Throughput...flow...speed of service...why is it a critical area of operations, and how can you go about improving it!
Quick service restaurants – the clue is in the name. We’re in the game of welcoming our customers, swiftly delivering what they need and letting them leave happy, promptly. The ability of your Quick-Service or Fast Casual restaurant to do this will be a defining factor in your overall success.
Zach Cooper, Twice Baked’s Operations Specialist, tells us the ins and outs of throughput – the performance indicators, the simple tricks to increasing it, and the outcomes of doing so.
Tell me about throughput. Why is it so important to a restaurant’s success?
At the most basic level, it means more transactions per hour, so there’s typically a very direct and measurable sales increase from improved throughput.
But, to a certain degree, that's just a small part of it and there are many non-direct impacts, such as decreasing customer wait times. A lot of people make their decisions on where they go based on how much time they have; considering many may have just half an hour for lunch, they don't want to spend 15 minutes queueing. The breakfast or morning-coffee audience have an even lower tolerance for waiting.
One thing we consistently advise a lot of our clients on is that speed can sometimes supersede quality. Everyone thinks that their food or coffee is better than some perceived competitor but, personally, if there's an artisan place next to say a Pret a Manger, it’s 50/50 which one I'll go for because I don’t always have the time to wait 10 minutes for a fancy coffee.
Ultimately, if you ensure that you don’t concede the advantage that speed gives you, you can better leverage the quality of your product.
“Speed can sometimes supersede quality”
You mention increasing sales. What kind of effect on revenue can you see?
For a great example of tangible revenue impact from increased throughput, I look to my time at Chilango. We had an OK performing site in central London, which was averaging about 220 - 240 transactions per hour.
We worked hard to deliver the best flow possible and the changes we made resulted in an hourly transactions increase to almost 300, in turn generating around an extra £400 revenue per hour. Extrapolating that hourly increase, week-on-week, month-on-month, made a big difference to the site’s performance.
What could be capping throughput?
Fundamentally, throughput is about improving flow so look for bottlenecks. For example, not enough tills or scarcity of food on the pass.
Speed of service is only as fast as the slowest bottleneck. Commonly, people can feel like they're working fast but are in fact wasting energy or running into barriers. You could have 16 tills, every one with people smashing things through, but if you only have one person making coffee, then that’s the limiting factor.
What we always say with flow, it's about trying to make things as smooth as possible across the journey. From prep to the customer’s hand – how can you make sure it doesn't get held up anywhere? Once it's a smooth process, you can look at picking up the volume.
What are the common signs that you have a throughput issue?
Wait time is a biggie – always pay attention to it. Other indicators could be comments about food being cold, customer service being slow, or product availability issues on a daily occurrence. If you're ever in a situation where a queue touches a door people will bounce off the back of it. Saying that if you manage to get known for being quick, people will wait.
Speak to your teams. You might hear feedback from staff during a shift such as “it was really messy”. This is an indicator and, conversely, consistently smooth services will create a happier team and improve retention.
From a reporting perspective, look for uneven spikes of sales at peak times or that your peak days aren’t following trends. For example, Wednesdays should be 40 - 50% up on Mondays but you’re seeing that flattened, then you’re being capped by something. Another useful data point is Deliveroo’s reporting of prep times. If yours is above the average for your area, that’s a sign.
Who’s in charge of increasing throughput?
Done well, the principles need to start from the owner or SLT (senior leadership team) – possibly a simple, sweeping statement, such as “our customers never wait more than 2 minutes for a coffee” – but then it’s Ops who make it happen.
“It’s about being smoother, rather than just faster”
What are some common challenges when trying to increase throughput?
Not being set up properly for service is a very common one. This includes not having well defined roles; with people running around doing a bit of everything, it can seem like everyone is working hard but we want to be working smart. A good service should also always involve an appropriate briefing, be it a meeting, a written plan, or something more informal like a huddle.
Obviously, not having enough food prepped or not having the right people on shift are issues. Sometimes there'll be physical challenges, where it might be that your space needs re-evaluating or you need another till or piece of equipment.
Finally, we often see resistance to changing ways of working in a restaurant. It’s imperative that, if you are making major operational changes, you demonstrate the value both to leadership teams and the wider business to successfully achieve change.
Any final advice?
It’s about being smoother, rather than just faster.
Chipotle are the real kings of this, who are known within the industry for establishing their ‘Four Pillars of Throughput’. When in place, these ensure everything else is going to work.
We like to try and mirror that approach and use the same principles when working with our clients. Key areas to develop will of course vary from business to business, but the process remains the same; assessing the situation, defining three to five key things that you can train people on, and ensuring you check and audit that they're happening. If you can get those things in place, typically everything else falls in line.