Good morning! Get ready for another serving of 'The Fix,' packed with fresh industry insights and juicy tips to spice up your restaurant operations.

If you hired a lawn care service this summer — you’d save about 2 hours a week. That adds up to a whopping 64 hours a year (if your grass needs cutting 8 months out of the year).

That’s more time to hang with your kids, have date nights with your boo, or start a hula hooping gig for extra cash. (Bravo, bravo 👏)

The same idea applies to your restaurant operation. Spending less time on low-value tasks frees up time for high-value actions that help your bottom line.

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What’s on tap in this issue:

• Economy news — not as bleak as you think
• El Pollo Loco’s strutting their stuff
• Focus on what matters & outsource the rest

​​​​​Industry news

What’s cookin’ in the industry?

These tidbits of restaurant industry news will help you work smarter, not harder.

Remember: 🕖 is 💰

Economy News: The Sky’s Not Falling, Folks

When July’s job report rolled out, it created waves of economic panic. And whispers of the “R” word (Recession, shhhh). But it’s not all doom and gloom in the restaurant biz:

• Yep, the latest job report was a bit of a downer. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats said only 114,000 jobs were added in July, the lowest number since December 2020, and unemployment crept up to 4.3%.
• On the upside, restaurants added more than 19,000 of those July jobs.

While the restaurant economic news might seem shaky, there are still winners killing it. How, you ask? They’re using resources to boost customer experience and clear their plates of low-value tasks. So, if you’re looking for more stability, take notes and follow suit. 👇

El Pollo Loco Comes Out on Top

Winner, winner, chicken dinner…

These crazy chicken cookers have focused on cutting costs without sacrificing customer service or delicious food. And it shows:

• Overall, restaurant sales have steadily risen 4.5% year over year. They also reported a 170 basis-point improvement in restaurant-level margins to 18.6%.
• These sizzling numbers came from focusing on value and operations to work smarter — streamlining new building designs and going digital with kiosks and new salsa prep machines to speed up service and cut costs.

Where can you tighten things up? U.S. restaurants waste roughly 22 to 33 billion pounds of food each year. Adding sensors to your fridge & freezer equipment can help you avoid losing food unnecessarily without adding costly human labor.

​​​​​​Timely tips ​​​​​

🕣 Root out your time vampires: Farm out low-value work.

Look at your operation and figure out what you can outsource or automate. Don’t waste your or your employees’ time on tasks that software can handle.

Fyi, the average ROI of automation is 250% — not too shabby.

Try these 3 ideas to automate your most time & budget-draining tasks:

• 💸 Keep your finance team focused on tasks that’ll grow your operation, like improving margins. Use tech for tasks like collecting COI, W9s, and distributing payments to all your service providers.
   
• 🛠️ Set up systems to seamlessly route repair jobs to your preferred vendors in under 30 seconds. Playing phone tag with service providers when equipment stops working is an unnecessary time suck.
   
• 💲 Get techy with R&M budget tracking. Budget management software allows you to track expenses, budgets, and overall spend for each location down to the penny. You’ll have granular real-time insight into your financial picture, which we all know is a cornerstone to any restaurant’s success.

From the community

Luke’s Lobster Transferred Time-Sucking Tasks

Luke’s Lobster, known for its luscious Lobster rolls, has 25 U.S. locations and plans to open more.

Before ResQ, they were spending a ridiculous amount of time dealing with vendor and invoice management.

Onboarding vendors — especially gathering tax and payment info across all categories and locations was a job in itself.

Not to mention all the back-and-forth with multiple vendor account receivables. Managing invoices, tracking payments, and communication was a huge time and energy drain.

When they switched to ResQ, they transferred all vendor onboarding, invoicing, and payments for 30+ vendors to ResQ.

This freed up their CFO to focus on what they do best — raising capital and planning for the future.

Break time

Paying vendors can feel like a scavenger hunt…

The multiple payment method struggle is R.E.A.L.

— ResQ team

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Shameless plug

What does ResQ do?

ResQ is the ONLY facilities management platform that streamlines restaurant R&M operations and enhances financial oversight.

Sky-high R&M costs? ResQ provides real-time data to track expenses down to the location and equipment. You can diagnose the spendy problem and plug the leak.

Operators can also efficiently track assets, create work orders in a flash, and choose from a network of quality vendors to work with.

Love free samples? We do, too. Schedule a FREE demo to see how ResQ can help you kick R&M chaos to the curb.