The Restaurant Growth Audit

Score your restaurant on 20 questions, find the quiet nights and missed second visits, and know exactly what to fix first.

  • Free audit
  • 10-minute read
  • PDF, 10 pages
  • Restaurants, lounges and bars

If I opened a restaurant tomorrow, I would build three things before spending heavily on marketing: a website that actually converts, customer data from day one, and a second visit built into the system. Most restaurants spend all their energy getting first visits. The real business is built on the second, third and tenth.

This is the audit I use to find the opportunities in a restaurant, lounge or bar. It starts with your week, checks the three foundations, scores you on a 20-question scorecard and ends with what to fix first, including your quiet nights.

Martins Udotai, co-founder and CEO of Dinesurf

What's inside

  1. A busy weekend can hide a weak weekRead it below
  2. Step 1: Map your weekRead it below
  3. Step 2: Check the three foundations In the PDF
  4. Step 3: Score your restaurant In the PDF
  5. Step 4: Decide what to fix first In the PDF
  6. Step 5: Give every quiet night its own job In the PDF
  7. Step 6: Fill the night with guests you already have In the PDF
  8. Invitations you can copy In the PDF

A busy weekend can hide a weak week

If your restaurant is already full on Friday and Saturday, stop spending all your marketing trying to make Friday and Saturday busier. Those nights are sold. Meanwhile Tuesday is half empty and Wednesday is quiet, and nobody notices, because the weekend makes the month look fine.

Every empty seat on a Tuesday still carries its share of the rent, the kitchen and the team. So treat every day differently. Sometimes growth is not finding new demand. It is moving the demand you already have to the nights where you have room, and inviting back the guests who already know you.

Step 1: Map your week

Before you score anything, look at your week. For each day, take your average covers over the last four weeks and divide them by what you can seat in a night. Here is an example for a 60-seat restaurant that turns each table twice, so 120 covers is a full night.

An example week: average covers by day, and the share of capacity each day uses.
DayAverage coversShare of capacity
Monday3025%
Tuesday3630%
Wednesday4235%
Thursday6655%
Friday11495%
Saturday120100%
Sunday7260%

Example figures. In this week, Friday and Saturday have almost nothing left to give, while Monday to Wednesday have room for more than 250 more covers. Any day under half full is where this audit will send you. Lounges and bars can count tables or guests through the door instead.

The rest of the audit is in the PDF

6 more parts, ready to print or keep on your phone:

  • Step 2: Check the three foundations
  • Step 3: Score your restaurant
  • Step 4: Decide what to fix first
  • Step 5: Give every quiet night its own job
  • Step 6: Fill the night with guests you already have
  • Invitations you can copy

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Dinesurf

Close the gaps with Dinesurf

  • Dinesurf builds and hosts your website on your own domain, with your menu, reservations, online ordering, events and tickets in one place. See how
  • Online ordering on your own website, with no commission on those orders, and every customer lands in Guestbook. See how
  • Every reservation, order and event ticket creates or updates a guest profile, with visits, total spend and last reservation. Smart filters find your Top Spenders, Birthday This Month, Lapsed (90+ days) and New Guests. See how
  • Send newsletters to your whole Guestbook or a filtered group, and switch on the two automations: a birthday email, and a win-back email for guests last seen 90 to 120 days ago.
  • Take deposits on peak nights, applied to the guest’s final bill. See how
  • Sell tickets to your events, with every buyer in Guestbook for the next invitation. See how
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