Mission State of St. Louis Restaurant Review

Mission

Mission Statement of St. Louis Restaurant Review

As we state on the home page, our mission is the find and helps promote the best restaurants in the St. Louis region and connect them with great customers.  With the restaurant industry facing the most challenging times, they need as much help as possible.  It is estimated that 10-12% of restaurants have closed due to the pandemic.  More will close from fatigue, lack of hope for change to pre-pandemic times, and lack of staffing.  Only smart restaurants that change operations, leverage technology, and offer delivery will likely survive as the pandemic has changed the shopping and dining behaviors of the public.  We can make the transition easy and affordable, which will increase profit margins to increase the chances of survival.  We are here to help!

Having disclosed this on the home page, we would like to expand our mission and objectives.

We have worked with many restaurants since the launch of our publication in 2014.  Therefore, we have a significant amount of experience and knowledge about the industry and its daily challenges, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic.  Those challenges have changed and increased from the pre-pandemic era.

Common errors we witness in the industry, based on experiences with local restaurants:

  1. Many restaurants do not know their numbers and utilize normal accounting procedures.
  2. Many restaurants ignore or even get frustrated with negative online reviews rather than learning to improve operations.
  3. Many don’t give their online exposure the attention it deserves.  Consumers use the web more than ever for information, shopping, and delivery.
  4. Many ignore their menus and sales of menu items.  Many keep the same items even though they don’t sell many of those items—lack of menu items rotation.
  5. Many have not created the “career” atmosphere needed to retain talent, while others don’t remove those that don’t illustrate talent.  Restaurants offer food and service.  Employees that provide customers with unsatisfactory experience will cost the restaurant a lot of money over time.
  6. In essence, a serious lack of TLC by management.

Many small family-owned restaurants didn’t make much money before the pandemic.  They have high cash flow and have used the “rob Peter to pay Paul” scenario, but no profit margin. In addition, restaurants have a high failure rate due to the lack of proper management and organizational skills.

We strongly suggest and have developed programs to help the following suggestions.  Our suggestions are based on our experience and witness to the errors at many restaurants:

  1. Improve customer satisfaction – whether it is food or service, fix it now and be willing to continue improving satisfaction.
  2. Monitor online reviews – accept constructive criticism to decide what challenges to improve.
  3. Know your financials – if you don’t have Profit and Loss Statements that meet normal accounting standards, get it structured and learn to interpret the data to improve operations.
  4. Leverage the web!  There is nothing more important to a local business than their local search results – hire a professional that truly understands digital marketing.
  5. Master delivery!  Use services that specialize in delivery or hire your own drivers.
  6. Don’t be afraid to make a change – changes are required to survive and thrive.

Over recent years it has disturbed us to see restaurant errors and lack of willingness to change but confused by failure or lack of success.  It is frustrating to hear restaurant owners get angry over a bad review rather than make the necessary changes to improve customer satisfaction, which will improve reviews.  Unfortunately, many restaurant owners think that positive reviews are impossible and that customers are just looking for a free meal.

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