Jorge’s Mexican Restaurants Operations Optimization
Challenge
Jorge Castro and his family own and operate 7 successful Mexican restaurants in Oregon and Washington State. Jorge originally hired Synergy to develop a restaurant concept and menu items for a new restaurant. After that project was underway, he brought Synergy on for a comprehensive operations assessment to streamline operating expenses and create a solid corporate structure for his existing group, while finding meaningful ways to increase revenue through catering, delivery, and private dining sales to fund expansion plans.
Solution
Subject matter experts from culinary, training, finance, marketing, operations, supply chain, and HR participated in a deep dive assessment and delivered a system of support services to reenergize, optimize, and systematize all of the existing restaurants. Part of this support effort included an engagement with a fractional COO to run the project and provide executive coaching. The management tem completed a DiSC assessment and evaluation with and Director-level and store-level management coaching was also provided to help build a solid management bench and platform for future growth. The Synergy team worked closely with Jorge’s organization to create an “employer of choice” culture and organizational structure to attract and keep top employees by giving them the opportunity to advance through the system.
Outcome & Benefits
Synergy trained the culinary team on recipe optimization processes, increased revenues by implementing targeted in-house promotional strategies, helped the company hire new management team members, and institute a new catering and delivery program with a robust marketing strategy to promote the initiatives.