Community Contest - How do you prepare for the Busy Season?

[jenni]

Hi everyone! 👋

I wanted to share some great news! From March 15-31, we want you to reply and share how you and your team get ready for the busy season in this post. By doing so, you’re automatically entered for the chance to win $1,000 to support your restaurant's busy season preparations! Terms Apply.

We'd love to get to know you and hear how your restaurant team prepares for the busy season. Reply and tell us more about you below!

• Name
• Restaurant Name
• Location
• How long have you been a Toast customer?
• What are your best tips on preparing for the busy season?

[NuCrepes]

My name is Niall Martin and I own/operate Nu Crepes in Elmhurst, IL. We do a fast casual fare, served in crepe form! Warmer and busier months means we get to play with fun seasonal creations to help support our main menu.

We've been with Toast since Q3 of 2019, and honestly were glad we were up and running prior to 2020. The inclusive suite(s) that Toast had to offer really helped us when we were running lean and mean during the early Covid stages and it was supremely helpful. They continue to be an aid in our day to day business.

In today's climate, both macro and micro, we look 2 months ahead of where we want to be. This means we start our Spring/Summer early projects to complete. This may include building infrastructure or testing new product ideas. We also start work-shopping our social media content guide. What videos, images, vibes are we trying to display for the warmer months. This helps us get ready for what we call the start of busy season; Mother's Day. We consider this our stress test for the upcoming months, so we like to have new staff hired in before this so everyone is on the same page of operation and promotions. 

I've learned along the way that you should always be ahead 2-3 months, even if you're a sole proprietor! Nothing like teasing upcoming ideas and products to your customer group. This season we are looking to engage our customer base more by offering polls and voting which Crepe of the Month we should bring back for one month only in the summer!

[TBGVegasBBQ]

LOVE the polling and voting ideas!  Thanks for the suggestions!  We'll have to do that with some of our specialty items like brisket and the Sunday Dinner Sundae--mac-n-cheese, greens, and the smoked meat of your choice served on a baked potato (regular or sweet potato)--it's so yummy!

[TallJay]

The busy season for Chinese food is the traditional holiday season and in general the winter months.  

Being prepared means being ready for most eventualities across the entire business.

Premises - all safety checks.

Equipment- running, fully operational and maintained.

Human resources- having backups if the need arises due to sickness,  etc. 

Food supplies- talking with all major suppliers. Finding out their delivery schedules and if any product slow downs are developing. 

Marketing- contacting customers who placed large orders in previous years.

The key to successful marketing is knowing your customers. 

Best, 

Jay Hirschhorn 

On Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 7:41 PM Jenni from Toast <communityupdates@toasttab.com> wrote:

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[princepuckler]

• Name: Laura Robertson
• Restaurant Name: Prince Puckler's Ice Cream
• Location: Eugene, OR
• How long have you been a Toast customer?: Since 2020
• What are your best tips on preparing for the busy season?: Hire early and get ahead of inventory!  As an ice cream store, we are our most busy in the summer months, and so the sooner we can prepare, the better we are at handling the unexpected and not falling behind.