Restaurant Delivery Twist

[Millard Grubb]

A recent email from Dien Rice talked about some options for restaurant delivery for one person.

I wonder if this could be adapted for bakeries?

Hmmm... Of course it could !

How many wedding cakes or anniversary cakes have been delivered ?

I haven't heard of any home bakers doing something like this, but wouldn't it be interesting to get home-baked chocolate chip cookies that you didn't have to bake yourself ?

I guess the bottom-line might be laziness.

How hard is it to buy some pre-made rolls of cookies and cut out a few... then bake ?

[GordonJ]

Sure, buy a bucket full of dough. Better have mucho amounts of liability insurance. Serving food to people is a business which is not only licensed, it is very litigious when sickness comes into play...

What you say may work for the local PTA bake sale, but for a commercial venture, YIKES.

Now it isn't anything new, the local Insomnia cookies,
https://insomniacookies.com/

Caters to the late night student crowd (read stoned or high wanting munchies) and that is a good market, which they have identified.

The cookie business does not have very good margins either, it is a volume business. It needs to be constantly baking, there is little time for doing anything else. I know several cookie (and you will find in the archives, stories about a local cake baker who owned a candy shop and made all sorts of treats, and who is now out of business) shops and bakers.

I would say all of them have a very modest income with a high amount of time spent working.

I wouldn't touch this idea with a long pole.

The problem they have, like all businesses, is a steady stream of customers.

Now, I did make a thousand bux in a day at a local flea market selling giant chocolate chip cookies, which were made the night before in a local pizza shop and warmed on site by the sun. But that was a long time ago, I would not attempt that today without some insurance.

Gordon




4

Originally Posted by Millard Grubb

A recent email from Dien Rice talked about some options for restaurant delivery for one person.

I wonder if this could be adapted for bakeries?

Hmmm... Of course it could !

How many wedding cakes or anniversary cakes have been delivered ?

I haven't heard of any home bakers doing something like this, but wouldn't it be interesting to get home-baked chocolate chip cookies that you didn't have to bake yourself ?

I guess the bottom-line might be laziness.

How hard is it to buy some pre-made rolls of cookies and cut out a few... then bake ?

[Millard Grubb]

Imagine me smacking my head.

Thanks for reminding me of the realities of the situation. I tend to get fired up with possibilities.

I appreciate your experience and the forum here that allows us to brainstorm.

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Millard Grubb

Imagine me smacking my head.

Thanks for reminding me of the realities of the situation. I tend to get fired up with possibilities.

I appreciate your experience and the forum here that allows us to brainstorm.

We have a cookie phenom here in Akron, OH. He has rec'd a lot of press and just recently was awarded a grant.
And he started without even knowing how to make a cookie, so it is possible.

Here is his story:

https://www.cleveland.com/akron/2021...h-program.html

And his cookie website:

https://www.fattscookies.com/

So it can be done.

Keep those ideas coming they are appreciated.

Gordon

[Glenn]

Thanks Millard,

Working my way up from A young Whipper Snapper on the phone.

To Sister.

Then her Brother.

Then The Eldest Sister THE BOSS at a Catering Company.

I Eventually Was told.

"We Send out Free Cup Cakes to Get Bakeries to Sell our Baked goods. And to Refer Us Catering Business."

We don't Spend Money on Advertising.

Long Story Short.

Claude Hopkins strikes again.

The Father of Advertising Kinda Sorta Invented SAMPLING.

Thanks,
Glenn

[Dien Rice]

Hi Millard,

Thanks for your brainstorming!

Here's the article I emailed out, for those who are interested... about a new way of running a "restaurant"...

-----

How to run a low-stress one-person restaurant...

Can one person run a whole restaurant... and do all the jobs required in a restaurant? With low stress?

The answer is yes... Here's how...

With a regular restaurant, it's impossible, as you need a chef, and another person to welcome the customers, answer questions, and serve the food.

If the chef also welcomes new arrivals and serves the food too, he or she can probably only realistically run a one-table restaurant! (And even that would be difficult!)

Now, with the pandemic, has arisen a new form of restaurant - the delivery-only restaurant...

With a delivery-only restaurant, you still need more than one person... At least one person to take the orders and cook the food, and another to deliver it to the customers...

But there is now an even newer type of restaurant...

It's the pre-order delivery-only restaurant!

One example is the one-man restaurant, Jikoni Toledo.

This is a one-man restaurant, based in Toledo, Ohio, which serves cuisine from Kenya, East Africa.

To order from Jikoni Toledo, you need to order two days ahead. (Some dishes require a 24-hour marinade, but if a restaurant didn't have such dishes, it could probably cut it down to orders being required just one day ahead of delivery...)

The chef, Tom Otieno, can then prepare and cook the dishes ahead of time...

He can then deliver them to your address on your chosen date and time!

A person who wants to do this idea himself or herself will probably need access to a commercial kitchen in most places (which can be rented). You'll have to check your local government food sanitary regulations to confirm this (as regulations differ from place to place).

This approach gives you a real, and inexpensive, way to start your own restaurant, as a one-man or one-woman operation!

Another twist on the idea is to have only special dishes on different days... So, one day, you serve a particular dish. On another day, you serve a different specific dish.

This saves you from even having to cook different meals, as you just cook one big batch of one type of meal each day.

It also means your menu can effectively also have infinite variety over the course of time...

A great way to test out new dishes, and see how popular they are!

-----

P.S. If you'd like more articles like this for free, sign up for the "Hidden Business Ideas Letter Free edition" and the free report at the top of this page...

(If you're signed up and you didn't get it, it may have gone into your "spam" folder, so look for it there...)

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by GordonJ

I would say all of them have a very modest income with a high amount of time spent working.

I wouldn't touch this idea with a long pole.

The problem they have, like all businesses, is a steady stream of customers.

Now, I did make a thousand bux in a day at a local flea market selling giant chocolate chip cookies, which were made the night before in a local pizza shop and warmed on site by the sun. But that was a long time ago, I would not attempt that today without some insurance.

Hi Gordon,

My experience, in talking with a couple former restaurant owners I know, is that they didn't make much money, but...

A lot of people still "dream" about owning a restaurant- or cafe-type of business...

I think the "delivery-only" restaurant does change the game a bit...

For some people, it's also about introducing a new type of food or cuisine... and spreading a new kind of culture...

Me personally, I would hesitate at running a restaurant... Because I've seen "behind the scenes" what it entails! (That's because I once helped one restaurant owner extensively with his marketing...)

With a "normal" restaurant, one thing many inexperienced people who start one don't realize is... you can't cook the same way you do in your kitchen at home...

People sitting down at a restaurant expect to be served within 15 to 20 minutes...

At home in your kitchen, you often take more than 20 minutes to cook a full meal - let alone several meals!

So one of the "tricks of the trade" is to have some dishes partially cooked already. That way, if they're ordered, the chef just has to finish off cooking the dish (and it's done much faster, than if it was cooked from scratch)...

(For safety reasons, it has to be well heated again when the dish is finished off... I don't know all the details... But food safety is extremely important...)

A friend of mine who started a restaurant had great food - but he didn't use this method... He cooked the exact same way he would cook at home...

At it's "low point" - I think one group of guests waited about 2 hours for their meal... And eventually they left (quite unhappily) without eating a single bite...

Best wishes,

Dien

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Glenn

Thanks Millard,

Working my way up from A young Whipper Snapper on the phone.

To Sister.

Then her Brother.

Then The Eldest Sister THE BOSS at a Catering Company.

I Eventually Was told.

"We Send out Free Cup Cakes to Get Bakeries to Sell our Baked goods. And to Refer Us Catering Business."

We don't Spend Money on Advertising.

Long Story Short.

Claude Hopkins strikes again.

The Father of Advertising Kinda Sorta Invented SAMPLING.

Thanks,
Glenn

Hi Glenn,

You've reminded me...

When I was helping my friend who owned a restaurant, he was often getting offers from others who wanted him to sell their (often baked) goods in his restaurant...

He'd try some out, I think... To see if his customers liked them...

The (perhaps surprising) point is, other restaurants are not necessarily your competition... They can be your partners, too...

One other thing is, my friend essentially sold no desserts!

(In his culture, they didn't usually eat dessert after a meal...)

I strongly recommended that he add desserts to the menu! It would mean he would make a few extra bucks on top of every meal...

Even if it was just a bowl of ice cream... His only extra work would be scooping out the ice cream!

But... he never did so... (Easy money left on the table!)

Best wishes,

Dien

[Millard Grubb]

Saw a recent video on Youtube from "The Deal Guy" explaining how Costco does a lot of sampling for their "full price" goodies.

The items that they push with samples are all regular or "full price" items because they have found out that people buy once they have sampled.

Additionally, their famous $1.50 hotdog and drink special (I've tried it) is a loss leader just to keep people in the store longer so they will buy. I can see a baker doing something like this if they had a tremendous item that kept people in the area for more sales.

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Millard Grubb

Saw a recent video on Youtube from "The Deal Guy" explaining how Costco does a lot of sampling for their "full price" goodies.

The items that they push with samples are all regular or "full price" items because they have found out that people buy once they have sampled.

Additionally, their famous $1.50 hotdog and drink special (I've tried it) is a loss leader just to keep people in the store longer so they will buy. I can see a baker doing something like this if they had a tremendous item that kept people in the area for more sales.

Hi Millard,

I love a good sample!

It also reminds me of Gordon's "White Bread Post"...

"GIVE ME A SAMPLE… And give me a reason to come back, again and again."

http://www.sowpub.com/story-whitebread.shtml

Best wishes!

Dien