Magic Show Restaurant – The Mystery

Introduction

The Mystery is a European cuisine restaurant providing food services and magic show at the same time. The restaurant serves a variety of dishes including Italian, French, American and many other cuisines. The restaurant will also serve seafood and fresh food, beef and pork, and chicken specialties. It also comes with a variety of starch foods such as potatoes and rice. For vegetarian customers, there is a number of vegetable dishes together with salads that suit their specific tastes. To top it all, the restaurant provides dressings of different flavors that go with every meal served to the customers. Apart from food and beverages, the restaurant will also provide a number of services and goods. They include Gift Cards – the restaurant will sell gift cards during normal business operation hours, which are Monday to Saturday (8.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m.). In addition, the restaurant will provide gifts for gift card users for the purpose of promotion. The Mystery provides fantastic magic shows and great live band performance before the shows start. Such services attract people of different social levels thus establishing customer loyalty and satisfaction. The restaurant is equipped with 300-400 seats arranged in a circle, with the stage is in the middle. Customers can reserve a specific seat online providing that better seats are available at higher prices. Short shows will be held at noon, and formal shows – in the evening. The dining will start at the same time as show. The servers decorate the restaurant with magic stuff to build a special atmosphere, and masks cover all servers’ faces.

Organization Structure and Responsibilities

At the top of the organization structure, there is the owner of the restaurant. The owner in this case works with promotion and financial advisers who guide him on investment decisions and effective marketing strategies that boost the restaurant sales. The general manager comes second in the hierarchy. His role is to guide other departmental managers and ensure cooperation between all departments of the restaurant. The food, bar and entertainment or magic show managers come third after the general managers. The role of these managers is to ensure the different segments they lead are functional and in operation at all times. Under the different segments, other important personnel come. For the food department, a chief chef is in charge of all food products cooked every day. There could be two or three chief chefs based on the customer base to ensure quality. Within the same segment, there is the food health inspector who tastes dishes to ensure all prepared food is safe. There are also the servers who have a headwaiter or server that ensures the presence of all other waiters. The same departmental organization is also presented in the magic-show segment. At the bottom of the hierarchy, there are cleaners and security guards who perform cleaning services for the restaurant and ensure proper security. All these personnel are under the care of the HR section that is in charge for employing and training staff members.

Marketing Strategies and Plan

Marketing strategy of the restaurant is significant in establishing the business and increasing its market share within the area. Before coming up with a strategy, the restaurant will have to conduct a market research. With market research, the restaurant identifies its target market, competition analysis, pricing and other economic factors that affect the business. Here, the restaurant establishes the wants and needs of customers and their preference with regard to quality and pricing. For competition, it should establish the strategies, pricing and customer services other restaurants offer. It is after this that the restaurant chooses a strategy.

Being new on the market, The Mystery restaurant will use advertisement to create awareness. Advertisement will be spread fast and cover a large segment of target audience within a short period. The restaurant could bring the advertisement in between show programs or ask media personnel to introduce it to the audience. The other form of advertisement could be presented in family or business newspapers and magazines that people read regularly. This is also possible through internal publicizing. The restaurant will do this through special menus for different customers. When it comes to social media, the restaurant should hire a person to develop and run a website, so that customers can access this and other online services. With the website and blog, there will be customer feedback on what needs to be improved. Most restaurants today enlist the help of famous food specialists and bloggers in advertising their restaurants, which can also be an important strategy for The Mystery. With online technology, the restaurant will make it easier for customers to make reservations, payments and checkout on the new offers.

Supply Chain

Like other successful restaurants, The Mystery will gradually develop and establish a supply chain system. At the very beginning, the restaurant will have to develop a website stating its services and products at the time of its operations. For a start, the supply of raw materials will begin from the headquarters to specialist suppliers that directly interact with the restaurant. Fresh food supply like seafood and groceries will be on a daily basis while that of non-perishable supply will be on a monthly basis. Payment of suppliers will be carried out after delivery and through checks.

Insurance Components

Restaurant insurance is complex due to the large number of components involved. When selecting insurance, the most important issue to consider is the elements of food service to customers. This for a start makes the restaurant more liable to any customers it serves. One of the main components, therefore, is liability insurance. Here, the restaurant is liable for any harm that may befall the customers after using their products or services. Liability may also cover accidents and other damages that the restaurant may face. The other element evident in the liability insurance segment is employee compensation in the case when employees are injured while on duty. The other insurance component is property insurance. This consists of policies that cover the damages of the restaurant’s property, which may be a result of fire accidents, water and sewer licks and other natural disasters. Unlike the liability insurance, the property insurance requires the restaurant to get payment for all damages incurred.

Risk Analysis

In any form of business, risks are inevitable. The first group of risks comprises financial risks including investments, market competition and possibly new entrants. The risk analysis of the restaurant consists of three main components that are risk assessment, management and communication. Risk assessment entails the establishment of uncertain circumstances within the restaurant and potential threat to its operations. To achieve this, the restaurant manager has to list this and thereafter select the most applicable ones. Risk analysis can be conducted either from the internal or external perspective of the business. Internally, the restaurant will have to consider marketing, financial, strategic and operational risks. Externally, risks come in the form of competition, natural disasters and price changes. With risk assessment, the restaurant will be able to establish vulnerabilities, operational costs and strategies needed to make the necessary improvements. After the assessment, the business ensures to manage and communicate the risk analysis information to all concerned parties.

Starting with external analysis, there is the risk of market development. Now, very few people know about The Mystery restaurant and its unique services. For this reason, the restaurant will have to use effective marketing strategies such as advertisements, customer testimonials and sales to create awareness on its existence. The other risk is that of competitors. Around the same area, other restaurants have been in operation for a longer time. It is, therefore, the role of the management to ensure the restaurant delivers quality services and food with reasonable pricing to maintain the market share. Additionally, new entrants with similar services also pose significant threat and competition to the restaurant. To work on this, the restaurant needs to come up with new products and services and build an unsullied reputation among its clients.

Internally, one of the risks is that of operations. It may occur in the form of supply or system used to run the restaurant services. To avoid the unconstructive influence that comes with this, the restaurant will have to invest in staff training to advance the employees’ qualification contantly. Additionally, the restaurant will have to do away with the pen and paper way of keeping inventory and sales information and instead, adapt an automatic system that manages it all. With this option, there will be accountability of resources. It is also important to establish communication channels between all restaurant personnel and customers to ensure smooth operations. Financial risks are the other important element in the assessment. For startups, the capital available is limited hence there is a strong need for planning. It is, therefore, imperative for the restaurant to set up a good foundation and build a good reputation to increase chances of getting capital form banks and other external sources. Disaster preparedness and management is also important. For a restaurant, the fire accidents prove to be disastrous and result to losses in the end. The restaurant must, therefore, have safety measures in place no matter how costly it is to protect the employees and customers.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

One of the major strengths of The Mystery restaurant is the fact that it is a cuisine restaurant serving different kinds of dishes. Additionally, the service part of the restaurant is strength. This attracts a large customer base from young children to adults as long as one finds this interesting. The restaurant also offers other services and associated products like gift cards and entertainment, which also helps to maintain its customers. With this, customers get quality services and enjoy their time at their restaurant thus making it worth the cost they are paying. For a start, the pricing structure of the foods and beverages of the restaurant is friendly to all types of customers as compared to that of other established restaurants in the area.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses of The Mystery restaurant will help the management to improve the restaurant operations in the end. Being a new restaurant, the employee hiring procedure is still premature. Here, the human resource personnel hire less qualified employees with little experience on customer service, which turns out to have a negative impact. Additionally, there is no adequate training for the employees on restaurant operations such as food service and presentations, which is a weakness. Being new in the market, there is no firm relationship with suppliers thus resulting to certain disappointments like late or no delivery. With this, there will be no menu items on the tables for customers when ordered. The other main weakness is the lack of a comprehensive and automatic system that keeps track of the sales, stock and inventory. Now, the restaurant uses paper to keep track of all its operations thus resulting to accountability issues that turn out to be disastrous for the restaurant.

Opportunities

For the restaurant, the main opportunities identified are connected with increasing profits and maintaining a large market share in the area it operates. For a start, being a magic show restaurant, it is bound to attract different types of customers both locally and those on business or family holidays. There will be a need for new beverages and foods to suit the different customers. Additionally, the restaurant could take up the role of serving healthier dishes, which are what everyone is looking for today. It comes with the featuring of salads, vegetables and fruits in the menu, so that customers can get a balanced diet. The other opportunity for the restaurant is take away services for those interested. For family and business clients, a potential opportunity would be the provision of delivery services for orders made by customers, security and parking services to meet their different needs and make them comfortable.

Threats

One of the major threats for the restaurant is other competing restaurants within the same location with similar food service and other services. Additionally, threats will come from new restaurants opening within the same area. With the threat of new entrant restaurants, the customers have a variety of alternatives to pick from when it comes to food and entertainment services. Additionally, the possible rise of food prices in the restaurant turns out to be a major threat. For the business to operate effectively, there will be a need for raise in prices as the restaurant becomes popular. For special dishes like seafood, the negative impact from their availability in the market will result to a rise in price hence affecting customer turnout and supplier relationships.

Number of Servers

Putting into consideration the 300-400 seats in a circle, the restaurant needs to employ a number of servers to meet the large customer base. For a start, the restaurant will need to hire 50 (fifty) waters to quicken their service and reduce waiting time of the customers. This is because servers operate in both the dining areas and the magic-show room. While the waiters will have their faces covered, those in the restaurant and dining rooms will have to uncover their faces as they interact with the customers at a more personal level.

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Operational Time

The restaurant’s operational time will be from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm in the night. This is for accommodating the different customer needs. Additionally, the restaurant begins early operations to plan for the day and keep track of reservations made by customers. The extension to 11.00 pm is for those customers who work late. For weekends, the operational time will be 9.00 am to 6.00 pm unless customers make special reservations. This is to give employees ample resting time and servicing of restaurant equipment.

Restaurant Personnel Costs