Five Strategies that Restaurant Startups Must Adopt to Grow

A fast-casual restaurant startup could require mid-to-high six figures as the initial investment, whereas the fine-dining or a casual-dining restaurant in India needs a huge amount for efficient functioning. India is the second largest startup ecosystem in the world and is expected to witness a growth of 10-12% per year. A question on how to increase the profit margins always remains on top of the mind of the restaurateurs. If you are putting up the restaurant business, you definitely want to see more and more customers walk-in through the doors, besides, maintaining a loyal clientele.

Below are the tried-and-tested ways for the growth of the profit margins of your restaurant startup.

From renting your venue out for private events to offering a seasonal menu, there are multiple research-backed strategies you can use to run a successful restaurant. Here are five growth strategies that your restaurant startup must follow to boost the growth curve. 

Good Social Media Presence 

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Social media presence has, in recent times, become an essential part for a restaurant existence in the market. What we really keep in mind is that our Facebook and Instagram presence is so strong that it actually attracts the audience to come and stay at the place. For example, in our most recent campaign, we collaborated with a bunch of social media fashion influencers and came up with a concept "food meets fashion". We did a couple of videos photo shoots that actually revolved around our food meeting these fashion divas. This involved a lot of cross promotions, etc. Also, a very active social media presence helps the viewers to become potential customers.

Must Read: Know Your Clientele: Varun Puri Suggests Restaurateurs

Strong Conceptualization

Representational picture | Photo Credits Pixabay.com

The restaurant industry in India works on a strong conceptualisation, which essentially means a concept that your restaurant business is made or built upon. All our outlets for Imly have an individual and important concept behind. For instance, our first-ever Imly (Rajendra Place) was built as a train-like looking ambience from inside and outside. Depicting the true nature of the concept which was getting food from several states of India under one roof, and mostly street food which uses a lot of sweet and sour flavours with tamarind - Imly and, hence, the name.

Good Food

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Good food is the essence of a good restaurant. It’s actually the Hero. You can give your guests everything but he'd just end up coming back for how good your food was/is. The signature dishes in our outlets like - Palak Patta at Imly, Nalli Nihari, Lamb Chops at Too Indian, etc have been loved by our patrons and we've actually included them in our new restaurant chain's menu. 

Welcoming Service Staff Presence

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First impressions are very important and most of you would agree to the fact that apart from how the restaurant looks the first impression also comes from how your team greets the guests. Like escorting the guests to their respective tables for starters and then greeting them with a smile and being polite. All these things count in making a good effort for your guests to make them come back. There should always be something for the guests to look/come up to.

Click To Read: The Best Way To Advertise Your Restaurant

Good Offline Marketing Strategies

Online marketing is really the new-age marketing technique being followed by anyone and everyone. But the good old offline marketing strategies never go out of style. Few things we've been implementing regularly - hosting a lot of events at regular intervals, advertising in media and a strong PR is really an integral part of your visibility. 

Varun Puri is the Founder of Duty Free Bar in Gurugram.