Excerpt from
Restaurant Management magazine
by Daniel P. Smith
In one of fine dining’s odd turns, Texas de Brazil earned 10 percent sales growth while Fogo de Chao, a similar Brazilian-style steakhouse, reported the fine-dining segment’s largest sales decline with a 7.8 percent slump.
“The service and menu are similar, so one has to wonder if this has something to do with execution,” Chapman says.
Texas de Brazil found success with its eclectic bar menu highlighted by 55-year-old scotches and rare malts as well as its increased attention to customer recognition.
“Our in-restaurant management team touches every table,” Texas de Brazil director of operations Anil Sekhri says. “We work hard to develop relationships and rapport.”
The Denver-based Brazilian steakhouse retrenched in training, specifically with its servers. Seeking to create dining room sales staff rather than simple “order takers,” staff received consistent training on etiquette and product knowledge, often gaining in-depth insight from wine and alcohol vendors.
“Training’s been a big part of sales going up and people coming back,” Sekhri says.
On the operations front, Texas de Brazil implemented daily sales objectives and tightened both payroll and inventory. The inventory-tracking AccuBar system, for instance, provides management perpetual, real-time inventory numbers that deliver efficiency as well as feedback on bar percentages and margins.
“We don’t just open the doors and see what numbers roll in,” Sekhri says. “We had great tools in place and we worked to make them better to come out the negative economy.”