Data collection is the first step of developing a successful restaurant revenue strategy.Data collection can be achieved with traditional-but time consuming-ways and through specialized softwares that have been developed.No matter the method of data collection, data will reveal the restaurants current performance and you must be able to analyze factors to your restaurant's occupancy rate like:How many guests are you serving at various times during the day? Which are your pick hours of operation? What is your seat and table occupancy during peak hours? How many guests could you serve if you were able to seat everyone who came to the restaurant(optimal table mix)?
In a previous article I have showed you how to calculate and find your optimal table mix. In this part I will show you how to calculate your table and seta occupancy
Table occupancy is calculated as: (where hours available represents the calculation interval)
For example, consider a restaurant with 50 tables. From 19:00 to 20:00, 40 of those tables are occupied. Average dining time is one hour. Therefore table occupancy equals 40 X 1 / 50 X 1 = 40/50 = 80%.
Seat occupancy is calculated using similar formula:
Consider the same 50-table restaurant and assume that the total number of seats among those 50 tables is 100. From 19:00 to 20:00, 60 seats are occupied among the 40 occupied tables. Seat occupancy therefore equals 60 X 1 / 100 X 1 = 60/100 = 60%.
When it comes to hotel operations and in BB or HB operations another ratio to measure would be the ihouse guest capture in order to have a full picture.
Calculating table and seat occupancy rates for specific time intervals enables restaurant managers to determine how efficiently they’re using their current seating capacity. The results of these calculations can be represented graphically with different types of charts for better visualization.
