Short transcript from a YouTube video (Donald Burns) discussing restaurant profitability and the role of hospitality. Key claims: average restaurant profit hovers around ~5%; some members achieve ~19–22% profit. Speaker argues the main problem is misunderstanding "true hospitality": restaurants chase revenue and expensive products (e.g., premium whiskey) but neglect creating the customer experience — which costs little compared with food and labor — and that delivering an exceptional feel/experience drives genuine customer value that advertising/promotion cannot buy.
What do you think is like, the biggest problem with restaurants today when it comes to, like, profitability? Because the average restaurant, you know, hovers around 5% profit. What do you think is some of the reasons that, you know, there's problems with profitability? What do you think is holding people back from breaking through and getting those high levels of profitability that our members see? Like, you know, 19, 20, 22% profit. What do you think is some of the things that hold people back?
I mean, it's probably overall, just the overall understanding of what true hospitality is.
True.
Yeah. You know, it's kind of like what you said about how did the mud meal at restaurant has made me feel. I mean, that's what we have to sell. You know, we can have whatever product we have, whatever. Whatever whiskey you want. You know, kind of gonna dig at the expensive whiskey here for a second. You know, we're not. Quit. Quit. It was kind of like I got to this point where the price point didn't matter. Like, the. The cheap. You know, A bottle of $30 whiskey is going to be the same as a $10,000 bottle of whiskey. It's good to taste, but really it's about hanging out with people and. And enjoying that. And that's what we have to create as a restaurant. We have to give that person the best experience possible. And I think restaurants spend too much time chasing revenues as a whole, and they forget about the hospitality. They forget about that. And you see your numbers increasing. But are the customers really happy? Are they there to pay for the experience? Because the experience doesn't really cost us anything. The product does. It cost us a lot. The labor cost us a lot. But if we can get the people to have this most awesome experience possible, I mean, that's something advertising can't buy. Promotion can't buy, Food can't buy. It's just the overall feel of everything.
