Champaign, Illinois is now the home for your new favorite “third place.” That’s because we just opened up The Hub, a brand new restaurant and sports bar right in the University of Illinois campus area. The Hub features signature cocktails like their Prickly Pear Margaritas and Fighting “Illini” Mojito as well as draft beers.

 

The Synergy team, along with select trainers, led a brand new staff through menu knowledge, steps of service, and hospitality leading up to opening day. The servers and bartenders experienced hands-on training including menu tasting, role play, team building exercises, and two rounds of mock service. The opening of the Hub was not only thoughtfully planned, but also successfully executed in a fun and high energy environment.

You can enjoy premium burgers made oh a house-baked bun, brined wings and other delicious sharables with friends while watching the game on any one of their nine, sixty-inch TVs. Synergy’s own beverage consultant, George Barton, oversaw the staff training for  everything beer, wine and spirits. And Synergy chefs Justin Braly and Kim Berardi headed the back of house operations ensuring that every dish came out delicious. It’s safe to say, The Hub is the place for the best burger in Champaign and an ice cold beer!

Gourmet, customizable pizza is coming to Vestavia Hills area of Alabama. Our client, IronStone PizzaWorks is ready to turn hungry stomachs happy with the freshest selections of ingredients available so you can create your own pizza or salad masterpiece.

 

Dine-in and enjoy your meal with friends and family at their newly renovated 3,600 square-foot space (with indoor and outdoor seating available). You’ll feel at home with the modern, yet warm design.

If you don’t feel like self-designing your own pizza or salad, try any one of these pizzas off their menu: Sausage and Ricotta, Mighty Meat, Garden Lover, Buffalo Chicken and Chicken Bianca. And yes, craft beer and wines are available! See their full menu here http://ironstonepizza.com/

 

IronStone PizzaWorks is slated to open early September and is located at 632 Montgomery Highway in the Vestavia Hills City Center.

Starting a new restaurant is truly an exciting experience. Finally, you can combine use your passion for food to form a business for everyone to see and experience! While you may be busy with menu planning, operations, interior design, or staff training, you cannot afford to forget to make sure you’re legally compliant.

 

One important aspect some restaurant operators fail to consider is their trademark. As you begin branding initiatives, the first step is logo creation. It may be a design you created, inspired by a piece of pop culture or perhaps another logo.  Unfortunately, while the design may be unique in your eyes, it very well may be “confusingly similar” to another trademark. Without performing due diligence and properly researching existing patents and trademarks in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), you could potentially be infringing on another business’s trademarked design.

 

TMFeatures describes a “confusingly similar” trademark case where a restaurant owner’s trademark performed an inadequate USPTO which ended in a lawsuit from the Rolling Stones I.P.

 

“…USPTO contacted him letting him know his new trademark was published. Soon after receiving the USPTO publish notice Zoest Legal contacted Mr. Wright claiming infringement of the Rolling Stones’ tongue trademark.

Mr. Wright was surprised and upset. After comparing the two trademarks (“Taste of Soul”, his restaurant, also has a tongue as part of its design), Mr. Wright decided it would be better to change his trademark then fight with Zoest Legal. He removed the tongue and re-branded his business “Freddie’s Famous Wraps.” This entire episode could have been avoided had Mr. Wright known about the “confusingly similar” part of the USPTO code. Read the entire narrative here: http://www.tmfeature.com/AprilCS.htm

 

The moral of the story? If you are starting a new restaurant, save yourself time, trouble, and money by doing your homework on existing trademarks and patents to do it right the first time around!

As restaurant consultants, our goal is to help you make your restaurant as
successful as possible. Sometimes, our clients aren’t sure exactly where
they need help or what needs to be done. Regardless of your specific
situation, it’s all about maximizing your restaurant’s efficiencies.

We help owners elevate their restaurants, from independently-owned, to
national franchises and chains, to the next level:

• operations
• menu development
• nutritional analysis
• supply chain management
• restaurant start-up help
• restaurant management
• marketing
• branding
• restaurant design
• quick service, fine dining, and chain

Synergy Restaurant Consultants: 25 years of restaurant success. Contact us
for more information on how we can help take your restaurant to the next
level of success in 2013.

So you’ve passed the hardest part in the game and your restaurant is now in full swing. But you want to give your customers a better dining experience – namely, one that pairs delicious food with equally delicious wine and spirits. And the biggest benefit to you as an owner? Well, it’s statistically proven you can boost profits from serving alcohol! So what exactly are the steps involved in serving alcohol? You need to first acquire a liquor license from your state.

There are a few different licenses to apply for so you need to distinguish which type of food service establishment you are before proceeding further.

For example:

•  Restaurant wine: You are allowed to sell beer and wine but not liquor or distilled spirits.
•  Tavern wine: This applies if more than 50% of your sales are wine and beer.
•  On-premises (full-liquor license): You are allowed to sell beer, wine and liquor.
•  Club: Allows private clubs to serve alcohol to their members.
•  Brewpub: Restaurants or establishments that brew and serve their own beer.
•  Eating place beer: For restaurants where you can drink beer on the premises and can sell carry out beer.

The application process can seem very overwhelming and some choose to hire a specialized attorney and some choose reputable restaurant consultants since there are many detailed and legal aspects to be dealt with. To understand the full requirements, including the cost, you must contact the Alcohol Beverage Control agency in your state. In some states, there are a limited, fixed amount of licenses issued so you must purchase an existing one.

The time it takes to obtain a license from applying to issuance can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. And once you obtain one, you need to monitor your staff and management to ensure your establishment is in compliance with the rules set forth or else your license can be revoked. Synergy has helped many establishments with their liquor license. If you need assistance, please call our offices for a free initial consultation, 888-861-9212.

We are always looking at restaurants concepts that require a low capital investment, delivers a strong ROI and easy to execute against.  Moreover it needs to be scalable, have a clear point of differentiation and provide a craveable product with a memorable guest experience.

Last week I drove 90 miles in LA traffic ( 3 hours) to Agoura Hills to visit Urbane Café.  This 1,300 square foot cafe packs a lot into this small footprint. Urbane Cafe is a fast-casual soup and salad place that promotes the “Fresh Way To Eat” (and whose tagline is “Gourmet Sandwiches, Salads & More”). They are a fast growing chain with 5 locations throughout California.

I was very impressed by their offerings, particularly the bread! In fact, their bread is baked fresh all day long and in front of the guest to view! Their homemade foods, especially the signature focaccia bread, commands the attention of every guest that walks through the door as that is the very first thing you see. This focus definitely creates a uniqueness that is hard to find in many chain fast-casual restaurants.

During my trip here, I enjoyed several great sandwiches. And get this – all items are priced under $7.00. With such a price value, it is clear that this new restaurant will be a head on competitor to the establishments such as Panera or even Chipotle.

What’s more pleasing than a mouthwatering burger with all the fixings? When you think about it, hamburgers are truly timeless and have become an American culinary icon for decades. Burgers are so popular that most Americans need only drive 5 minutes to the nearest burger joint drive-thru window to satisfy their meaty craving. But these days, consumers have more choices than just a Big Mac from McDonald’s or a Whopper from Burger King, which for a while had become a somewhat “boring” standard.

In today’s restaurant landscape, it is apparent that there’s a resurgence in the interest of the burger. Innovative restaurants such as “The Counter” feature a “Build your Own Burger” menu made from 100% natural angus beef, and “M Burger” goes back to basics focusing on no-frills and big taste with a simple menu similar to In-n-Out’s.

On my latest eating mission, I headed out to the Chicago to take a tour of M Burger. This is a popular new concept by Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (with about 70 restaurants under their umbrella) has a small footprint but huge traffic.  This progressive restaurant group is known for creating restaurants with theatrical flair and good value and M Buger is surely no exception.

It’s clear that the love for the burger will continually fuel great new concepts such as M Burger for years to come.

Burger bonus!

For all you burger lovers who’d like to stay in for dinner but would still like a fancy burger, check out the following recipes from PlateOnline.com

Burger Breakthrough

Who can resist the smell of burgers on the grill? Even if you’re not running a beer-and-burger joint, you can still flip a few patties with upscale options like lobster, lamb and truffles. Get your buns to work on these and other great burger recipes.

Mini cheese burgers with truffle oil

Chef Kerry Sear, Cascadia Restaurant, Seattle

Chicken burger with sage and roasted red pepper mayonnaise

Chef John Lupi, Appalachia Restaurant, Marble Hill Ga.

Lola’s lamb burger

Chef-Owner Tom Douglas, Lola, Seattle

Lobster burger

Chef John Kekalos, The Falls, New York

Char-grilled pulled pork hamburger

Chef-Partner Dean Small, Synergy Consulting, Laguna Beach Calif.

Search for these and more than 2,000 other professional chef recipes at www.PlateOnline.com!

Opening a new restaurant concept and creating a design on a budget is the sensible approach to getting into the restaurant business. Doing so requires the owner to carefully plan where their money will be spent. Just because your budget is smaller though, doesn’t mean that you can’t bring your restaurant concept to life!

Before you begin your project steps in opening a restaurant, it is important that the restaurant idea is clearly defined. We don’t want it to become a moving target, or have you spend money on lease space that may not get used right away.

Synergy Restaurant Consultants has supported many entrepreneurs who have considered opening a restaurant with limited funds. One of the common denominators, and fatal mistakes of many of these passionate entrepreneurs, is that they forgo some of the most fundamental and essential steps of planning before their grand opening. The discovery process (brainstorming what kind of food your restaurant will serve, or deciding on staff uniforms) and feasibility studies (whether or not your idea is something that will sell well), are just as important to the success of your business as deciding on what plates to use.

 

Opening a restaurant on a tight budget is also a challenge because there is very little room for error. It’s a big investment and Synergy Restaurant Consultants has a proven process that identifies the strengths and weakness of the concept as well as projected cash flow and a break-even analysis. It’s necessary to work through a “discovery process” and conduct your feasibility study before making big financial decisions… because if your idea is not a good seller, you might as well be throwing money down the drain.

Opening a restaurant is simple. Doing it with a smaller budget is too. It’s making the money and retaining customers that is the challenge. Here is a checklist for opening a restaurant that may be of some help when money is tight:

1. Organize your ideas for business and discover a great niche. If you’re having trouble with this first step, try hiring a professional to assist you – Synergy has 30 years of experience in helping customers brainstorm. They and can help you find the PERFECT idea – and turn it into profitable business.

2. Research that idea to make sure it’s going to make you money (something we’re also great at)

3. Know that if you find a building or location for your restaurant that is not ideal – that’s OK! Walk away, there will always be another site that’s even BETTER than the first

4. Negotiate a lease and try to obtain tenant improvement money to back-end some expenses. If you don’t know how to negotiate, DON’T try it on your own. Working with a professional property negotiator can save you thousands of dollars, and may even allow you some other incentives before you sign your lease

5. Consider purchasing used equipment if it will help you with starting the business. Once the business grows and you start earning more revenue – you can always upgrade and get newer equipment.

6. Use the internet to find suppliers for your business needs. Looking for durable baking pans? Want unique dining tables? How about gold-plated silverware or an in-door fountain? ALL of these things can be found online- sometimes at a discounted price!

7. Keep the menu simple to minimize the cost of labor and ingredients. As with used equipment, the menu can always be re-designed
when you have more cash flow.

8. Consider trading goods for services. A friend of ours needed a photographer to take some pictures of his dining area for marketing purposes, but he didn’t have the funds. So he offered a freelancer free dinner for he and his wife in return for taking the photos – and it WORKED! You never know what opportunities are available to you until you go out and look for them.

9. Develop a marketing and word-of-mouth strategy to make sure your grand opening is a SMASH!