Good morning! Almost time to hit the polls. #GoVote ☑️ 

Speaking of voting polls…Ready yourself for possible policy changes with insights on how to cut costs while keeping your foot on the gas.

(You’re receiving this newsletter as a “thank you” for engaging with ResQ. If you’re not feeling it, simply unsubscribe here. No hard feelings.🙏)

What’s on tap in this issue:

• Tech takes a byte out of costs
• Policy at the polls
• Proactivity — the key to the mint

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​​​​🦩🌴 Planning to visit Ft. Lauderdale or Vegas in November? Us too! We’ll be in Ft. Lauderdale on Nov. 7 for the R365 Restaurant Transformation Tour & then in Vegas Nov. 11-13 for Restaurant Finance Monitor’s RFDC.

If you’ll be in either town when we’re there and would like to meet up, hit “Reply,” and we’ll make it happen. 🤝 

​​​​​Industry news

What’s cookin’ in the industry?

No matter what happens, this news will set you up for growth. 👇

What's on the 2024 election menu?

A few conversation ideas about the election to bring up at Thanksgiving…😉

• 💲 Labor costs: The federal minimum wage could go up, following the lead of 7 states (plus D.C.) that already hit the $15 mark — and California’s $20/hour for fast-food chains with 60+ locations. 
   
• 📝 Immigration: With the industry already grappling with staffing shortages, tighter immigration policies could further reduce labor availability. Right now, almost 1 in 3 food service workers are foreign-born. Restaurants may struggle to fill critical roles, impacting their ability to maintain stellar service​. 
   
• 🏷️ Taxes: Whether taxes rise or fall, restaurants will need to watch their margins. Higher corporate taxes could mean tighter budgets, while lower taxes might boost profits but cut federal funding.
  ​​​​​​
• 🍷 Tariffs: If tariffs crank up costs on imported favs like seafood, spices, or wine, restaurants might need to revamp their menus. It could mean tweaking prices, scouting new suppliers, or going local to keep dishes tasty and affordable. 

Tech it to the bank

The NRA’s 2024 Restaurant Tech Landscape Report shows how operators are investing in tech to cut costs and free up cash for growth.

• 52% are investing in BOH tech for everything from payroll and food safety to inventory and kitchen efficiency.
• 37% are planning on adopting automated recruitment and scheduling systems.

BJ’s Restaurants freed up $35 million in annual cost savings and improved margins to 15% (up from 14.4% in Q4 of 2023). How?

• AI-powered forecasting helped optimize staff scheduling for peak times and sales. 
• Shrinking the menu by 10% made labor more efficient and lowered food costs.

Timely tips

"Change before you have to." — Jack Welch

Proactivity is the difference between regularly maintaining your car or just cruising until you’re broke down on the side of the road. The latter is always going to be pricier than maintenance.

Try these 4 tips to keep costs down 👇 and scalability high. 👆

🛬 Put preventative maintenance programs on autopilot — ResQ automates your preventive maintenance to reduce labor costs and unexpected equipment downtime while ensuring you get visibility into asset history.

📈 Use software to track and analyze patterns in machine swaps, equipment failures, and repairs to identify areas for cost savings. ResQ tracks data to surface insights on time & dollars spent on work orders across equipment and facilities.

👨‍🎓 Educate your staff on basic maintenance tasks and best practices — like properly unclogging drains or handling equipment. You'd be shocked at how many breaks are caused by misuse. This saves you money in 2 ways: 

1. Not paying vendors to fix small things that your employees can easily handle.
2. Not paying vendors to repair a piece of equipment that was mishandled by a team member.

🌡️ Consider integrating IoT sensors for real-time equipment temp or humidity monitoring. ResQ’s IoT-enabled sensors automatically monitor all your food equipment and alert you if anything goes wrong. They catch problems when they’re small, minimizing inventory loss. 

From the community​​​​​

Centralized R&M Cuts Costs and Elevates Oversight

Doc B’s Restaurant Group, known for exceptional guest experiences, faced R&M challenges across multiple locations. With operations expanding to Chicago and Dallas, the company seized the opportunity to overhaul its R&M processes and turned to ResQ for a simplified, scalable solution.

By centralizing operations within ResQ, Doc B’s upgraded workflow, automated preventative maintenance, and slashed time spent managing repairs by a whopping 80%. 

Implementing ResQ has given Doc B’s epic transparency, from work order submission to final payment. Leadership can control spending, approve repairs for multiple locations based on strategic needs, and source vendors in minutes rather than hours. 

The result is a more harmonious R&M process that delivers continued savings, better oversight, and scalable operational control.

Break time

We thought about making a political meme…

But how about Moo Deng instead? 

— Kareem at ResQ

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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 oversight.

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

ResQ makes it possible to cut costs, save time, and scale — all at the same time

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