Dave & Buster’s is a famous American restaurant that deals in both the restaurant business and entertainment. It has its headquarters in Dallas and has over 80 other restaurant across United States, and all of their locations include a restaurant and a video arcade. In the food and beverage industry, various metrics are applied in order to evaluate an organization’s profitability such as sales turnover and sales per seat. Organization profitability is also influenced by factors such as employee systems and controls. This paper will discuss the restaurant’s operational systems and identify those that are effective, the ineffective ones, and offer possible solutions.
The Dave & Buster’s was founded in the 1970’s by merging two different business entities. Dave was a restaurant while Buster’s specialized in fun games for adults. On the realization that most of their clients were making constant rounds between the two locations, the two decided to merge the businesses under one shelter, and hence the birth of Dave & Buster’s. The Dave & Buster’s is known for its exceptional strawberry flavored ice cubes that are served with their drinks. The organization’s most remarkable attribute is the fact that they have incorporated fun in their restaurant. Their campaign slogan incorporates eat, drink and play, which calls for the public to enjoy their menu as well as play games and watch sports. The Dave Buster’s has a complete “American gourmet menu” including appetizers and entrees, a complete collection of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and facilities to watch and play games. The Dave & Buster’s restaurant has an average seat capacity of 50 at the dining area, and 200 seats during events. The restaurant targets families looking to have fun together which it has successfully achieved, by allowing their clients to have fun while they dine. The restaurant operates between 11am on Monday to Thursday and between 11am and 1pm on weekends.
The restaurant has excellent customer service, which it achieves by ensuring all their meals are prepared so as to meet the needs of the clients. They also target corporates and individuals looking to organize parties. They also have tailored menus for clients with health restrictions. The games and video arcade keep the children and the youth interested to revisit their restaurants. The restaurant has over 80 successful branches in the United States and is looking to expand into Canada. The firm has invested heavily in highly skilled chefs so as to ensure customer satisfaction. The restaurant also uses games, entertainment arcades and hubs in order to offer a complete entertainment experience for its customers. The food and beverage industry is highly competitive, and the restaurant faces stiff competition from restaurants such as McDonalds, burger king and pizza hut among others. The restaurant has also done little effort in the advertising and marketing department, although the restaurant can still devise marketing campaigns. The cost of raw materials is on a steep rise, making the cost of production even higher, while more investors are looking to venture into the food and beverage business.
Metrics and Systems
Dave Buster’s applies various systems and metrics, in order to maintain its unique services, excellent customer services, and most importantly, to evaluate its success. The organization is known to offer highly competitive compensation packages as well as very attractive bonus programs for its employees. The organization attributes its success to its highly efficient management team, whom they insist on promoting from within the organization. Currently all the general managers at the various locations of the restaurant have been with Dave & Buster’s for at least three years . On promotion, the managers are taken through a training program on customer service, food preparation and food quality, service of beverages, employee interaction and managing entertainment, which lasts for eleven weeks. All new employees at the restaurant undergo a two week training program conducted by the management. The organization encourages suggestions from its employees, keenly addresses the concerns of its employees, and offers incentives to employees with exemplary performance. The organization uses secret shoppers in order to evaluate the restaurants food and customer service. These secret shoppers pose as customers without the knowledge of the immediate management, and report back to the corporate management. The organization also uses a computerized point of sales system, which makes it easier to manage between customer orders, service and the kitchen, as well as keeping track of sales per employee, for purposes of incentives. The organization uses financial reports to evaluate its progress. These financial results include cost and revenue, as well as the percentile of each, to the overall coat or revenue of the organization. These include food and beverage revenue, operational cost, amusement and entertainment revenues, operational cost and labor cost among others.
Various systems applied by the Dave & Buster’s restaurant have proven to be highly effective. By incorporating entertainment into their restaurant, the Dave & Buster’s venture remains a unique restaurant. Dave & Buster’s is known for its uniqueness since its foundation. Dave & Buster’s, was first known for serving its beverage with unique straw berry flavored ice cubes that were not served elsewhere. The restaurant sets itself apart from other restaurants by offering excellent customer service to its clients. The restaurant invests heavily in highly skilled chefs in order to ensure that it serves meals that are prepared according to their customer’s needs. It also takes care of customers who have certain health restrictions by serving meals that are suitable for them. By increasing their locations around the United States, it has enabled their customers to enjoy their services from multiple locations. The computerized sales system is an effective system to evaluate the restaurant. Apart from keeping the employees motivated to get more sales, it gives a clear indication of the number of sales. A drop or rise in sales is obvious depending on the daily sales. Popular foods and beverages can be identified depending on the number of sales per item. Financial reports are effective in following the progress of Dave Buster’s. For example, a comparison between the 2014 financial report and the 2015 financial report shows that the organization, reduced the overall operational, which explains the increase in revenue in 2015. 53.4% of the company’s revenue in 2015 third quarter came from amusement and entertainment . This assists the company to make better decisions in the future which enable the company to reduce cost and maximize profits.
Other systems employed by Dave & Busters have, however, failed to be very effective for the organization. The failure of the organization to invest in the advertising and marketing sector has made less people to be aware of their products and brands. The organization opts to save on advertising, and instead relies on word of mouth for advertising. The competition, for example McDonalds, has endless campaigns for their products, and brands which makes them known to a big part of the market share that Dave & Buster’s hopes to attract. The decision by the organization to only promote from within the organization poses a major threat to the organization. This causes the organization to rely heavily on its current management. In the event that something happened to the current management, organization would run into a major crisis. By promoting from within the organization, the organization fails to be dynamic, since it has no input from other players in the same business venture. The secret shopper is an ineffective system since the secret shoppers may be biased. Customers’ experiences vary depending on a number of factors such as preference in foods. The secret shopper cannot be a reliable metric for evaluation of the company.
In conclusion, Dave Buster’s success can be attributed to its effective operation systems. In the world of business customer service is an important attribute. In order to ensure that customer service is upheld by the employees, it is important to keep the employees highly motivated and enthusiastic. By taking care of their concerns, welcoming their suggestions and appreciating them through incentives, bonuses and promoting from their own organization, the organization keeps both the employees and customers satisfied. However, the company could improve its systems by investing more in marketing and advertisement, in order to reach out to a bigger market share. By promoting from within the organization, the organization fails to learn from other players in the market. The organization’s dependency on inside personnel and its current management could have a catastrophic effect to the organization should anything happen to the organization’s current management. The organization should come up with better metrics to evaluate the success of the company as well as invest more in the marketing and advertising department.
Online Discussion Questions
Should the company do an overhaul of its current management? Explain your answer.
Is the company’s policy to strictly promote managers from within the organization a good decision?
Can the secret shoppers be relied upon to evaluate the success of the company?
References
Dave Buster's Inc. (2015, November). Dave Buster's Inc. Retrieved March 8, 2016, from http://ir.daveandbusters.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=946175
Securities and Exchange Commision. (2000). The Dave Buster's Inc. Washington DC: Securities and Exchange Commision.
