How to prepare your restaurant business for the fall season?

In the summer season, restaurants operated at full capacity — with terraces, tourists, and parties. September brings a new dynamic. With the change of season, guests’ taste preferences, staff schedules, and business priorities also change.

In this article, we will look at what autumn means for the restaurant business, and how to adjust restaurant operations for the autumn-winter season to achieve maximum profit.

Changing weather and customers’ food preferences. What do they eat in autumn?

In September, people return to routine, the weather gets cooler, they go out less, work more, and more often choose places for lunch rather than parties, therefore:

• Demand for business lunches, quick meals, and food delivery increases.

• Customers arrive earlier in the day, and demand for morning coffee rises sharply.

• There are fewer evening reservations, more at lunchtime and within working hours: lunches, business meetings. Peak hours shift to 12-15 and last until 19-20.

• In summer, people bought non-alcoholic drinks, ice cream, and salads during the day, and alcoholic drinks in the evening. In autumn, demand for cold dishes and alcohol decreases, while demand for hot main courses, soups, tea, cappuccino, and coffee grows. 

Tip: update your menu, add seasonal dishes, adapt offers to the office rhythm.

Ideas for marketing

• Use posts with cozy photos, seasonal dishes, and autumn landscapes.

• Offers for parents: «While the kids are at school — time for coffee».

• Promotions on business lunches.

• Weekly, monthly, yearly lunch cards. 

• Food delivery to the workplace.

How to create the most effective schedule for employees?

Restaurants, pizzerias, and cafés employ people of very different ages. Some are university students, some already have children, some have grandchildren. Therefore, the beginning of the school year greatly affects people’s ability to work. 

Set 2 shifts

Morning and evening. Students usually prefer the evening shift, while parents prefer the daytime.

Make the schedule flexible

It is better when employees can swap shifts with each other when needed. Let them arrange replacements themselves. The main goal is to always have staff available. A loyal schedule has a positive impact on business. 

Why is this important?

Imagine this. A student always works the evening shift, but has a resit scheduled in the evening. The employer doesn’t allow time off. What should the employee do? Lose the job or the education? Another situation. A mother works the morning shift, but her child has a school meeting tomorrow. Should she skip work or ignore the meeting? In both cases, she would appear irresponsible. Constantly choosing what to lose and what to keep creates tension and leads to burnout. 

Also, shift swapping helps establish a friendly atmosphere in the team. It’s simple — employees need to maintain good relations so that colleagues are willing to help and exchange hours when needed. 

Employee motivation

Employee motivation is important at any time of year:

• Develop a clear system of bonuses and rewards. Tell employees how they can earn additional financial incentives. 

• Unite the team with good deeds: raising funds and buying equipment for the Armed Forces, helping civilians affected by the war, or saving animals in affected areas. For example, restaurants often have leftover food. Instead of throwing it away, you can arrange with volunteers to pass it on to feed animals.

• Team building, meetings, corporate events. Options are limited now due to the war, but in such an emotionally difficult time, it is especially important for employees to relieve stress periodically. You can hold an online meeting for casual communication, or even invite a psychologist to run training sessions and games.

Logistics and supply in autumn

Since menus in summer and autumn differ, you need to update procurement plans. 

• Carry out an inventory of products and place orders with suppliers according to the updated menu. 

• If you have agreements with suppliers for regular deliveries of summer products, inform them in advance that purchase volumes will decrease, or deliveries will be paused until the next summer season. 

• Implement an accounting system that allows you to track product movement in real time.