value derived from the establishment of successful business relationships with your food and beverage vendors you are out of business.
It has been my experience that, those independent restaurants who reach comparative benchmark life spans, ALL succeed in meeting these challenges. This includes recognizing the value of this most important relationship and developing continuing cooperative and mutually beneficial relationships with many purveyors with ease on both sides of the negotiating and delivery table.
This includes:
1. Conduct sufficient research. In addition to reviewing wholesale catalogs and the Business-to-Business Directory in your area, talk to other restaurateurs regarding their own experiences with selected purveyors -- locally, regionally and nationally. There are also a lot of mergers and acquisitions going on in the industry. A vendor who is still on your purveyor list, who used to own the nice meat market in the downtown area, has since moved and then was bought out by a national firm and, what "once was" regarding product quality and terms of sale, may have changed. Sure, your buddy, Fred, still works there and the name of the market and phone number may not have changed, but everything might be different now. It is, therefore, important to watch for these news items and keep your ear to the grapevine so that you can continually update your lists.
2. Pricing. While you may think it is unfair that the restaurant up the street that seats 500+ people and does three-turns per night is getting better pricing than you, they usually are for a good reason: Their order is $5,000 and your order at your 75 seat Bistro is $300-$400. The cost is always less when you buy more, so don't get mad at your food sales rep. It is up to you to make sure that when you buy that: you check prices with your preferred purveyor list, order adequately, drive negotiations fairly, take advantage of any and all pricing incentives, and MOVE your product. Regular inventories will also save you plenty in wasted time and extra money you would not have to spend for last minute small-quantity orders. Perhaps you can consider joint-purchases on one invoice with a neighboring restaurateur to save $$$.
3. Monitor quality control. Be CLEAR in your written (especially raw foods) specifications for ordering and assign a trusted member of your staff to INSPECT all purchases when they arrive on the bill of lading for quantity ordered, accurate weight and high quality expected. If you are using a bid system, make sure that when you review your bids that the purveyors participating meet your exact specifications so that you do not have any surprises later. While surely you are busy, most items are perishable and it is most important that you contact your purveyor immediately with any discrepancies so that corrective action can be taken as soon as possible. If you are not able to contact the purveyor yourself due to your own schedule, make sure that this task is assigned to one of your subordinates who has been trained to assess and handle these kinds of matters.
4. Recognize personality differences. Your primary objective in F&B purchasing is to get the best quality product for the most reasonable price when you want it, period. Ray at the local fish market beats everyone else hands-down, but at times happens to be a little curt with you to suit your taste when you call him to place your order. So what? He is crushed because he is doing a booming business and doesn't have as much time to be jovial. Business is business. Let Ray be Ray and, if he annoys you when you call, have someone else place the order so as not to jeopardize a profitable business relationship.
5. Pay bills on time. All invoices should be reconciled with the signed bill of lading by a responsible member of your restaurant team. If you are fortunate enough to establish credit terms with your purveyor, make sure that your pay the invoice ON OR BEFORE the due date. C.O.D., no matter what terms are offered, however, always seems to receive more favor no matter what you are purchasing.
Maren L. Hickton is the principal of Maren Incorporated, a Full-Service Hospitality Consulting and Marketing Firm based in Pittsburgh, PA. Maren writes about a variety of business challenges that independent restaurants encounter. Maren can be reached by e-mail at mareninc@aol.com or info@mareninc.com.