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Articles published by us in the NEREJ
“Why hasn’t my business sold?” For the most part this question is asked not only of restaurant brokers but also of general business brokers, and as well of other commercial brokers.
The scenario is that an owner seeks out, what he feels is a competent professional to help him exit a business that has provided him with the luxuries of success or the pains of failure. In either case, if we take on the responsibility of accepting the listing, we’re promising the seller, and therefore morally obligated, to do everything in our power to extricate the owner from his business with the best price and most favorable terms.
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It’s amazing how many food and beverage businesses dot the landscape. If it’s true that “small business drives our country”, then restaurants are the life-blood of our society. No matter where you go, look to your left, look to your right…convenience stores, liquor stores, fast food, slow food, pubs, full-service, nightclubs, function facilities, ad naseum. Then you can break them down into chains, into ethnic subsets…every downtown, every shopping center, most office complexes. “my God, they’re everywhere.”
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National Restaurant Exchange is a recognized leader in the sale of food and liquor businesses. If you think its expensive to hire a professional, wait till you hire an amateur. Why would you go to anyone else to represent your interests? With many major life-style shopping centers in various stages of development, we can provide you with prime restaurant space, in prime markets, with all the assistance to bring your newest project to fruition.
Restaurant News
Beware: The “Cash Discount” is Coming
March 15th 2024
I first saw a note stating a cash discount at a restaurant I frequent three or four months ago. I remember thinking that this was only the beginning. Surcharges are nothing new. With rising costs in everything, it is only natural that businesses pass on the charge to the customer. However, with what we are seeing now, it is a bit misleading. Below are two notes from separate restaurants (ironically both in Red Bank—one was taken by me, the other is shared from a food forum posting) offering, respectively, a “cash discount” and “cash adjustment discount” for customers paying cash rather than using a credit or debit card. At first glance, it seems logical and almost goes unnoticed. But when you examine the menu, you realize there is no actual discount. The “discount” is just paying the original price. While both of these examples lead to less than $4 worth of charges for every $100 you spend, this is another example of nickel-and-diming within the hospitality industry. I do not want this opinion to negatively affect these two specific restaurants, which is why I left their names out. I am trying to see both sides of the story myself. Part of me is thinking that it makes sense because there are no transaction fees for cash, so of course those using it should pay less because it is not costing the business any additional money. We also rarely get frustrated when a business asks for a $10 minimum charge for card-carrying customers.
The other part of me says, “More fees? Really?” So far, such changes have been met with more disdain than understanding. A third business (in Matawan) experimented with a credit card surcharge a few weeks ago and did away with it after only a couple of days due to angry backlash…which also resulted in the owner posting an angry diatribe directed at customers on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
On the restaurant’s side, this is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. They are trying to do the right thing by not raising costs for everyone, but somehow, there would be less backlash if they simply changed the prices on their menu by raising everything 35-40 cents, which is less than price increases normally are. How often do you hear someone complain that a restaurant raised its prices? When was the last time an Italian joint’s chicken parm going from $15.95 to $16.50 caused a riot? Not often, because it is expected. But to specifically target a group of customers by way of payment, that receives an outcry. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Keep an eye out, because once more restaurants catch wind of this, I am sure they will switch over to this “cash discount” scheme. Can I call it a scheme, or is that too harsh? I just wish people would call things what they are.
What Martha Stewart learned from opening her first restaurant at 80
4-21-24 Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker at the Restaurant Leadership Conference and talked about her career—from her early days as a caterer to her first restaurant opening in Las Vegas.
Martha Stewart’s entire career as a businesswoman, media mogul, and champion of homemakers has always revolved around the foodservice world but never directly embraced it. In fact, as the keynote speaker for the 2024 Restaurant Leadership Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., she spoke about her career beginning as a stockbroker who invested early on in McDonald’s. Then she went on to become a caterer, began writing cookbooks (she just published her 100th book), starred in countless television shows, and started her own print media empire. But until 2022, when The Bedford in the Paris Las Vegas Hotel opened, she had never owned her own restaurant.
“Here I am at 80 years old, and why I didn’t do a restaurant sooner, I will never know,” Stewart said. “I kept saying, ‘Well, I really like to enjoy going out to restaurants, but I’m not sure about owning one.”
Related: Jersey Mike’s CEO Peter Cancro wins the 2024 Restaurant Leader of the Year award
Opened in Aug. 2022, The Bedford is modeled after her real home, with “the same furniture, the same accessories,” and illuminated windows that offer video “views” of her garden and farm that change with the seasons.
“Restaurants are one of the hardest businesses on earth,” Stewart said, prompting cheers from the appreciative crowd, though she did have a couple of pieces of advice from her own experience as a first-time restaurant owner. The first was to always believe in the value of your product.
Related: Martha Stewart to keynote at the Restaurant Leadership Conference in April
“When we were planning the menu, we wanted to charge for a breadbasket and they said, ‘you can’t do that, the bread is free!’” Stewart said. “But when they saw what went into the breadbasket, they rethought it, and now they’re charging $19 for it!”
The breadbasket itself is meant to turn heads and is topped with tall crispy bread rounds embedded with vegetables, as well as focaccia, and rolls. Her other piece of advice for restaurant operators was to not be afraid to embrace the old-fashioned way of doing things, even if it seems like everyone else is chasing down trends.
“People like deliciousness and sometimes tradition,” Stewart said. “They like the familiar and not too much of the unfamiliar. I was just at a restaurant that was very beautiful, but the food was so unfamiliar that it was kind of shocking… it's a fine balance between what you choose to serve, what you choose to promote, and how you serve it and show it.”
But that does not necessarily mean that restaurant operators should be stuck in their ways or rooted in the past. It was unfamiliar and somewhat shocking to her fans when Stewart began partnering with Snoop Dogg, but the atypical collaboration has really worked.
“Just working with a rapper was unusual for a woman like me a serious cook, but the give and take was so surprising that it was charming and funny,” Stewart said. “It was fabulous, demographically. My demographics broadened and so did his.”
She is also embracing new technology and hinted that there could be an AI collaboration with her brand sometime in the future, with “little Marthas” that home cooks, homemakers, and others could ask for advice. “I take advantage of whatever comes along,” Stewart said, adding that she has been involved on Twitter and Instagram since day one.
Before leaving, she reminded the restaurant operators in the audience to “keep farmers happy;” as a farmer herself, Stewart knows how crucial they are to the lifeblood of the restaurant industry.
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