The financial impact of weather on restaurants is real:
- One snow day can lead to $3,000 – $6,000 in losses
- 90% of restaurants say local weather affects sales and customers
The reason weather takes such a toll on restaurants is because it makes planning and preparation impossible. What are you supposed to do if you get a 100% increase in delivery orders out of the blue (which can happen during a snow storm)? On the other hand, what if you staff up and stock up before a snowstorm only to have the forecast be wrong, and you don’t have an increase in orders? Now you’ve wasted money and resources.
The weather is a tricky thing for restaurant owners, but it doesn’t have to be anymore.
With Tomorrow.io’s new hyper-local weather insights app for restaurants you can stop worrying about the forecast and focus on your operations and strategy for the upcoming week. Being ahead of the weather and knowing exactly what you can expect and when makes all the difference. Here are a few examples:
- Increase your revenue: If you know at the beginning of the week exactly which days and times the weather will impact demand you can be ready. For instance if it’s going to be hot during the afternoon you can run a drinks special, or if it’s going to be particularly cold (and you know you’ll need to close the patio for the day) you can offer weather related promos. While these are things you may already do, there’s a huge difference in being proactive about alerting people vs. reacting once the weather has already hit and customers have chosen to eat/drink somewhere else.
- Predict delivery surges: By knowing the impact weather will have on your restaurant you can know exactly which days and times to expect delivery surges. This allows you to plan ahead, do food prep, and ensure there’s a minimal impact on customer wait and delivery times.
- Staffing and stocking: Wasting money on unnecessary staff and ingredients is a thing of the past. You can now know who needs to be working which days and what times based on demand, how to plan for delivery, and how to stock up your inventory with confidence knowing your expected demand.
- Improve safety: The other helpful advantage of knowing the impact of weather on your restaurant is it increases your ability to keep your staff and customers safe. You can warn staff about hazardous driving conditions, or safeguard customers against lightning, high winds, and any other weather event that will put them at risk.
Want to learn more about Tomorrow.io’s restaurant insights app? Everything is automated and unique to your exact restaurant location. You can also send out automatic alerts and messages to staff whenever there’s a change.
Check it out now and stay ahead of the weather once and for all!
