East Coast Chair and Barstool Blog

There is no restaurant concept more creative than being one step away from literally putting customers behind a prep table or oven. We’re talking about “build your own meal” restaurant concepts and why they flourish. Popular examples of restaurants that use this concept include Blaze Pizza, Chipotle, Noodles and Company, and Burgatory. These restaurants put the creativity in customers hands as they select the ingredients and toppings that are going into their entrée, with endless possibilities.

See how this concept works and how you can shake up your restaurant’s processes with these tips!

Smooth Ordering

Long gone are the days of ‘can you put the tomatoes on the side?’ and ‘can I substitute kale for lettuce?’ Commonly these restaurants use an assembly line system where the meal and customer move down the line or, at sit-down establishments, customers fill out a check list of everything they want on their entrée.

This should also reduce the margin for error with a server taking down an order. It’s easier for something to be misheard and written down incorrectly at a bustling restaurant versus a customer putting a tick mark next to jalapenos.

The typical ordering process for these restaurants allows customers to order comfortably and not have to communicate their likes and dislikes to a waiter- picky eaters unite! It can also save the staff time going through each option with the customer.

What you can do in your restaurant: Streamline the order process for customers by breaking it down, step by step. Start with the base meal and work your way up with options. For example, start with the different kinds of meat they can choose for their burger. Then, work to buns, cheese, toppings, and sauces to finish their order.

Transparency

With “build your own meal” concepts, restaurants are forced to be upfront and honest about their ingredients. It’s likely you’ve been to eateries where you can see their ingredients behind a sneeze guard and they aren’t really looking as “fresh” as they say (here’s looking at you, Subway).

When customers are building their meals down the line or even from a notepad, they want to see basic options, as well as some places they can get a little creative. These ingredients need to look and sound (if written) appetizing to invite customers to have a little fun with their food.

Restaurants offering truly fresh ingredients can make customers can feel good about what they’re choosing to put into their bodies. So, try partnering with local farms to get fresh produce or meat. This is not only a mutually beneficial partnership but will promote local sustainability and sourced foods as well.

What you can do in your restaurant: Label, label, label! If ingredients are gluten-free, vegetarian/vegan-friendly, or soy-based, let customers know. The more detailed you can be with your ingredients, the better.

Experience

The modern restaurant is moving toward these customized experiences, like “build your own meal”, because it integrates the customers into the theatrics. Dinner becomes much more like a production than just ordering tacos a specific way, it’s a curated food adventure. 

With the possibilities of “build your own meal” concepts, customers could come ten times to your pizza place but have a different experience every single time based on their choices.

There is just a little ego-building that goes into “build your own meal” concepts. Customers are being asked to take the reins, so it’s up to them what they create. If they create something they love or is just not quite what they were hoping, there’s a possibility they’ll be back to tweak it so it’s perfection.

Try also featuring a combination of the month. This could spark a customer’s creativity while also enticing people to stop by!

What you can do in your restaurant: When you make your list of ingredient choices, make sure to not offer flavors that will ruin a customer’s meal. For example, if a customer has decided to float their burger in a marmalade and they’re not satisfied with their meal, technically, that was their choice, but you don’t want that to impact their possibility of a return visit.

The trend of putting the customer in control works seamlessly with “build your own meal” concepts because of their smooth ordering process, transparency, and experience value. Putting the customer in charge really changes the whole dynamic of a restaurant’s traditional business model.  

Would you ever try adding “build your own meal” aspects to your menu offerings? Let us know in the comments below.

How many times have you heard the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words? In today’s world of constant social media interaction, that saying is truer than ever. Photos, especially photos of food, have become a major part of all social media interactions, especially on Instagram.  Now it isn’t like you can just slap up any old photo on your profile and call it a day. The higher quality and more interesting the photos, the more likely they are to be shared and bring customers in your door. But food photography can be challenging, so we’ve put together some helpful tips to have your business putting its best foot forward.

Ideal Lighting

Lighting is probably one of the most important aspects of taking a good photo. If you are able, try to use natural light with indirect sun. This will have your food looking its best, showing off its natural colors, and avoiding harsh shadows. Placing food on a table next to the window is a great way to achieve natural but indirect light. Food placed under fluorescent lighting tends to change tones and colors.

While natural light is best for photos, it isn’t always realistic in restaurants where ambiance and mood lighting are important, and probably dimmer than what you would like. If your restaurant doesn’t have access to natural lighting, you can purchase some equipment to get you closer to achieving great lighting. The Wescott 43” Apollo Orb is a relatively inexpensive option that will get the job done.

Tip: Many commercial table tops will be reflective. Watch out for this when lighting your photos, you don’t want it to distract from the food.

The Perfect Angles

Different angles capture the distinctive components of varying types of food. For example, a plate of grilled chicken and sides might be best shot from above. This will showcase the entire plate and let customers know exactly what they are getting. Items that stack, like burgers and pancakes, are better shot at a 45-degree angle. This showcases the layers and all the goodness in-between. Having photos that vary the angle also help to create variety and interest when you post them to your social accounts or use them in your menu.

Tip: Try to work in triangles. Items shot in groups of three, creating triangles helps to create structure and simplicity.

Staging Your Food

Staging your photos allows you to put your very best foot forward. That being said, staging should complement your food rather than overwhelm it. There are a few things that you can do to present your food in the best possible way. First thing is to make sure that the area you are taking the photo in is clean. Nothing is worse than having great looking food surrounded by crumbs or other unsightly things. It can really ruin the vibe of the photo and distract from the focal point.

The second thing is to switch up your props and backgrounds. Keeping it the same all the time is going to make your photos become boring after a while. If you find yourself in a slump, you can go to the nearest hardware store for some materials with different textures that you can place your plates on.

Finally, take a moment to make sure your food is looking its best is crucial. Adding a little garnish can go a long way. If you find your food looking a little lackluster, you can brush a bit of oil or water to make things look fresh. Don’t overdo it though.

Tip: For inspiration on staging, find a few Instagram accounts that you love and try to emulate their work.

Benefits of Action Shots

Actions shots are a great way to diversify photos and add some interest. A creative way to get these is with a few behind the scenes photos. Your chef stirring up a batch of soup or about to slice some ingredients for your signature dish is an engaging way to let your customers see what goes on in the back and get them craving your food.

Tip: Action shots are also great for adding a human element. It helps to tell your story so don’t be afraid to include hands in some of your food photos.

Editing

The amount of editing you do is entirely up to you. If you choose to edit your photos, there are plenty of free or low-cost editing apps that you can utilize. Depending on the amount of time you spend taking photos and editing, you might want to consider installing Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. These programs have long been recognized as the top editing software.

Tip: Try not to over edit your photos. To much editing will look fake and potentially tacky.

Branding

Just like everything else in your restaurant, your photos should work within your overall brand design. If your restaurant is a bright breakfast spot it wouldn’t make sense for all of your photos to be dark and dreary. However if you are a romantic little bistro with mood lighting, darker photos might feel just right. Before posting any photo be sure to ask yourself if it is sending the message that you want.

Terms & Concepts

If you are an inexperienced photographer or a pro who needs a refresher here are some photography terms and concepts to keep in mind when shooting. While following some of these concepts might elevate your photos, that doesn’t mean you have to stick to them. Use your own creativity and see what you come up with!

Depth of Field: The distance between the nearest and furthest objects where objects appear acceptably sharp in an image and in focus. By adjusting your depth of field, you can really make it clear to the viewer what you want to be the focal point of the picture. 

Rule of Thirds: A guideline that proposes an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts and that compositional elements should be placed along the lines for a more balanced photo.

Bokeh: The out of focus blurred parts in a background.

Exposure: How light or dark an image is.

Aperture: The size of the opening in the lens. The larger the opening the more light allowed into the lens.

Photos are a universal language that doesn’t need a translator. They are an effective way to communicate to customers and entice them to come to your restaurant. Food photography might seem intimidating, but by ensuring that you have good lighting, interesting content, and some creative thinking, you’ll be well on your way to showcasing your food and your restaurant in the best way possible.

Do you have any food photography tips for us? Let us know in the comments!

When looking at restaurant booths, there are a lot of options to choose from. If you decide to create a custom booth design the options can seem endless and overwhelming. One of the options that you might notice is the selection for a tufted booth, but what exactly is a tufted booth?

To tuft a fabric means to make depressions at regular intervals by passing thread through it. Most commonly found on different types of cushions, including the back cushion of a restaurant booth.

A tufted booth is a fabric or vinyl restaurant booth that has tufting on the back created by depressions in the material. Typically, it is done in a repeating diamond pattern, which is most common. The diamond button pattern uses a combination of buttons and folds to create diamond shapes on the back of the booth.

In total there are four types of tufting: biscuit button tufting, diamond button tufting, single line button tufting, and buttonless tufting. By using these four different styles, completely different looks can be created.

Adding tufting to a restaurant booth can create some flair and visual interest, to an otherwise simplistic booth. Or it can be used as added texture to an already beautiful booth. Designers use tufting to create a particular booth design that can then help communicate to customers the feel of the restaurant. Typically, it is used to communicate a feeling of comfort and luxury.

If you’d like to see examples of all styles of booths, check out our booth gallery on our Facebook page.

The start of a new year can bring excitement and an extra boost of motivation to get your restaurant on track for a successful year. Resolutions aren’t just for your personal life, they are great for setting goals for your business as well. Now is the perfect time to refocus your intentions and evaluate your restaurant’s performance up to this point. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in business five years or fifty years, this self-reflection can reignite your excitement for your business.  

Here are some resolution ideas that can help set your restaurant on the path to success for the year:

Improve food inventory management.

Work together with your food purchaser to know exactly how often certain foods are ordered and how quickly they’re being used up. You’ll also want to meet with your cooks and waitstaff about how ingredients and products are being used. After conducting a food waste audit, create a system that will let you use your orders to the fullest, with as little waste as possible.

According to the “Restaurant Food Waste Action Guide” created by ReFED (a collaboration of private, nonprofit, and public-sector leaders to reduce food waste in the United States), the tracking of thrown away food could cut food costs by two to six percent. Not only can this reduce food waste for the planet, it will also save you from buying unnecessary products that end up going to waste.

Get (more) involved in your community.

Plan out events for the year that will drive customers to your restaurant for an extra meal and even add some new faces to your regular crowd.

Is there a big local rivalry game coming up? Offer specials customized to that event and put together a theme night. Want to partner with other businesses? Spearhead hosting a festival so that other businesses can show off their wares and you’ve got the food covered.

Give back more.

Have you been approached for a charitable fundraising event but not sure how to accomplish it? Set up guidelines and a fundraising packet to give to interested organizations. This way both parties know what they can expect, and the process is streamlined, making it easy to collaborate.

Not only will customers appreciate your business supporting causes they care about, you might even gain new customers that wouldn’t have come in otherwise.

Know when to delegate.

You don’t need to be the jack of all trades to have a successful restaurant, but you do need to know how to manage your time effectively to best serve your business. This requires knowing when you should take on a task and when you need to delegate it to others.

Take the time to be serious about setting your calendar and the server schedule. This will help you be more realistic about the free time you have and where you’ll need to pull another manager or staff member to pick up the slack.

Hiring with intent.

Increase the thought behind when you hire someone. Yes, you are always hiring with specific tasks in mind, but are you just finding any warm body to do them? It’s important to find hard-workers that are self-starting and motivated.

Take the time to analyze your current staff as well. Compare how long they’ve been there to see what is working. If you’re having trouble with hiring, look at how the benefits/perks you’re offering stack up against similar restaurants in your area.

Commit to safety.

Staying current on OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requirements for your restaurant is not only smart, it’s essential and can prove to be expensive if not followed. Provide your employees a safe, happy, and healthy environment this year by following OSHA’s guidelines. Give regular trainings on fire and equipment safety, especially when new hires are added to your staff.

Knowing how to properly store and prepare food is also important for any restaurant employee to be familiar with. This can build employee confidence and protect customers from food-handling ailments.

The start of a new year is a great time to refocus what your restaurant’s mission is and make changes toward it accordingly. What resolutions are you focused on keeping for your restaurant business?

It has been another great year at East Coast Chair & Barstool. So we’d like to take a moment to take a look back at some of our favorite customer showcases from 2018. Click through the slideshow to see all the wonderful ways our customers have used our furniture to bring their visions to life.

A big thank you to our customers for making us a part of their year and for sharing photos of their beautiful businesses. If you’d like to submit a photo, you can do so by emailing or messaging us on Facebook.

If you have been to a local brewery within the past few years, you may have noticed something a little unexpected during your visit. It might have been colorful, or had a funny name, but it definitely smelled delicious. It was a food truck parked either in front of or in a breweries parking lot offering up appetizing options. Breweries and food trucks are developing a mutualistic relationship that both can benefit from in terms of brand awareness and increased sales.

The numbers for 2018 aren’t in yet, but the growth for breweries in 2017 was strong. The Brewers Association reported an increase of 6,000 breweries in 2017. While the food truck industry is experiencing revenue growth of over 300% in the last three years. Across the United States of America, these two incredibly fast-growing industries are partnering up to boost business for each other. The food truck of today isn’t some shady taco truck hanging out on the corner of the street, that might have been the cause of your food poisoning that one time. These are trucks with themes, curated menus, and devoted owners and staff. Basically, a restaurant operation on wheels!

Breweries are notoriously expensive to get started. Opening your own brewery can range from $100,000 to upwards of $1 million, and once that is all paid for some brewers just don’t have room in the budget to include a full kitchen, food, and the staff to man it. This is where the food truck industry comes in. These portable kitchens are a match made in heaven for a brewery. They offer a product that helps to keep customers on the premises longer, while at the same time not being in competition with the brewery.

Breweries and Food Trucks: A Symbiotic Relationship

Breweries and food trucks aren’t offering the same things, so customers don’t have to choose one over the other. Breweries draw crowds that a food truck can take advantage of, and having a food truck, is just one more experience that a brewery can offer their customer to set them apart from the crowd. Many breweries have even developed a rotating schedule that they post weekly to let customers know what trucks will be available.

Food trucks also come with their own social media following that eagerly waits for them to post their scheduled stops for the week. This is a customer base that they can bring to the brewery and encourage to try the brews. On the very same note, a brewery can have a set of truly devoted customers who wouldn’t think to try food from a Korean BBQ fusion truck, until it was placed right in front of them.

Shared Target Audiences Between Breweries and Food Trucks

It seems that the same customer that is drawn to a brewery, is also drawn to food being served out of a truck. The food truck experience capitalizes on a sense of adventure. It is new food in a different place every night. There is also a level of exclusivity that comes with only being able to serve a limited number of customers and food that can only be found at that particular truck.

Customers also enjoy the personal attention and interaction that occurs at breweries and food trucks. Owners and chefs tend to be more accessible at these businesses and customers enjoy talking about the drinks and food and learning about the processes required to make the food. This works great with breweries that have an outdoor area because the truck is right there!

Curating the Right Menu

Another benefit to food trucks is their easily customizable menu. They can adjust the menu to parallel the craft beer or wine being offered by the brewery. Trucks are seeing success using beers from the brewery to concoct beer infused burgers, or by offering pretzels created to complement the drinking process. If a food truck can create something specific to that brewery that they can sell when the truck isn’t there, such as a special drinking pretzel, even better. Breweries and food trucks can both share in the profits even if the truck isn’t on the premises.

Brewery-goers tend to want salt, bread, meat, and the occasional veggie mixed in. When pairing up with a brewery, a food truck needs to consider their audience when creating the menu. An all veggie menu is probably not going to sell as well as something with meat and bread.

Both breweries and food trucks have seen incredible growth over the past few years with no sign of slowing down. By pairing together, they can help ensure the success of both businesses.

Do you have a favorite brewery and food truck combo?  Or has your business paired with a food truck or brewery before? Let us know in the comments below!

We often have customers call us from Canada, Mexico, Europe, and even the Middle East to order furniture. We only ship to the lower 48 states in the US, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out of luck. By using a freight forwarder, you can still order your favorite East Coast Chair & Barstool products and get them sent anywhere.

A freight forwarder is a company that specializes in moving freight around the world on behalf of both companies and individuals. They do not transport the freight themselves, but they work with air, land, and sea shippers; think of them as the project manager in charge of getting your freight to you. A good freight forwarder will assist you with coordination, documentation, insurance, and tracking for your shipment. They will also warehouse your shipment until it is ready to leave and can consolidate multiple shipments from different suppliers into one larger shipment so that it all leaves together.

One of the main benefits of using a freight forwarder is that they build relationships with shippers and move a large volume of freight, so they can often negotiate better rates than what you could get for a single shipment.

If you need to ship your East Coast Chair & Barstool furniture to Alaska, Hawaii, or any country other than the US, you will need to hire a freight forwarder and work out the logistics before purchasing from us. The forwarder will give you a U.S. based address to ship the furniture to, which you will then give to us as the delivery address.  Please note that, after your shipment arrives at the forwarder, you assume ownership of it, and it is your (or the forwarder’s) responsibility to get it to its final destination.

The beginning of a new year is an exciting time! People use it as a clean slate and a way to start over. Have your customers end their year and turn over a new leaf in your restaurant with New Year’s Eve promotions that will let them have the time of their life (*cues up Dirty Dancing theme*).

Choose Your Atmosphere

When you think of New Year’s Eve, sounds of champagne bottles popping and glasses clinking may come to your mind in a more adult setting. But the beauty of a New Year’s Eve party is that it can be geared toward whatever audience you want! While it obviously works well in bars, there are other establishments that can still get in on the holiday festivities. Are most of your customers families with younger children? Have a New Year’s Eve early dinner with kids’ activities and crafts so everyone can be entertained. Even breakfast joints can get in on the celebration by hosting a New Year’s Day brunch and catch the crowd the morning after, bonus points if you have a build your own Bloody Mary bar.

Choose Your Theme

A theme is very important for creating hype and interest. It’s easy for customers to justify popping a bottle of champagne and watching the ball drop from the comfort of their homes, but a good theme can entice them to see the value in the experience (around 9% of Americans go out for New Year’s). Pick one that you think would be the most fun and memorable for your guests to enjoy. Some popular themes over the years include reality TV, roaring 20’s, beach, New Orleans, and 90’s throwback. Although a theme isn’t necessary (even just New Year’s Eve could be your theme!), it can really lend itself when you’re decorating your space and creating a memorable menu.

Choose Your Promotion Method

The key to get people to show up? Make sure they know about it! With so many other holiday gatherings happening, all around a few weeks span, it’s important to promote your New Year’s Eve party around the beginning of December.

Try some of these methods to advertise your party and keep it marked on their social calendar.

• Flyers in your restaurant, on community boards, and on customer receipts
• Email blasts
• Mentioned by staff
• Menu inserts
• Text alerts
• Social media advertisement (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

If you’ve had prior New Year’s events, be sure to send out notices to past attendees that they are not going to want to miss this year!

After you have their attention, consider selling ticket packages to the event. This can help lay out what guests can expect from the event and people are more likely to follow through if they have already paid the money upfront to attend an event. For example, packages could include appetizers, dinner, drink tokens, or even a champagne toast. Having these preset packages can help you order food/drinks appropriately for your crowd and prevent overcapacity. You could even incentivize your staff with who can sell the most tickets for a prize to keep them engaged and customers informed!

Choose Your Entertainment

Music or some sort of entertainment is a must for your New Year’s Eve party! Having entertainment completely transforms the whole feel for the evening. Whether it’s a DJ, live band, magician, or any kind of performer, give your attendees some sort of show they can enjoy while they wait for midnight. You can factor this into the cost of a ticket to your event.

But don’t forget to make a countdown announcement or put the ball drop on a few minutes before midnight so guests can officially ring in the new year as it happens.

Choose Your Staff

It may seem obvious that since your doors are open, you’ll need to schedule your staff. Customer service needs to be at its highest since your restaurant has transitioned to more of an event center than its normal eatery operations.

Bartenders should pay careful attention to how much guests are being served, since overserving is a big issue with the holiday. In fact, DUI arrests are at their highest between Thanksgiving and the end of New Year’s weekend. Having the right staff members on hand to make sure guests have a good and safe experience is crucial to helping everyone have a great time.

Planning a New Year’s Eve party for your restaurant may seem overwhelming but it’s a great way to bring your customers (and maybe some new faces) in for the holiday. A successful New Year’s event, especially those that are ticketed, can be a lucrative start to what may be a slower month in business.

Does your restaurant host an event for New Year’s Eve? What do you found that has worked for your business in the past? Tell us below!

In the restaurant industry, the rush starts the day before Thanksgiving, and doesn’t really end until after New Year’s Eve. It ends on a busy note as New Year’s Eve also known as the fourth busiest day of the year for restaurants. To handle an influx like that, it is best to start preparing before the turkey ever hits the table. By preparing appropriately you can help to reduce the strain on your staff while keeping customers happy and keeping your business in the black.

Manage Employee Expectations

It is crucial to make it clear to employees what is expected of them during this crazy time. Whether that means a freeze on PTO, long shifts, or extra responsibilities, make an effort to clearly communicate your expectations and possible policy changes. Consider posting these changes on a community board next to the schedule or during an all-staff meeting. If you don’t make your expectations clear, you run the risk of having disgruntled employees who might offer less than stellar customer service.

Train Your Servers in Efficiency

During this busy season, it is all-hands-on-deck, so everyone needs to be willing to handle tasks they aren’t usually called to do. Servers can help by pre-bussing tables with bus bins and boxes. This can help to decrease the wait time for customers and keep things running smoothly. Try to suggest dishes and seasonal menu items as the guests are being seated. Chances are the quicker a suggestion is made, the sooner they will make up their mind quicker and keep things moving.

Another tip to keep guests moving, is by bringing them their bill as soon as they are done eating. Give them the option of paying but don’t be pushy. Remind them that there is no rush to avoid seeming to aggressive and making them feel unwelcome.

Hiring Seasonal Help

Hiring seasonal help is a great way to handle the extra business and make sure you aren’t overworking your regular staff. You can start your recruitment efforts by talking to your summer seasonal help. Some of the them might be college students looking to make some money while they are home for the holidays.

To get an idea of how much additional staff you will need, take a look at historical data to give you an idea for the upcoming holiday season. Evaluate the busiest days, and staff accordingly. If this is your first holiday season in business, try to pull data from particularly busy times since you opened your doors. If Thursday nights were unexpectedly busy through November, schedule additional staff during those times in the upcoming days.

Provide Staff Incentives

While your business is your top priority, not all of your staff might feel that way during the holidays. As busy as your restaurant is, you have to remember that your staff is missing out on time with family and friends to be at work. On top of that being required to work extra shifts can lead to some feelings of resentment. To help keep morale high, consider offering some incentives. Things like holiday bonuses, an employee party, or small gifts can go a long way in lifting spirits.

If you are running a seasonal promotion, you can offer incentives to the employee who sells the most. Selling tickets to a New Year’s Eve party? Perhaps the staff member who sells the most tickets is rewarded with a bonus or doesn’t have to work that day.

Offer a Seasonal Menu

Offering a seasonal menu can be a great help to your staff. Not only does it make the time of year feel a little more special to guests, but also contributes to a quicker turnover. Not to mention it makes it easier for your staff to upsell. These items are fun, festive, and available for a limited time. Staff can work with all of these aspects to entice customers to purchase.

The holiday season is a time when customers are gathering and indulging, so a seasonal menu is a great way to make some money. People who wouldn’t normally indulge in a cocktail can be seen partaking in alcoholic eggnog or ordering an extra decadent dessert.

Manage Inventory Closely

Of course, it’s easy to realize that inventory will decrease quickly during your busiest time of year; it’s totally different, however, to be in the middle of a mad rush and realize you have run out of a signature ingredient. Try your best to regulate inventory. Take a look back at your ordering records from previous years and pull together an ordering plan based upon those numbers and your expected increase in sales.

Do your best to ensure that you don’t run out of items, as it leaves a bad impression during a time of the year when customers are already very stressed.

Online Success

Another strategy to control the chaos is by offering online reservations and ordering. Online reservations reduce the strain on a host or hostess rushing between taking phone reservations and doing their best to seat the influx of customers.

By offering online ordering you can not only widen your market, but improve order accuracy. In a crowded restaurant it can be hard to hear customers, or the general rush can lead to mistakes. Online ordering eliminates these issues that lead to mistakes. By having one employee devoted to online orders or online orders and online reservations, it helps to free up the rest of your employees. They can be left to focus on the customers in the restaurant.

The holidays are so full of cheer that it can be hard to catch your breath in all the craziness. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to reduce the stress on your staff and keep your customers happy. By looking through records, prepping your staff, and integrating online strategies, you can look forward to an efficient and successful holiday season.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 9 months, you’re probably aware that the US and China have been approaching a full-scale trade war, imposing progressively larger tariffs back and forth on one another.  If the trend continues, come January 2019, there will be tariffs in place on nearly all Chinese goods imported into the US, and vice versa. Similarly, we have imposed tariffs on some Canadian and Mexican goods, and they have followed suit. We’re not here to argue whether this approach is right or wrong – we’ll leave that to the economists and pundits on TV – but, we are here to discuss what, if any, impact these tariffs will have on your restaurant.

Tariffs Are Designed to “Hit Em Where it Hurts”

When countries impose tariffs, they can take one of two approaches: a shotgun blast tariff on all goods across the board; or, more commonly, a scalpel approach that targets certain industries to inflict maximum economic, or political, pain. For example, in this latest round of tariffs, the Chinese approach has been to target the US agriculture industry, which makes up a large percentage of the US economy and happens to be highly representative of the current administration’s voter base in rural America.

What Do Tariffs Have to Do with the Restaurant Industry?

So, how exactly do tariffs affect the restaurant industry? I mean, nobody is exporting a steak dinner to Canada; Uber Eats isn’t bringing a Primanti Bros. sandwich to Beijing? Isn’t the highly localized restaurant industry immune to tariffs? You might think so, but you would be wrong.  Sure, the outputs of restaurants – food – are, by and large, safe from tariffs. But, what about the inputs? What about the corn, onions, and avocados that we import from Mexico? Or, the farm raised salmon, shrimp, or catfish that come from China? Are you starting to see how tariffs could affect your business? Unless you source all of your foods locally, chances are you will feel the pinch.

Here are some of the more obvious ways in which the tariffs could impact restaurants:

Unstable Food Prices

Very few industries exist in a vacuum, but even fewer have the economic reach of the agriculture industry; when US farmers start to suffer, it ripples across the entirety of America. After all, we all have to eat.

In the short run, the recent tariffs could actually lower restaurants’ food costs. Lower overseas demand could lead to a supply glut, with farmers and distributors having to lower prices to get rid of inventory. If the tariffs from China turn out to be permanent, however, farmers will cut back on production and many will go out of business, which means the supply of domestic food will go down and prices will rise.

Lower Availability of Off-Season Foods

In addition to fluctuating prices, tariffs could lower the supply of seasonal foods. Tomatoes are one example. In the summer months, tomatoes are grown domestically, even locally. But, in the off-season, most tomatoes come from Mexico, where they are grown year-round. In fact, According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mexico produces 70% of our vegetable imports and 40% of our fruit imports. The only tariff on Mexico right now is on aluminum and steel, but if it were to devolve into a trade war like it has with China, then seasonal items like tomatoes could become more expensive and difficult to source during the offseason.

Some Additional Price Increases

• Does your restaurant or bar serve beer in cans? Did you know that the price of aluminum has risen 31% so far this year due to the tariffs on China and Mexico?
• Do you use cloth napkins, table linens, or uniforms in your restaurant? Do you know where they’re made? If their made in China (many are), they are subject to the tariffs as well.
• The price on Chinese exported steel, aluminum, and wood furniture has gone up 10% so far this year, with an additional 15% expected on Jan 1, 2019. Furniture, like many other manufactured goods, is getting hit twice, with Chinese tariffs on raw materials from the US, and then US tariffs on finished goods from China.

Note: Many furniture suppliers have already raised their prices, but East Coast Chair & Barstool has held prices steady on our products, as of 11/20/2018.

What Can Your Restaurant Do to Lessen the Effect of Tariffs?

• Reshape your menu: Focus on items that are in-season in your area, or at least are grown in the US. Your costs will go up, and your prices will probably have to follow, but studies have shown that consumers are willing to pay more for locally sourced foods.
• Lower operating costs: If food costs are going up, and you feel pressure not to raise prices, then you must cut costs somewhere or your profits will suffer. Fortunately, there are likely some ways that you can reduce your operating costs with a little additional effort. Here is a great list of 50 things you can do to cut costs in your restaurant without sacrificing customer experience.
• Be Proactive: We know that there is potentially another round of 15% tariffs on imports from China coming in January 2019 (unless a deal is reached before then), so there is still an opportunity to make any large purchases before then and avoid paying more.

Operating in an environment of increasing tariffs can be challenging, but the effects will be felt industry wide, so the playing field is level. If you have any creative ways of successfully navigating the tariffs, please feel free to share in the comments below.