Lupo verde is an Italian restaurant, stated in 1401 T St NW, Washington DC 2009. They are serving authentic Italian food to their customer since early 2013. Lupo verde first opened its door to its customers at 15th February 2013. The restaurant is owned and operated by Med Lahlou, along with managing partner Antonio Matarazzo and executive chef Domenico Apollaro. Luvo verde is famous for its authentic, rustic, Italian fare featuring a variety of small plates, house-made charcuteries, breads, cheese and antipasti.
It also offers a variety of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, that includes house and imported wines, beverages etc. he restaurant has an intimate 100 seats spread over two floors. The main level features a 15- seats bar of carrara marble and hand painted itlian tile and 25 seats lounge. In addition to that, it also has 25 seats patio available for summer. The Restaurant opens to customer from 10:30am to 11 pm on Mondays to Thursday, 11:00 am to 1 am on Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 am to 10 pm on every Sundays. They also do the private dining based on their availability, to buy out for private dining you have to call them couple days ago with deposit amount.
The restaurant is located in the heart of 14th street, it is very busy place specially on Friday and Saturday. Current problems: In very short time, lupo verde has been successful in making reputation in busy and competitive area. It also has highest Zagat rating and have succeed to win couple of best restaurant trophy. With its authentic Italian menu and best customer service and hospitality, it has been attracting a lot of customer from around the city, especially it has customer between 18-35 ages. Yet, the restaurant seems to have encountered some problems over the years.
They are described below- 1. No free WIFI for its customer- Lupo Verde does not have free WIFI in their restaurant. Customer always ask for the wifi and password as soon as they got in, but restaurant making them disappoint by saying that they don’t have wifi yet. 2. Not enough and advanced Micros POS system in the restaurant- Lupo Verde uses Microse POS system, which is considered outdated POS by most establishments. There is one register in the bar, one in the corner of the lobby and 2 in the second floor. Only four Micros in the entire restaurant is not enough during business hours.
3. Inadequate usage of social media and promotions- LUPO VERDE restaurant doesn’t seem to engage itself in the area of social media. In the digital and virtual age, where social media is very important to reach the potential customers, the restaurant has not been using the platform efficiently. With competitors offering deals all around the area, LUPO VERDE has not been successful in creating a customer base using promotions either. 4. Lack of modern system to keep track of food and beverages inventory- There seems to be a lack of a proper system to update the inventory in the restaurant.
The food and beverage inventories are handwritten and accessed in traditional method. Because of this, there seems to be in- aqurate of certain items during the operation. This disrupts services and also creates drop in the revenues. 5. Limited usages of gift card- They don’t provide enough gift cards to their customers. And gift card can only be used in certain days, for example, you are not allowed to use gift cards during weekend. That is not the good way to do business. 6. Lack of updating restaurant websites-Next major problem is the update of restaurant website.
The restaurant fail to update their promotion, gift cards availability and new launches menus in the restaurant websites. This may cause to loose their regular customer and get wrong information about the restaurant, which creates bad marketing. Proposals: LUPO VERDE requires a free wifi for customer’s convenience that may help bring more business in to the restaurant. By having wifi in the restaurant, customer doesn’t have to go to another place incase of emergency to use their laptop.
Also, this restaurant needs to replace advance and high quality Micros system. By having an up to date cash register and usage of advanced POS system as oracle touch provides a better advantage. Oracle touch offers the newest development in POS for the table service, bars and delivery. That would be very easy to offer daily specially, and explain menu to customers. They also offer complete touch screen system, fast reporting, and payment using a mobile device, real time fraud/ overtime alerts. Mobile management, fully integrated online ordering and much more.
Integration of deals, coupons and promotions is a very trendy method to acquiring more customers. Lupo verde can easily create a competitive advantage by providing customers various promotion via popular website, like living social, facebook, twitter etc. The website of Lupo Verde restaurant requires frequent updating. It is very important for customer to get informed about the new launches menu, cocktails, promotion and festival based program. There also need to be a strong presence in the social networking via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
So the management needs to hire a developer for the company. It’s also important to have customer reviews on the website. So, partnering with third party websites like open table or restaurant apps for reservation is important. Also popular websites like yelp that lets the management new clientele simultaneously know what customers think and about the restaurant should be used to address various problems and concerns. A software based inventory control system needs to be integrated in the restaurant.
The inventory system can provide convenience of automatic features and can present orders to be triggered at certain inventory levels. It can also help I avoiding spillage and keep track of the food and beverages costs at real time. Improvements: With the proposals described above, there will be huge improvements I the service as well as competitive advantage in the long run. Acquiring a quality point of sales will make not only processing transaction efficient but also help in the productivity and promptness in rendering services.
The new software will not only enable gift card capabilities but also create features like apple pay, accurate recording and taking reservations efficiently. The usages of social media will help in promotion and marketing of the restaurant. Also it is easy to sell promotions and specials by updating the websites once a week with the new specials, menu changes ad promotions. With hiring web developer, there is update of the website and social networks which is very helpful in attracting new customers.
Implementation budgets: Oracle micros POS $1,000 per year Promotion and discounts $3,000 Web and micros maintenance $2,000 per year Marketing $1,300 per year I-pad (5 units)$2,000 WIFI $600 Per year TOTAL $9,900 Conclusion: LUPO VERDE is a fast growing restaurant with full of potential. With a little improvements and guidance, it has capability to become a better establishment in the heart of DC. The proposals I have described above will help improve technical resources of the restaurant, and also help bring more business in the future.