Raising Ticket Averages-Appetizers to Dessert

Bill Cox of Lad Foodservice was on the Central Coast on Friday. He was launching the latest

Bill Cox Lad Foodservice, Chef Adam, And Barbara Christian of Del Monte Grill Sample Appetizers

appetizer from Brew City, the Buffalo Cheese Stick. A blue cheese and mozzeralla stuffed Cheese stick dipped in hot wing sauce.

Bill, of course, never comes down with just one item. He was working the "bookends" of the meal with appetizers and sweet street desserts too.

Raising check averages without hiking prices is an appealing sales-boosting strategy, but reaching

Eric Waddell, Chef Troy Burnam and Staff Sample Appetizers and Desserts Before Their Next Menu Change

that target requires careful planning. No check-raising tactic—offering food and wine specials or engaging in suggestive selling of appetizers or desserts—works without complete server buy-in. Bill was educating operators on how to get the server buy in and offering to do the training for them.

Check-raising strategies are only as good as the servers executing them, Bill says, and then offers these four ways to motivate them:

1. Show them the money. Figure out how much more servers could earn in a month by suggestive selling, and then literally show them that amount

Bill Cox At The 17th Street Grill With Owner Martha Espinosa

at a staff meeting. "Go around the room and ask each server what they’d do with an extra $50 or $100,"

2. Set goals. "Take your regular average check and increase it by 10%,". Then show servers how easy it would be to reach that goal by adding one appetizer or dessert to an order. But make sure the goal is attainable. "If it’s too high, they won’t try," he says.

3. Post results. "Servers are competitive,". Put peer pressure to work by posting average checks for each server in the kitchen each week.

4. Reward with busier shifts. Schedule servers with the highest check averages during peak periods to reward them and to help you drive sales.