How to scale your restaurant operations: 3 actionable tips for multi-location restaurants

Running a thriving and profitable restaurant business is any operator’s ultimate goal. For multi-location restaurant owners, that means replicating the success of their first few restaurants and scaling their brand concept to dozens, if not hundreds of units. 

But what are the key ingredients for effectively scaling your restaurant operations?

Whether you want to expand your concept to 5, 20, or 50 new locations, there are a few steps you can consistently take to emulate the success of your existing restaurants and lay a solid foundation for each new property.

These steps include creating and optimizing your standard operating procedures (SOPs) before rolling them out to new locations, finding the right technology to centralize operations in the front and back of the house, and ensuring a reliable team is in place to help you succeed.

When done right, implementing economies of scale will also improve your brand consistency, customer experience, and customer loyalty. 

So, buckle up, and explore three actionable tips for scaling your multi-location restaurant operations!  

#1 Perfect your standard operating procedures (SOPs)

Defining your standard operating procedures is the first step to successfully scaling your restaurant operations to multiple properties. 

In essence, SOPs are your restaurant’s playbook. They outline a list of rules, standards, and norms your employees should follow to safely, effectively, and professionally fulfill their tasks. 

Restaurant operators create SOPs to streamline every process in the front and back of the house so that all team members know exactly what to do and how to do it without even thinking twice.

Your back-of-house standard operating procedures should describe things like:

• food preparation and presentation;

• health and hygiene regulations;

• food safety standards;

• kitchen equipment handling (use, cleaning, and maintenance);

• food storage and inventory management;

• delivery and take-out order standards.

Topics to include in the SOPs about your front-of-house operations are:

• customer greeting and seating standards;

• order-taking, serving, and delivery guidelines;

• cleanliness standards;

• billing and payment procedures;

• customer complaint management.

Your staff’s ability to replicate these standard operating procedures is crucial to ensuring your restaurant business runs like a well-oiled machine – in every location and step of the road. 

Therefore, everything must be running smoothly in your first restaurant before you even think about expansion.

#2 Use technology to centralize your operations 

Once you have implemented and perfected your SOPs, you can take things to the next level by leveraging the right restaurant management technology. 

Tech platforms help you centralize BOH and FOH operations, allowing your restaurant flows to communicate. This integrated approach improves communication across locations and increases operational efficiency.

Technological innovations can also make specific materials or operational guidelines accessible to all employees regardless of location, such as your recipe database, training modules, or instructional sheets.

So, what kind of technology do you need if you want to take a unified approach for your restaurant ops? 

A flexible, cloud-based restaurant POS is a good start, especially if it integrates with other software solutions like inventory management platforms, online ordering channels, accounting programs, in-house dining apps, or staff planning tools.

Suppose your restaurant also offers online food delivery or takeout. In that case, you can streamline your off-premises order flows with an all-in-one online ordering management solution that integrates online orders to your existing POS. Doing so will enable you to scale your delivery and take-out operations consistently and efficiently to your restaurant units.

#3 Build a consistent and reliable team

Finally, assembling a solid team is crucial to scaling your restaurant business. Hiring good people can help your restaurant survive; hiring exceptional people can help you thrive. That’s why looking for a stellar restaurant team that can help you scale and optimize your operations across units is vital. 

It’s a good idea to look at your current staff and see which team members you can promote to new positions in different branches. Promoting from within will allow you to maintain the same high standards in every unit while helping your staff reach their full potential.

Another benefit of leveraging your existing team’s expertise is that they can set the standard for new employees entering your restaurant business. 

But even with a great team, you still need to develop an extensive training manual or an employee handbook that you can roll out to all the different properties. The training guide should cover:

• your mission statement and vision;

• your company’s core values;

• your brand concept;

• your ideal guest experience;

• your operations manual from step 1;

• best practices from other locations;

• how-to guides and checklists for front- and back-of-house staff;

• equipment and technology platform manuals;

• training goals and KPIs;

• resources for cross-training;

Having an experienced team to rely on will not only help you scale operations in your existing restaurants. It will also better equip you to add new locations as you can count on a steady team to help you grow your business and train newcomers.

Expanding your restaurant business starts with consistently scaling your operations

Whether you want to open a new restaurant or a dark kitchen, expand your delivery or take-out services, or branch out to new segments, ensuring your restaurant operations run smoothly in your existing units is key.

The first step to sustainably expanding operations is fine-tuning your restaurant’s standard operating procedures and guaranteeing people live by them. Investing in technological support and surrounding yourself with a solid and dependable team come next.

Once you’ve successfully scaled operations across your restaurants, you’ll find it easier to open new locations and introduce your streamlined operations to ensure maximum consistency and exceptional customer experiences. Especially with an experienced partner like Deliverect that can take your off-premises sales to new heights! 
Reach out to our industry experts today to see how Deliverect’s solution can help you scale your online ordering operations.