Take Off By Adding Take Out - By Erin Martin

Many upscale restaurants eschew take out for obvious reasons. When the meal is presented as an event, the atmosphere is part of the experience. Chefs don't want to think of their creations being eaten out of Styrofoam clamshells with plastic forks. And in an eatery where presentation is everything, it's difficult to charge upscale prices for takeout food that might end up unrecognizable after being carried out in plastic bags. But for the faster-paced, more casual restaurant, offering and promoting take out should be second nature. Think of it as your take out strategy.

Create a Take Out Menu
First, you've got to have a take out menu. That is, unless you'd like a hapless server or host reading the menu over the phone to a customer? Make the menu a one page, simple document that can be easily reproduced and changed, as your menu changes. Upload a separate take out menu on your website-one that can be printed quickly from a personal computer/printer setup. Now is not the time to load up on graphics and fancy design. Keep it as simple as possible, while making sure that it fits with your restaurant's theme and brand.

Target Your Local Area
No restaurant exists on an island (well, many do, but none exist alone on an island). When thinking about implementing a take out strategy, think locally and act locally. After all, no one wants to buy take out and then drive 50 miles with cold, congealing food in the backseat. While your restaurant advertising may target a larger audience, focus take out promotion on the area within a few square miles of your restaurant. If you are in a residential area, provide take out menus to your local customers. Offer a 10% discount on take out orders to customers within a certain radius.

Restaurants in commercial zones have to get more creative when it comes to targeting the locals. Are you surrounded by offices? Take an afternoon and walk around to the closest offices, dropping off menus and introducing yourself and your restaurant to those manning the front desk. Since they are the likely holder of the menus and the person who will call the order in, it pays to make a great first impression. Sweeten the deal with a few treats and you'll most likely have a take out customer.

If your eatery is smack dab in a tourist destination, you may think that take out would be a lost cause. After all, eating out while on vacation is what people love to do. Why would they want take out? Consider this situation-a couple has been at the beach all day and the kids were acting up. Do you think they really want to try and wrangle them in a busy restaurant? Or would they rather take your food to go and relax in front of the TV? Not everyone will choose to do this, but it's a welcome option to have on vacation-especially the customers faced with room service prices. Advertise in the local tourism publications and maps as well as at tourist destinations (if you can).

Stock Up
Buying all the disposables for take out may seem to be a huge expense, and a waste of space. After all, you've got to be sure to stock up on plastic utensils, clamshells, sturdy paper or plastic plates, napkins, ketchup packets, soufflé cups and lids, all sizes of to go containers and large foil pans with lids. However, if you overstock on disposables, you can return unopened and unused items to your supplier. That's good to know the eighth time you knock over that sleeve of drink cups that you've never opened.

Take Out Workflow
One thing you DON'T want is your kitchen and servers getting hung up on take out orders, while dining room customers get ignored. Avoid this by assigning one front-of-the-house person to answer the phones and bag up take out orders and one back-of- the-house employee to handle the preparation and the boxing of the order.

Another tactic for those restaurants that see a lot of walk in traffic for take out orders is to steer your customers to the bar while their take out order is being cooked and assembled. Provide them with a free glass of wine and ask them their opinion on it. Of course, they'll never know that you've given them a glass of a wine from a poor-selling bottle that you are trying to finish off. You'll have made an expansive impression, and perhaps have turned a sometimes-customer into a regular customer-either walk in or take out.

Erin Martin is the Online Editor for MustHaveMenus, an online company that offers a wide selection of professionally designed restaurant menus, catering menus, and holiday menus in an easy-to-edit format. MustHaveMenus also provides the latest articles and information on restaurant management and restaurant marketing strategies. Erin blogs her thoughts on menu design and restaurant marketing at blog.musthavemenus.com.

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