No Need for Reservation About Extending Your Bar or Restaurant's Hours of Operation

When looking for potential ways to increase sales and foot traffic to their bar or restaurant, some business owners are nervous about the potential of extending business hours. These owners usually believe that the cost of labor will take away from any additional revenue or benefits, which isn’t necessarily true. At the end out the day, being open more hours means there is more potential for sales.

Cost Analysis

A cost analysis may be helpful to understand if your business can support operating for more hours during the day. While costs may present themselves, don’t forget about the opportunity for revenue. For example, if it costs $20 to have a staff member work an extra two hours a day, those two hours present an opportunity for potential sales, whether they be coffee, breakfast, alcohol or gaming. Even if there is a slow day with no food or drink sales in that period, there could still be one person who puts $100 in a video gaming terminal during those two hours. Your establishment would make $30 in that time with minimal effort. The labor cost would be covered, and there is still profit made. If you pay rent, extending your hours means the potential for more sales without any increase in rent.

Knowing Your Customers

When looking at your specific establishment, think of who your customers are and identify their wants and needs. Are your most dedicated patrons the early bird crowd, the mid-to-late morning crowd or the late/third shift workers? Try testing new hours at your location by opening two hours earlier or staying open a little later to see what sales are made or what the traffic to your gaming area is. In a Wall Street Journal article titled “Will Longer Hours Boost Sales?” the WSJ encourages business owners to implement the well-known trick of MBWA (Management by Walking Around), to spend time in their neighborhoods to see how busy it is at different times and adjust accordingly.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t notice a difference in sales or foot traffic right away. Run the test for a few weeks so word can get out about the change. A good way to make sure that customers know about your new hours is to promote them on your Facebook page and on your Yelp listing. You should also make sure that you are transparent with your staff about the testing being done so they aren’t blindsided by the sudden hour changes. When looking at the potential of changing operation hours, the most important thing is being able to know your customers and recognize what your bar, restaurant, or gaming café can provide for them.

Early Risers

At Accel, we know the benefits of serving breakfast at your slot machine establishment. Expanding your hours to open for breakfast can make a huge difference, as that tends to be key play time for gamers.

We’re not the only ones who see the benefit of opening for breakfast. According to an article in Eater, serving breakfast is a big deal for a lot of restaurants right now. Check out their article, in particular this snippet about opening for breakfast:

Patricia Cobe, a senior editor at Restaurant Business, a b2b magazine and sister operation of Technomic, notes that one of the main costs — labor — in theory isn’t a huge burden if a restaurant wants to extend its hours. “Operationally, they don’t have to pull in a lot more staff,” says Cobe. “People in the morning starting prep, prep cooks, can do the menu pretty easily. Most breakfast dishes aren’t that complicated.” Cobe added that coupled with low labor costs, high margins for breakfast are feasible because the cost of goods sold (eggs, bacon, bread) are lower.

Hours of Operation vs. Pour Hours

There may be enough benefits from additional food or retail sales, alone, when determining whether to extend your current hours of operation.  However, if you are also looking to extend your hours of video gaming play, you’ll have to pay close attention to your establishment’s liquor license hours. No matter when your establishment opens or closes, your video gaming machines can only operate during your approved liquor pouring hours. Municipalities across the state permit establishments to serve liquor during varying hours, depending on the municipality’s liquor ordinance and what type of liquor license your establishment has.  Make sure that as a business owner you are being properly guided by your Terminal Operator and are making changes that are compliant with local laws and Illinois Gaming Board rules and regulations.

If you’re permitted to extend or change your liquor pouring hours, you can contact the Illinois Gaming Board to update the hours that your VGTs are allowed to operate. 

Source:

https://www.eater.com/2017/5/30/15702210/restaurant-breakfast-trend-business