New year restaurant checklist: 9 goals to set for 2024

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A fresh new year always represents a good time to reevaluate your trends, successes, and areas of improvement. Once the hype from Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties have died down and your guest list is a bygone thought, many people go into self-reflection mode on how the previous year went. As a restaurant owner, it’s a natural time for you to do the same. We’ve got a new year restaurant checklist for you: nine areas to analyze from the last year so you’re ready for a fresh start.

9 items to include on your new year restaurant checklist

Since resolution season is nearly upon us, you’ll want to take this new year restaurant planning checklist and turn it into a gameplan so your corner of the food and drink industry can thrive well past the holiday season.

1. Set sales goals

Naturally, you’ll want to increase your sales year over year. Sales growth represents the overall health of a business. Steadily growing sales—and reliably steady ones at that—can help you plan for more breathing room in the future and higher profits.

In the Silicon Valley world, “10x-ing” a company is all the rage. Multiplying your sales by 10 in the new year is simply inappropriate for restaurants since it would max out your capabilities long before you got to the “10x” part.

Instead, aiming for single-digit or low double-digit growth in sales is reasonable. It allows you to grow steadily without unexpected surges that would overwhelm your inventory, staff, and seating. A 10% growth in sales is a great target, but even 5% is solid. The newer the restaurant, the higher your sales growth goal should be, simply because there’s more room for growth. Older establishments will want to grow a bit more slowly, like a tree in an old-growth forest.

So, how to boost sales? A great place to start is by increasing your social media presence, since it’s one of the most powerful marketing tools available to you. We hope you’ve already got a good presence online on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Yelp, but if you’re lacking in any of those areas be sure to set up an account and post regularly—at least once a week. Hiring local influencers can help boost your social media traffic as well.

Further, encourage your servers to focus on upselling. Selling more wine, cocktails, and desserts is a surefire way to boost your sales and your average transaction size. An increase of a few percent can make a big difference in your bottom line.

Selling gift cards can be another excellent way to boost overall sales. They make excellent last-minute gifts, even after Christmas and NYE, since customers will be happy to use a gift card year-round.

2. Set cost optimization goals

Managing costs is a critical way to boost your profit margin and net income. Managing your cost of goods sold (COGS), for example, can cut down on unnecessary spending and reduce the cost of…well, goods sold. The lower the cost of your ingredients, the higher your profit margin.

A solid COGS target is between 25-35% of your menu item prices. If any menu items are above that, reconsider the ingredients being used by switching your supplier, adjusting the dish to use what’s fresh and in season, or by 86’ing the dish from your menu.

Focus on your labor costs as well, since these are a significant portion of any restaurant’s outlays. A labor cost of around 30% as a percent of sales is reasonable. More than that and you may struggle to make a profit. Less than that and you’re quite possibly going to end up understaffed. Empowering your manager to make smart shift assignment choices can cut down on unnecessary staffing, while using powerful tools like Yelp Guest Manager can help understand what the busiest times will likely be, which you can plan your staffing around.

3. Reward your staff

Feeling appreciated is a universal human need. Identifying and rewarding top performers in each sector of the house can go a long way toward building loyalty and drive. You’ll want to rely on actual metrics like upselling, for example, to ensure that you’re not just playing favorites and are in fact doing research into how employees are performing. Using an arbitrary judgment method can backfire and build resentment among staff, so make sure you’re being honest and fair.

Rewards should be tangible and not just a pat on the back. These can include rewards like promotions, financial incentives, or increased authority. Letting employees know that solid performance does in fact bring real rewards will encourage the best work ethic.

4. Set spend-per-head targets for servers

With the right tools, you’ll be able to find out what an average spend per head is—and which servers get the highest. These are usually servers who excel with customer service and upselling. Regularly check in with staff to see how their service is going, how they feel about their role, and what can be better. If you have a few truly excellent servers, consider setting up mentorship programs for new servers or those lagging to help them improve their service.

Bonuses are a solid reward for meeting or exceeding spend-per-head targets. Praise is good, too, but few things motivate employees like extra cash. You’ll want to retain your top talent, so treating them well will help keep your customers’ spending up.

5. Identify your best-selling menu items

Your POS system and FOH management system will help you determine what items sold the most at what times. Noting what sells the best will help you with inventory management as well as what to advertise when. If your burgers are selling better in the summer than in the winter, you’ll know to run promos on burgers in the winter to keep sales up, or decrease your inventory in the winter to avoid wasting money.

Wasted inventory is the easiest way to throw money down the drain at a restaurant, so ensure your inventory management matches your actual needs. Relying on a flexible ordering system rather than a set-in-stone one can save money in the long run.

6. Optimize your menu

With the above information in mind, consider what dishes need to be pushed more and what can potentially be cut. While it may be valuable for some restaurants to have a menu the size of a phone book, many smaller restaurants are best served by a small menu. If you have items that are lagging in sales, consider axing them from your menu. Additionally, during this time it may be wise to practice menu engineering to sell more of the menu items you really want to.

7. Stay ahead of food trends

Dishes come into and go out of style. For quite a while now, we’ve been beating the drum of sourcing as locally as possible and making food as fresh as possible. That will never go out of style. But adding other trendy items like the latest cocktail craze or a hot new ingredient can help boost sales and make a name for your establishment.

8. Give your establishment a glow-up

Take a look around your restaurant. It probably needs a deep clean and a spruce-up. Does the dining room look like it fits the current era? Does your ambiance match the type of service you’re trying to provide? Odds are, there are at least a few touch-ups you could add to make your place look just right.

Here are some tasks that can provide a quick transformation:

• Replace any dead or dim lightbulbs, and swap out fluorescent bulbs to something easier on the eye like warm lighting
• Fix up or replace wobbly or damaged tables and chairs
• Clean furniture thoroughly
• Add new artwork from local artists to walls to keep a fresh vibe
• Thoroughly clean the dining area, including carpet cleaning if necessary
• Dust infrequently cleaned areas like the ceiling 
• Remove clutter from the dining area and the back of house as well
• Deep clean bathrooms
• Upgrade fixtures like faucets and sinks
• Empty and wash all condiment containers, like salt and pepper shakers or ketchup and mustard bottles
• Clean thoroughly behind your bar area, including shelves
• Wipe down all menus thoroughly

In addition to making your place look nice and shiny, consider your auditory ambiance as well. Does your playlist make customers feel comfortable? Is it suitably unique to your establishment or derivative and overplayed? Music can go a long way toward making a place feel right.

9. Monitor the customer experience closely

Set up a habit in the new year check your reviews online and respond where necessary. Customers will go out of their way to tell both (and others) about their experience at your restaurant. Make sure you listen. Responding to feedback will help personalize your restaurant and make customers feel heard. At the same time, check in regularly with staff to have them candidly describe what they see in customer behavior and satisfaction. Asking goes a long way.

Most importantly — refresh your tech

So, the noisemakers have quieted, the party favors were distributed, and hopefully you had a great time on New Year’s Eve. Next comes the fun stuff, like we’ve discussed above. Doing a deep dive into your sales targets, popular and unpopular menu items, staff performance, and more can help bring about a successful new year.

Another powerful method for a successful new year is upgrading your reservation and wait list system. For that, we highly recommend Yelp Guest Manager, the front-of-house management suite that does it all. Tap into the largest network of consumers searching on Yelp, Google Search, and Maps. Once a hungry diner has found you, boost customer engagement with push-button reservations, check-ins, and waitlists that allow for two-way conversation. When they’re in the door, you can greet, seat, and turn tables faster than ever, all from one iPad.

Want to see how Yelp Guest Manager works? Curious if it’s right for you? Reach out to us for a free demo and we’ll get the ball rolling. We’re excited to see the restaurant industry bloom in the new year—and that means you, too.