What would your restaurant be without your valued customers? While a scrumptious menu is of prime importance, there’s much more to keeping diners consistently happy and coming back - bringing their friends with them! To do this, you’re aiming for smiles, ambience and a dash of surprise.

Here's how.

1. Personalised and friendly service

No doubt you know the importance of polite customer service in the restaurant business. However, there’s a big difference between politeness and friendliness. When your restaurant delivers a cheerful vibe with the food, you’ll find customers returning more and more. After all, dining is more than a practicality - it offers an escape, a treat and the overall experience of going out for a good time.

Smiling is a given, but take the friendliness up a notch with personalised service that makes each customer feel extra special. Encourage staff to find out the names of regular diners and engage in conversation beyond the normal greetings, when appropriate. Speaking of which, happy staff equals a happy environment, so look after them and keep morale high.

2. Flavour surprises

It’s great to promote and advertise your restaurant to attract new business. But, you also need to ensure you keep regular clients coming back for more. Everyone loves surprises and there’s nothing more exciting to the taste buds than an unexpected flavour that takes a dish from just ‘good’ to mouthwatering.

Review your menu to consider how everyday dishes could transform into taste sensations. For example, do you sell burgers? Chances are, tomato sauce and mustard are your ‘go to’ toppings. Shake things up a bit with wholesale relish products, like robust burger relish or spicy hot pepper relish.

3. Knowledgeable staff

Staff training isn’t something that should only happen once, before commencing the job. This is especially true when it comes to knowledge of your menu - you want to avoid staff having to say “I’ll just check what’s in that” at all costs. This cuts down on efficiency and comes across as a little unprofessional at the same time.

For customers with allergies or special requests, it pays to give staff a list of all ingredients used in each dish, along with which ones are vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free, if applicable. It’s also important to keep everyone informed of new menu items. If, for example, you’re incorporating wholesale pickle products into your menu, ensure your staff know what's in them and how they are made.

4. Inviting ambience

Social media is saturated with food and venue pictures, so make sure yours are Instagrammable. You already know that great food presentation goes a long way towards making it taste even better, not to mention inviting social media shares. However, the ambience of your restaurant is just as important. Whatever decor you choose that’s aligned with your brand, aim to create a unique atmosphere to generate interest via colours, lighting, music, furniture and accessories.

With a friendly vibe, flavour surprises, knowledgeable staff and an inviting environment, you’ll keep your customers so happy that they’ll start doing all the advertising for you!