ectly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win

If you are working on a restaurant business plan, and the sales just don't seem to be adding up to what you hoped, here are some suggestions on ways you can dramatically increase the revenue you are pulling in to the business that are mostly simple to do and don’t increase your fixed costs while adding nicely to your bottom line.

Add catering

Simply by adding some signage and doing a little promotion, you can add hundreds of dollars a day or more to your sales by offering to do catering. This can include everything from simple set menus delivered to an office around the corner to a complete dinner course served to a hundred person wedding.

Add pickup orders

Encouraging people to call ahead and place orders for pickup is a terrific way to add capacity without expanding the dining room or making people wait hours for a table. Although this is usually associated with fast food, more and more restaurants are offering it as an option, and finding it to be a successful strategy at all price levels.

Add retail items

Get your customers to pay to advertise for your restaurant! Put your logo and name on t-shirts, hats mugs and more and sell them to your admiring customers. Encourage them to wear the items by offering a discount on their order whenever they come in wearing your gear.

Add more days

If you are only open five or six days a week, you are missing out. Sure, you want a day off, but if you haven’t set the business up to run without you then you are already doing something wrong. You still have to pay rent and utilities on days you are closed, so you might as well open the doors and make some money.

Add breakfast or lunch

People need three meals a day- you might as well be the one to supply them with their calories. It is easy to create a menu to serve these meals, and the extra revenue will go more directly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win p

es by offering to do catering. This can include everything from simple set menus delivered to an office around the corner to a complete dinner course served to a hundred person wedding.

Add pickup orders

Encouraging people to call ahead and place orders for pickup is a terrific way to add capacity without expanding the dining room or making people wait hours for a table. Although this is usually associated with fast food, more and more restaurants are offering it as an option, and finding it to be a successful strategy at all price levels.

Add retail items

Get your customers to pay to advertise for your restaurant! Put your logo and name on t-shirts, hats mugs and more and sell them to your admiring customers. Encourage them to wear the items by offering a discount on their order whenever they come in wearing your gear.

Add more days

If you are only open five or six days a week, you are missing out. Sure, you want a day off, but if you haven’t set the business up to run without you then you are already doing something wrong. You still have to pay rent and utilities on days you are closed, so you might as well open the doors and make some money.

Add breakfast or lunch

People need three meals a day- you might as well be the one to supply them with their calories. It is easy to create a menu to serve these meals, and the extra revenue will go more directly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win

g it as an option, and finding it to be a successful strategy at all price levels.

Add retail items

Get your customers to pay to advertise for your restaurant! Put your logo and name on t-shirts, hats mugs and more and sell them to your admiring customers. Encourage them to wear the items by offering a discount on their order whenever they come in wearing your gear.

Add more days

If you are only open five or six days a week, you are missing out. Sure, you want a day off, but if you haven’t set the business up to run without you then you are already doing something wrong. You still have to pay rent and utilities on days you are closed, so you might as well open the doors and make some money.

Add breakfast or lunch

People need three meals a day- you might as well be the one to supply them with their calories. It is easy to create a menu to serve these meals, and the extra revenue will go more directly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win

out. Sure, you want a day off, but if you haven’t set the business up to run without you then you are already doing something wrong. You still have to pay rent and utilities on days you are closed, so you might as well open the doors and make some money.

Add breakfast or lunch

People need three meals a day- you might as well be the one to supply them with their calories. It is easy to create a menu to serve these meals, and the extra revenue will go more directly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win

ectly to the bottom line, since you are already covering your overhead with your regular service hours.

Add retail food sales

Got a great BBQ sauce recipe? Put it in jars and sell it to your customers! If that works out, spend a little time getting it on the shelves at the local store, or sell it at the farmer’s market. Not only will it increase your sales, it will help grow your brand which will bring even more people into the restaurant. That is a win-win proposition.

Add outside food sales opportunities

Rent a booth at the local fair, or set up a mobile location at a busy corner. You already have a kitchen and everything you need to prep the food, all you are doing here is adding an additional venue to pick up more sales. You’d be surprised- there have been plenty of stories of people who have pulled in six figures or more in just a few weeks at a busy county fair selling their special food dishes. That could be you!