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Month: January 2021

Why Must Restaurants Collect Feedback from Customers?

Posted on by inresto

As a growing restaurant, you must prioritize business and marketing changes according to customer feedback, both positive and negative. However, problems might arise: you may find it difficult and time-consuming to check such feedback on multiple online platforms such as Zomato, Facebook etc. Moreover, you might overlook the crucial step of encouraging people to put forth constructive customer reviews. As a result, you may lose business to a competitor who has better reviews and invites customer opinions on how to improve their dining experience. 

To avoid such misconceptions and consequent mishaps, remember a golden rule of the restaurant business: online branding is as important as asking for feedback and acting upon it. If you are able to gather customer insights regarding greater satisfaction, they will enable you to make informed modifications to business operations and improve your brand value in the industry. Given below are some crucial reasons why restaurants must collect customer feedback.

1. Absence of positive customer feedback

What is a textbook mistake restaurants make? They do not ask each of their clients to put forth customer feedback, irrespective of whether it is positive or otherwise. This can prove to be counterproductive, as most customers will be likely to avoid spending some extra minutes filling up a feedback form, especially if they have no complaints or grievances to register. 

In the restaurant business, customers only tend to give reviews if they are negative, i.e., when it voices their dissatisfaction. If you don’t consistently request for honest and transparent customer feedback, your restaurant might not have a single good review! In order to avoid such obstacles to brand growth, ask your customers to fill up customer printed/online feedback forms with their opinions on the dining experience you offer. s Moreover, you can publish positive reviews online after obtaining the concerned customers’ approvals.

2. Improvement of virtual brand renown

With a state-of-the-art tablet feedback system that collect all your customer reviews in a single organized database, you can keep tabs on the quantity and quality of your restaurant’s reviews. In turn, you can use such technological advances to regulate what type of feedback can be showcased on websites and social media handles. Therefore, the ratio of positive to negative reviews starts to change in favor of the former; a great method of improving your brand value.

3. Customer delight: retention and increase 

As your restaurant brand encourages more customer feedback, happy customers will tend to develop lasting bonds with your brand. Now, you become the primary culinary choice of trusting clients. They are the ones who will keep coming back for more, as well as spread word of your services far and wide! 

So, you must take special care of your customers who love your vibe and your dishes! To this end, you can make them subscribe to a loyalty program involving discounts, offers, contest prizes, and gifts. Let your clients know that you prioritize them over everyone else. This way, you sustain strong customer-business relationships and steer your restaurant towards success. 

4. Revamping menu

Menu modification is one of the most important roles customer reviews play in the operational/product modifications of restaurant chains. Looking at clear and constructive feedback, you can gather vast amounts of data on which products and services are popular and which fail to make a positive mark. Using such data, you can decide to include new items on your menu and remove the least rated ones. Indeed, your future achievements as a restaurant business will pivot around the careful changes that make your menus more exciting and attractive.

Click here to know how to increase your profit margin with the help of digital menu.

5. Restaurant settings and food safety

Dining experiences have survived even the coronavirus! Restaurants are opening with promises of the same fantastic ambience that gets you comfortable and craving the perfect meal while maintaining social distancing and sanitization guidelines. How do customers regain their trust in dining out? Two words: customer feedback! 

With positive reviews on customer feedback systems, your restaurant garners more trust, your brand becomes more reliable. A hassle-free experience tailored to your customers’ previous feedback makes your restaurant shine through.

6. Edge over competition

Once you are actively encouraging, generating, and acting upon customer reviews, you can collect important data on industry trends and competitors. Essentially, these are pieces of information you can use to edge out the competition and find new avenues for reputation and growth. Data is the new global currency, and your business requires thorough analyses of customer feedback data to thrive.

7. Rigorous staff training workshops

Are you going wrong in terms of in-person dining services? Are they unhappy with the time taken for delivery? By encouraging any and all feedback, you can learn about your shortcomings in staff operations. Overcoming these require a more hands-on professional approach, as you will have to train your human personnel, your trusted restaurant family members.

In turn, you can advise your staff to be more courteous, cooperative, asking them to avoid intrusion. This does not mean, however, that they distance themselves completely: a warm smile and a warmer service is a must!

8. Spread the word, real and virtual

How do you fast-track your brand reach and attract new customers in the virtual world? Simply turn your current loyal customers into your marketing agents: by asking for thorough feedback on virtual portals, you can ask your loyal clients and well-wishers to let their friends and loved ones know about you. As more people check your restaurant chain out, you can rest assured about business growth in the right direction! Now, you don’t need to worry about negative reviews! 

In a world that is becoming increasingly “contactless,” your restaurant’s dining experience needs to be integrated with social distancing guidelines. So, you need to install tablet feedback systems where customers can easily type in their wishes, complaints, and other thoughts. With this addition to your digital restaurant management software, you can streamline the total dining experience, with personalized digital menus, tech-savvy staff, and delicious food. Hence, never forget to ask for your customers’ opinions! 

How to Successfully Run an Online Bakery Business

Posted on by inresto

The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely hard on restaurants and confectionery businesses, especially upcoming bakeries and patisseries. As customers cannot even head out of their homes during the lockdown, how do bakery businesses facilitate sales? How do you invite back your trusted customers? 

In such a situation running a bakery business from home where you deliver goodies to your customers is the only way ahead. This involves finding online avenues for sales and branding. Thereby, new enterprises can offer amazing items using unique recipes through virtual platforms or applications. Hence, people should also consider starting an online bakery. Thus, you must create an online presence for your bakery business if you want to sustain and expand it in the post-COVID world.

How to Successfully Run an Online Bakery Business

How do you successfully build an online bakery brand that becomes the primary choice of customers’? Given below are some pointers that will help you consolidate your online bakery business.

1. Have a clear theme/vision for your online bakery 

Any marketing expert will tell you for any hopes of carving out a customer base, you have got to be unique. To stand out, at the outset you must conceive of a theme, perhaps link the food to your concept. The trick is to merge the concept with the food so that the former enhances the experience of the latter! 

After you have decided on a theme, market your brand on your online webpage, social media pages, and delivery applications. Thus, you can maximize demand and gauge the customer behavior and buyer trends around your online bakery. You can adapt to customer preferences and behavior and offer your products accordingly.

In case your online bakery business is ready to grow, makes changes to your online menus and personalize them as per customer demands. Your menu can not only be vast and offer options for customized orders but also sell assorted confectioneries with swift packaging. 

2. Organize your budget use 

Is your online confectionery sustainable in the post-corona market? Are you able to pay for the right ingredients, train the best cooks, and deliver delicious food to your customers hassle-free? Have you invested in the right technology? Are you delivering orders on time? For a budding online confectionery, thinking about these questions is crucial as they inform every business decision you make. Add to that the quality of your raw material as well as of your finished food products.

To create a smooth supply chain, you must resort to bulk purchases of raw ingredients from the best vendors at regular intervals. This way, you will never exhaust your inventory and run out of essentials. Safe storage of inventory is your next big responsibility, as you must ensure that perishable items do not go bad and you don’t suffer consequent losses. 

Remember that you might face problems with inventory supply owing to the availability of ingredients. Some items are always going to be more difficult to procure than others. Thus, you need to make a comprehensive list of all low-supply ingredients that are essential to your online bakery products. Keep track of which items are scarce at what phases in a business year. You can modify your menus in relation to such information.

In case you decide to purchase essential equipment, you will need to account for space they will take up: from grinders/mixers to ovens to electric chimneys. Depending on your plans for expansion, your investment in equipment will fluctuate. 

3. Establish an attractive virtual presence

As an online bakery, you must have a fair amount of online brand visibility and generate sales opportunities online. All your famished clients will be eager to hear about your foray into virtual business, and you must create a buzz for them. This buzz can culminate into a user-friendly webpage or a patented application. 

Do it with inresto Online Order.

To this end, you can include a customer form on your website’s landing page. Any interested client will be asked to fill-up the form with their contact details and their most preferred products out of your menus. The online experience of your customers must be seamless, fast and comfortable. Create smart menus to let customers know your bestsellers, specials, and customizable orders.

Click here to know how to boost your restaurant business via Instagram.

4. Official registration is necessary

Before your online confectionery embarks on its virtual journey, you must get yourself official registration by the concerned state government authority. An official license will let your customers rest assured that your food items are healthy, top-class, and follow the requisite food safety guidelines. 

To ensure that no legal complications arise later, acquire all the necessary official license at the outset. After all, a stitch in time saves nine!

5. Online branding is key

As you develop a cool and sleek business webpage and social media business accounts, use them to spread the word: a new online bakery is in town, with the best cakes, pastries, cookies, and savories in town! 

How do you publicize your online bakery? Apart from word-of-mouth, you can put up interesting audio-visual content and blogs that are associated with your brand and the industry to which it belongs. 

You will not be successful in terms of online business if you don’t think out of the box. Instead of treading the known paths of marketing and branding, chalk out a niche avenue for your product marketing: appeal to the basic needs, desperate cravings, and informed choices of various clients. 

6. Enter the realm of digital marketing

Technological advances are aiding online restaurateurs and bakeries in the fight for survival in the corona-engulfed world. Even since the pandemic, digital marketing software has become the clear choice of budding online restaurant chains. These allow your customers to view, browse, buy and send feedback on your products and brand. Therefore, make sure you create social media handles for your online bakery on these platforms.

Click here to know how to run a digital marketing campaign for your restaurant.

In summary, your bakery business must build an impeccable online reputation regarding the quality of products, the efficiency of delivery, customer care etc. The above list is not exhaustive but contains the key aspects of how to successfully build and sustain an online bakery business. All the best! 🙂

Common Mistakes Restaurants Make When Integrating a New Technology

Posted on by inresto

For most restaurant owners, adopting new technology is uncharted territory. They have a love and hate relationship with technology. Integration of new restaurant technology not only increases profitability but also a crucial competitive edge. However, implementing new technology is an arduous procedure which when not followed correctly keeps most of these potential benefits at bay.

“A third of restaurant operators say they lag in tech use”, according to a report by National Restaurant Association (NRA) in 2016. It means that restaurant owners lack in adopting despite being well-informed about the numerous advantages of technology. Due to common mistakes, restaurants make when integrating new technology, they face outright failure or terrible execution, to say the least. 

Also read: Must have restaurant technologies

Before going over those common mistakes, let’s understand why is restaurant technology imperative in this day and age:

Why Invest in Restaurant Technology? 

Technology is enhancing every aspect of consumers’ lives and dining experience is no exception. The convenience offered by innovative restaurant technology combined with conventional dining hospitality is what diners want in today’s date. For this reason, restaurant technology is no longer considered a luxury. It has rather become a necessity for brands, big or small.

Technology is essential for improving several facets of the restaurant business including increased efficiency, cost-saving, and dining experience. This is why technology has infiltrated every realm of restaurant business such as operations, customer care, sustainability, and kitchen automation!

Click here to read the restaurant technology trends that are helping restaurants increase reservations & revenue.

6 Common Mistakes Made by Restaurant Owners in Adopting New Technology

There are several pitfalls of integrating a new restaurant technology. Without studying them, the investment will make your life difficult while you are trying to achieve the opposite.

Let’s explore them one after the other, shall we?

1. Misunderstanding the Needs

This is one of the most common restaurant mistakes owners make while incorporating new technology. If you are a restaurant owner, you may not feel obliged to include your employees in the decision-making process but it’s a grave mistake. Your decisions impact everyone including administration, line management, back of the house, and front of the house.

While it is not possible to include every staff member, you can certainly appoint a representative from each department. They can offer useful insights that will yield positive results in future. For every decision to be successful, you should involve those who will receive the impact in future. 

2. Not Planning Enough

This is another common restaurant mistake observed while investing in a new technology. Lack of effective planning can create roadblocks to full-scale implementation of restaurant technology. While it’s not possible to predict everything, detailed planning will mitigate many potential risks during rollout.

The collective experience of your advisory team will offer valuable inputs that will result in successful rollout of new technology. Together you can devise solutions that will make the transformation seamless. Technological intervention creates significant disruption, in both positive and negative sense. 

Through meticulous planning, your restaurant will reap enormous benefits in future.

3. Purchasing Wrong Software

There is no such thing as “perfect restaurant management software” out there. Every business has different requirements and thus invest in a software which meets those requirements. This is the reason why many restaurant technologies are underutilized. With numerous options available, it can be confusing for restaurant owners to choose one. 

Choose a software which can substantially improve bookkeeping, guest experience, and restaurant operations. For instance, you can explore a suite of products offered by inResto such as reservation management software, feedback management system, marketing campaigns, website, and mobile application.  

4. Not Training Staff

Not training staff members before purchasing a piece of software is one of the most common restaurant mistakes owners make. This is why you should train them on how to use the software and troubleshoot problems if they occur. Failing to do so can result in customer dissatisfaction which you absolutely want to avoid in the competitive restaurant business. 

Imagine a scenario where a diner gets stuck while placing an order digitally and asks one of your staff members for help. If he or she isn’t able to do so, chances are the customer will get annoyed or frustrated and next time choose a competitor for dining out. Therefore, your staff must be well-versed with the intricacies of restaurant technology you have invested in. 

5. Selecting Unwanted Features

As a restaurant owner, you want to hire a developer for creating a mobile application dedicated to online food delivery. You would want to check-off every feature on the list, right? Well! This is yet another common restaurant mistake that should be avoided. Adding numerous features is not the right approach as it makes the app heavy and bulky!

Customers do not appreciate a feature-rich, fancy mobile application. Instead, they want something which is simple and straightforward. Stuffing the app with too many features is a dreadful practice. Moreover, it will take more time to load everything, adding to the irritation of the user. 

6. Downplaying Security Concerns

Because of the nature of digital solutions, security breaches have become quite common. The restaurant technology you are investing in should be secure enough to prevent external threats lurking online. Disregarding security concerns can cause reputational and financial losses for your restaurant. 

Especially in food delivery apps, customers make financial transactions through their credit cards or debit cards. This information is extremely confidential which is why your software must be able to protect the users’ data. Same is true for CRM software and POS systems which have tons of data stored in digital format. 

Therefore, you should choose a firm which has the reputation of developing secure restaurant technology in the business to prevent such losses. 

Let’s Wind Up

Before dipping your toes in restaurant technology space, you must consider the above factors to minimize the risks involved. Choose the right software, involve your team, train your staff, do enough research and planning and limit the features to what is absolutely required. Just keep it simple and secure for everyone!

How India’s first WISH GRILL Restaurant crossed a monthly GMV of 18 Lakhs

Posted on by inresto
How India’s first WISH GRILL Restaurant crossed a monthly GMV of 18 Lakhs
Contact us: contact@inresto.com

Choosing the Right Cuisine for Your Restaurant

Posted on by inresto

Starting your own restaurant in the current scenario can be both terrific and risky. While there is never a stop to eating, the number of restaurants open to cater to diners are high enough to make them seem untrackable. 

The only way to truly make your establishment different from the rest is in your choice of cuisine. The restaurant cuisine type can determine whether people would frequent your restaurant and favour it over the rest.

Before you choose a random and rare type of cuisine, remember that your choice of cuisine will also determine your profits.

What must you consider when choosing your restaurant cuisine?

While starting your own restaurant comes with its difficulties, choosing the right cuisine is no walk in the park either. There are a number of things to be considered that help you understand the pros and cons of every decision and make a prudent choice. 

Here are the factors you must keep in mind:

1. Think Before you Make Choices

When it comes to setting up a restaurant, following one’s passion is always the strongest of the reasons. Choosing a restaurant cuisine from hundreds of types of cuisines is no different. If you have the capital, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from offering a certain type of cuisine to your patrons. 

However, make sure you narrow the option from among a list of cuisines that are practical, considering your experience and knowledge. A backup plan always helps, too! While you may be sure of going ahead with the cuisine of your choice, there a number of other factors to consider before you make the final decision.

2. Identify your Strengths

No one is better aware of your strong points than you. So, when you’re setting up your restaurant and deciding your restaurant cuisine, jot down all your strong points, from sourcing raw materials for cooking to negotiating prices and more. All of these can help you decide if a particular cuisine is the right one for your establishment.

Make sure that whichever restaurant cuisine you settle on and whatever dishes you add to your menu, you are expert enough to step in for your chefs and sous chefs in their absence. This way, you can also guide your staff and make sure there is order in your kitchen. 

3. Calculate your Budget

Your budget is another crucial factor to be kept in mind while deciding on a cuisine. You can hardly choose one that requires items way beyond your budget. Calculate your funds, your expected expenses, and your potential income before finalising the restaurant cuisine type that’s best for you.

Imagine settling on seafood as your cuisine and not being able to afford the crustaceans and molluscs. Keep your budget as a top consideration before taking any step so your restaurant stays afloat no matter the season or economic condition. 

Click here to read ‘How to run a tight budget restaurant?’

5. Keep the Location in Mind

Understand the implications of choosing a restaurant cuisine that has not been encountered by people before. Considering the amount of money people spend dining at a restaurant, they are less likely to opt for dishes that they have never heard of or tried before. 

The location of your restaurant is vital in deciding the type of cuisine you should opt for. In an area where other restaurants are serving exquisite or international cuisines, you needn’t fear the repercussions of choosing what you wish to for your restaurant. 

In case your restaurant is located in an area that sees patrons that stick to safer choices in food, it is best to lean towards something that is preferred by a larger portion of the crowd.

6. Map your Competition

When you consider the various types of cuisines on your list, make sure you also take note of your competitors. The higher the number of competitors in the vicinity of your establishment, the lesser your chances of being frequented by people. 

If you choose a cuisine type that is relatively common, add in a little something that is exclusive to your establishment and cannot be found anywhere around. This will be enough motivation for people to visit your restaurant.

However, going or something that is less common but popular nonetheless is sure to give you an edge over other restaurants and have curious diners coming over for a bite.

7. Understand your Audience

Understanding your audience is equally important when you plan on choosing a cuisine for your restaurant. Find out who your audience would be and their preferences. If you wish to go with a pan-Asian theme for your cuisine, visit a few pan Asian eateries within your restaurant’s vicinity. Make note of what they like and do not like about the place.

Another way to identify the tastes and preferences of your audience is to check the genuine reviews posted by patrons on the pages of your competitors. This way, you know exactly how soupy they prefer their noodles to be and how much spice they like in their Malaysian cuisine.

Click here to know how to trarget customers for your restaurant.

8. Take Recommendations from Trusted Advisors

Confiding about your plans of deciding on a restaurant cuisine type for your establishment with your closest friends and associates is the perfect way to get the right suggestions. These people will never steer you wrong and will give you just the recommendation you need, along with a strong reason as to why they recommend it.

So, while you are doing your little research, they can help you by conducting one of their own that goes over the pros and cons of each. After all, ten people’s experience is better than just your own to identify people’s interests and preferences.

While you are free to decide on a restaurant cuisine of your preference, make sure you keep these factors in mind before making your final decision from among the countless types of cuisines in the world.

How to Grow Restaurant Sales in 2021?

Posted on by inresto

Due to the pandemic, the food industry has taken a huge hit. We can see that the pandemic has affected far too many things in the current era including the industries. Running a restaurant is also a challenge for the owners due to lower diner traffic than the usual. Naturally, the question arises how to grow restaurant sales in 2021? Since the restaurant industry is extremely competitive, it helps to keep these points in mind to increase the customer reach in your restaurant.

Here are Top 7 Ways to Grow Restaurant Sales in 2021

Let’s discuss the points that might help you know how to increase restaurant sales and attract the right customers to your restaurant. 

1. Provide a Peaceful Environment with an Exciting Menu

Most customers need a peaceful environment to enjoy their time in your restaurant. They also enjoy more when the menu is exciting, and the restaurant staff has excellent internal coordination. These two factors help the customer save time during the dining out process. As most restaurant owners know, customers hate to wait too long before their food is served. So, providing a good turn around time and a menu can ensure that the customer is happy with the services of the restaurant. 

2. Listing the Restaurant on Online Review Platforms

When any customer wants to eat, they first check the nearest best serving restaurant online. So, listing your restaurant on several platforms can help you reach your customers. Some such online sites include Google business, Dineout, Trip Advisor, Bing places for business, yelp, and others. 

Getting good reviews and listing on these websites can certainly help you reach more customers effectively. When your customer finds your services to be the best, they will indeed suggest your restaurant to others too. So, generating word-of-mouth publicity through your happy customers is a great suggestion on how to increase restaurant sales.

3. Maintain Digital Presence

Registering your restaurants with online food delivery services is extremely useful for delivering the food and getting recognized by the customers. Online food delivery platforms can become one of the most effective ways to increase the reach of your restaurant. Online food delivery services can be the best option to let people know about the various restaurants in the area and the menu provided by the restaurant. It helps you reach a wider audience.  Registering your restaurant in online food delivery platforms can increase its sales.

Having your own website and social media presence of your restaurant does not only help you reach a wider audience but also it enables your diners to place orders directly and you can gain customer data. 

4. Getting the Perfect Price 

Getting customers to visit you is the first task. However, if the prices are not in favour of the customers, they can opt-out of ordering from the restaurant again. This loss can affect even more customers if they feel the high price doesn’t justify the services they can avail. On the flip side, if the price is too less, it can also affect you. 

Maintaining a perfect price point that suits both the restaurant and the customers is one of the best ways to get more customers. Setting a fair price is a way of getting good reach and positive reviews from your customers. So, when the services you provide are in favour of your customers, your customers will advertise for you and boost the organic reach of your restaurant.

Click here to know menu pricing tactics to boost your restaurant’s revenue.

5. Deliver the Best Service 

Excellent customer services help you build a long-lasting relationship with your customers. Every service the customer avails is a gateway for you to strengthen your relationship with them. Your staff can play a vital role in taking advantage of this gateway. 

Training your staff to deliver the best services can be very efficient for the restaurant. Every service ranging from the way they greet the customers with the menu, deliver food, and assist them with discounts can be an essential part of getting more customers. Offers and freebies are also a great way to attract more customers to your restaurant. Strategically using special occasions to announce offers on food can be an excellent way of attracting your customers.

6. Increase Diner Sale with Social Media

A robust social media presence is an essential part of reaching more customers. Informing customers about several offers, uploading the best cuisine photographs on social media handles, and posting regularly on a lovely blog can increase your reach drastically. 

So, maintain your social media handles and let your customers know more about your services with different blogs and posts. Through these posts, you can generate curiosity and hold the attention of your customers and get the correct information about the restaurant. Social media, nowadays, is a great reach building tool for businesses.

Click here to read effective ways to do social media marketing for restaurants.

7. Maintain Proper Hygiene and Sanitization

In the era of global pandemic, restaurants need to maintain good hygiene in their premises to attract and retain customers. As a restaurant owner, you must provide your customers proper sanitization facilities, and train your staff to help you maintain hygiene in your restaurants. Restaurants need to sanitize their diners regularly to prevent the spread of the pandemic and keep their customers safe. 

We’re sure adequate hygiene will attract more customers to your restaurants. So, ensure you follow government’s guidelines on hygiene and social distancing to stay in your customers’ good books.

Summing Up

We’ve discussed many ways that help you with how to increase restaurant sales in 2021. To increase sales in a restaurant, you need not revamp an entire menu. All you need to do is to maintain a proper and loving relationship with your customers. With the right promotion and comfortable surroundings, you can get organic traffic to the restaurants through your loyal customers. 

As a restaurant owner, do your research to find even more exciting ways to get traffic to the restaurant. You can easily accomplish this task by providing adequate services at reasonable prices and making your customers advertise for you by offering them the required services. Serving your customer and building a close relationship with them is the most effective and time-tested of getting more customers to your restaurant.    

GST on Restaurants: All you Need to Know

Posted on by inresto

After years of juggling in between different taxes., whether on supplies, raw materials, etc., Goods and Services Tax (GST), came as a breath of fresh air for most, including restaurant owners. After a certain amount of turnover, it has become mandatory for restaurateurs to register themselves under GST. 

However, GST, since its inception in July 2017 has created confusion for business owners, whether they are existing or newly entering the market. While most restaurateurs have taken great care to understand GST and all that it implies in order to implement, many remain clueless. 

Due to this, many restaurateurs, among other business owners, have fallen prey to the breaking of laws due to ignorance, and face hefty penalties. 

To eliminate this problem, here’s a little read that can help you, as restaurant owners, know everything you need to about GST and what it implies:

The Process of Getting your Restaurant Registered

Here’s how you can have your restaurant registered:

Collating the required documents

In order to opt for the GST registration process, one would need the following documents:

  • A photo of the owner or proprietor of the restaurant
  • In case of a partnership, the photo of the partner

Proof of registering the restaurant

  • The partnership deed, in case it is a partnership

The restaurant address proof

  • If you own the property, you must submit documents of ownership as proof, including property receipt, electricity bill, tax receipt, or registry documents of the restaurant property.
  • If you’re using a rental space, the lease or rent agreement copy and electricity bill in the owner’s name can work as proof.
  • For those who neither own the property nor have it on lease or rent, an electricity bill and a no-objection certificate (NOC) can work as proof.

Getting on with the registration

Once you have all the documents in place, you can go ahead with the following steps:

Application for registration 

  • You would first need to apply for the GST registration through the Form GST REG – 01. 
  • Once done, you would need to upload the documents along with your digital signature.

Verification of the documents 

  • Once the application has been sent, it will be verified by the department officer. 
  • If the documents pass their perusal in terms of authenticity, you will be granted the registration certificate. 

Understanding the Application of GST Rates

There are a number of categories within restaurants that define the application of the GST tax rate. Here’s what you need to know:

Category 1

The supplying of food or drinks without an air-conditioning facility and also without the license to serve alcohol – The GST tax rate applied is 5% without the input tax credit (ITC)

Category 2

The supplying of food or drinks with air conditioning facility any time of the year – The GST tax rate applied is 5% with full ITC.

Category 3

The supply of food or drinks in a restaurant that is equipped with air-conditioning facilities in restaurants rated 5 stars or above – The GST tax rate applied is 18% with full ITC.

These were the base ratings, with the GST regulations having undergone many amendments over time.

The Need for Dual GST

Dual GST components involve:

  • CGST (Central Goods and Service Tax)
  • SGST (State Goods and Service Tax)
  • IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax)

As a federal country, India has both the state and the central government responsible to uphold the Constitution. A dual GST keeps in line with the fiscal federation requirement of the Constitution. Restaurants make sales within the state, requiring the CGST and SGST to be charged accordingly. However, the returns filed are common for all the above-mentioned taxes as well as any additional taxes involved.

Filing for GST Returns

Like any other business, restaurants, too, can roll in profits if they understand the impact of GST on their establishment and go by the rules. According to the GST return rules, you need to file three monthly returns, which are mentioned below:

Return #1 Sales or Outward Return

This return is expected to be filed on the 10th day of the month that follows.

Return #2 Purchase or Inward Return

This needs to be filed in the following month on the 15th.

Return #3 Consolidated Return

Depending on the sales and purchase returns, this return is filed on the 20th day of the following month.

Further, the annual restaurant GST also needs to be filed by the 31st of December of the following financial year.

Other Factors to Consider

Apart from the above-mentioned factors, here are some other important aspects to keep in mind:

  • Under the GST rule, every receipt or invoice that has been issued to a customer has to be presented to the government, upon which the tax returns will be filed.
  • Small restaurants can opt for a composition scheme under GST, eliminating smaller taxes such as those applicable on supplies.
  • The availing of the Input Tax Credit is subject to change, depending on the annual turnover of the restaurant.
  • The location of your restaurant or, to be precise, the registered place of supply, also determines the tax that will be levied. 

While the GST was implemented to simplify the tax structure, it can be quite confusing, requiring one to read up a lot in order to understand its ins and outs. However, knowing how it works can help restaurant owners be more informed and avoid possible penalties. It can also help restaurateurs save on taxes by following the regulations levied closely and figuring out all of the smaller taxes they are spared with the implementation of GST.

It is also wise to know that GST comes with its own set of limitations that are applicable to establishments within every industry. By having a thorough understanding of the same, you can avoid the liability of paying unnecessarily.