Kid Stuf

Written by: Gelato Products

Summary: Looking for a boost in revenue for your restaurant? Try this.

What do Dickies, Soup Plantation and a Chinese food restaurant all have in common? Frozen yogurt supplies. Adding frozen yogurt to your restaurant buffet might be exactly the bump you need to bring in more family business. If you’re looking for ways to draw more customers in, or to switch to family style eating, a built in dessert bar with soft serve might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Supplies

The first thing to check is whether you have plenty of supplies for guests to use. You won’t need tasting spoons with a simple two-flavor soft serve, but you might if you feature more than a few flavors. Failing that, you can provide tasting cups. Also consider whether or not you want guests to be able to take their treats home with them. Most restaurants will serve whatever the guest will eat while on-site, but there are take-home cups if you want to offer that option as an upsell. Washable dishes are best for regular restaurants, but Dickies puts theirs in cones or in the company’s plastic cups.

Toppings

Froyo isn’t as good if you don’t have lots of yummy toppings to put on top of your creation. Froyo shops will go all out, with a selection of fruits and baked goods customers can put on top of their frozen yogurt cups. Chocolate and caramel sauces are other popular offerings, with some places even offering marshmallow cream in a squeezable tube.

Common ingredients include crumbled up Oreos, brownies, bananas, muffins, M&Ms and other smaller candies. Once you’ve got a decent selection of 5 or 6 toppings, you should be ready to serve.

Cleaning and Rotations

The soft serve machine gets pretty messy pretty quickly if you don’t stay on top of cleaning it. The machines drip constantly, and the toppings can become disheveled pretty quickly. Especially if kids are around. Don’t count on well-meaning parents, arrange for members of your staff to walk the area and give everything a rub down with the towel to clean it. Make sure you also have staff ready to stock frozen yogurt supplies, refill topping stations and mind the sauces.

Final Thoughts

Families want a full meal that’s affordable, and buffet style restaurants offer that service at a decent price. Adding a soft serve machine is a sure fire way to draw in more of that family business at a relatively small cost of operation.