Small shops can succeed too! Summary of 7 lessons from big street food brands that small shops can actually apply

For many restaurant entrepreneurs, especially street food restaurants or small restaurants, when the business has reached a certain point and they want to move forward and expand the business, there may be a question of what to do. The important answer is that developing a 'system' and 'standards' is the key to leading our business to success. But how important are 'systems' and 'standards' and how to create both of them? Today, MHA volunteers to take everyone to talk to 'Mr. Tham - Pravat Tree', a business guru specializing in restaurant business management with over 25 years of experience. Currently, Mr. Tham is also a speaker and the owner of the international standard street food brand Plara Der (Pla Ra Der) that many people love for its taste, as well as the 'Pad Thai' brand, which is growing and has expanded to 10 branches in the Netherlands.

'Khun Tham - Prawat Tree' is a business guru and lecturer who is an expert in restaurant business management with over 25 years of experience.

1. 'Operational Excellence' is the key to Chain Restaurant success. Before opening his own restaurant brand, Khun Tham worked under world-class restaurant chains such as The Minor Food Group and Blue Elephant. He has been involved in overseeing famous brands such as KFC, YUM, Thai Express, Pizza Hut, The Pizza Company, Burger King, Sizzler, and many more. Working with these giants and leading brands has given Khun Tham the opportunity to see how...

What these world-class successful chain restaurants all have in common is an 'excellent operating system' or 'Operation Excellent'. "What makes these big food brands successful enough to open thousands of branches are the important components of 'system', 'standards', and 'excellent operating system'. This is the DNA that will make the food business a sustainable success." To prove what he had learned while working for big brands for decades, before Mr. Tham decided to leave The Minor Food Group, he tried to open the 'Pla Ra Der' brand. “I started with developing recipes, doing Costing, and creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). Then I had a Training Roadmap to teach my employees how to make som tam, fermented fish sauce, sausage, marinated grilled pork neck, marinated chicken, bamboo shoot curry, etc. After doing this for about 2 months, I moved to the Netherlands to create the ‘Pad Thai’ brand. The result was that both of our businesses were able to run very well. It proved that if we had a good system, we could do the same as the big brands that were successful.”

• What are the benefits of 'standards' and 'systems'?

Mr. Tham explained that the problem of running a restaurant is mostly about quality because people have mood swings. If they are in a good mood, they can do well, but when their mood changes, they will get different results, which affects the food and service. “First of all, standards help to make the taste and quality of the food consistent. When customers come to eat, it will be the same every time, in terms of quality, taste, quantity, and service. For example, how many pieces of chicken are served, how are they arranged? If they are leaning left, they are leaning left all the time. That is, customers get the food as advertised. It is not like the picture looks one way and the real thing looks another. And another important thing is that anyone can do it . They do not even need to be a professional chef because we have recipes, SOPs, and a training roadmap. It also allows us to expand and open branches quickly. But if we do not have these systems to control the standards, expanding the business will be difficult. This is an important thing that I have learned from working with big brands and applied it.”

3. Find your Hero Product. Some restaurants may think that having multiple menus to give customers options is a good thing, but Mr. Tham says that having a single product, which is

Hero Product or selling point will help to make it easier to manage and sell. Hero Product is an important thing that if it is a Chain Restaurant that wants to expand its business, it should find it. “For example, KFC’s Hero Product is fried chicken, while McDonald’s is burgers. I applied this idea to my Pad Thai restaurant in the Netherlands. We mainly sell Pad Thai, but we also have other side dishes such as green curry, massaman curry, and other snacks. However, the Hero Product is still the original Pad Thai recipe, which we fry on a flat pan to make it easier to handle, but it still has the original Thai flavor. Pad Thai is a food that Thais might think of as ordinary street food, but when it comes to foreign countries, it has become a Thai food that everyone knows. So I came up with the idea that I wanted to make Thai street food like Pad Thai a popular and standardized fast food. Setting up a system to create Pad Thai brand standards has made my business in the Netherlands successful and able to expand to many branches.”

• 3 important systems in a restaurant

When talking about the 'important systems within a restaurant', the restaurant management guru also said that we can divide it into 3 parts: 1) Kitchen system 2) Service system 3) Management system " The system is something that we have experimented, adjusted, done for a long time until we have expertise, expertise, and practiced until we have proven that doing this is the best. It will be developed into a system. The 'kitchen system' will affect the quality of the food, making the food consistently high quality, reducing waste, and having a delicious taste, etc. As for the 'service system', it is about teaching the staff how to serve customers, what are the details and steps, such as when customers arrive, you must smile and greet them, take their orders, make them wait, what are the steps to put things in for customers, etc. When we have many restaurants, these things that are done in the same way will be a system that creates a standard, including the 'administrative system or management work within the restaurant' such as marketing, finance, accounting, etc., which will help each branch run smoothly and help us manage our business more easily."

• If you want to improve your street food, start by practicing 'Food Hygiene'.

In terms of street food, if you want to increase sales of street food by applying the concepts of big brands, how can you do it? And where should you start? -- Restaurant guru Mr. Tham answers that 'cleanliness' is the first important variable. "Whether it's upgrading, upscaling, or upselling to sell better, I think that 'Food Hygiene', both the cleanliness of the food and the cleanliness of the work standards, should be a very important variable that will make the food and image of the shop look good, including helping to sell at a better price. For example, if Auntie Somsri's soy milk shop on the side of the road wants to improve its quality, it might start with clean uniforms, neatly tidy hair, and vendors who have been trained in Food Hygiene to know how to handle food, which are risky, which are not good, what should be done or not done. When it's street food that looks safe, customers will definitely be willing to pay a little more to buy our products."

6. When systems and standards are created, it becomes 'Branding'.

Mr. Tham also pointed out the importance of systems and standards, which not only help to make operations and expansion easier, but also play an important role in creating recognition or creating 'branding'. “Whether it’s the restaurant’s logo, staff uniforms, interior decoration, etc., to the steps and methods of providing service, such as saying hello and thanking customers in the same way, having the same menu in the same bowl, plate, etc., if we do everything repeatedly and in the same way, things will be set as standards and will come together to become our brand that customers will remember. This is the reason why every time I open a restaurant, whether it’s Pla Ra Der or Pad Thai, I have to think of a concept and create a Brand Book first. We will spend a lot of time thinking about the branding and system until it is clear, and then we will start training the work to set up the various systems of the restaurant according to the concept that we have set.”

7. Size is not important, but intention is important.

What you Tham would like to leave to entrepreneurs, which are street food or small restaurants that want to improve their standards, is to emphasize that you don't have to look at whether your shop is small or large. "Size doesn't matter, but the intention is to make it systematic and standardized because this system is the key that will allow us to develop our business to be sustainable and successful. Thais are skilled at cooking, so there are many different concepts of street food. When it sells well for a while, of course, the quality and standards must be improved to be consistent. Because the weakness of street food is that if the owner makes it himself and we stop selling, we won't have any income, right? Because there is no one to do it instead. Therefore , whether you are a food cart, a food truck, a shophouse rice shop, or a large restaurant, the system is still important. If we do not give importance to the system, it will make us tired and not fun to do it because in the end we will have to come back and fix the same old problems over and over again. "Actually, creating a system is not difficult , but it is not easy either. It takes time to test, adjust, and must be disciplined. It must be put into practice. If there is no system, everything will end with our generation or the generation of our descendants. The system does not have to be very big. It can be just a small system that will make us confident that what we are doing is up to standard every time. Or if we are no longer around and someone else comes to do it, it will still be up to standard. And do not be afraid that if we create a system, someone will copy it because even if we do not write anything, the people who come to work with us every day will remember it anyway."

“I would like everyone to see the importance of systems and developing people and teams, which will help our business move forward continuously and achieve sustainable success.” Click to read the interesting interview.

“Slurp Duck Noodles” Roadside duck noodles, changing lives to become a national street food champion!

Flip the book to handle emergencies with frozen food delivered all over Thailand, generating hundreds of thousands in income.

Turn a low-profit restaurant into a profitable one! With Ms. Muk, owner of Lom Yak Restaurant, Phetchaburi Soi 5

Starting at 11 baht per piece, building a sushi business worth 500 million baht, a knockout punch for the 27-year-old man who created the Shinkanzen Sushi brand

Boon Nam Pha, a service for organizing merit-making events at home, sharing 7 years of experience. Restaurants that want to organize catering events must read!