Here are the featured articles and editorial content in the February 2008 issue of Restaurant Startup & Growth magazine.

RestaurantOwner.com members have access to these articles in the RS&G Archive department on RestaurantOwner.com.

FEATURES

A Lot of Care
How to Improve Guest Safety and Reduce Business Liability With Sound Parking Lot Security Measures
By Alisa Pittman Cleek, Esq.
Restaurant owners need to know that they can be held liable for events that occur in their parking lots and other areas accessible by customers outside the restaurant. This article will address parking lot measures you should take to ensure the safety of your customers and employees and their property, protecting business, and avoiding a potentially devastating lawsuit.

Dominant Traits
10 Common Practices and Characteristics of Successful Independent Restaurant Owners
By Jim Laube
Based on years in the industry, the author provides a brief description of common practices and characteristics of successful operators. The goal of this article is not to give you a checklist of things you must do to create a thriving restaurant business, but rather provide you with some real-world practices that many operators use to achieve impressive results.

A Compliance Program With Big Teeth
‘PCI/DSS’ Compliance and What This Means to the Startup Restaurant Owner
By Joe Erickson
If you accept credit cards, particularly if you process credit card charges through your POS system, then you need to take a proactive approach to becoming PCI compliant. Here, the author explains the program and ways to avoid fines and withholding of credit card funds, both of which can be devastating to a restaurant.

DEPARTMENTS

Opening Remarks
by Barry K. Shuster
Law and Order – This magazine doesn’t advocate killing attorneys (well, at least the editorial staff doesn’t), but, rather, employs a number of them as contributors. This is not due to a shortage of work for lawyers; it merely reflects the nature of your business.

Insights
by Patricia Luebke
Loss prevention, operator innovations, bar and cellar tips, and other interesting and useful tidbits in our monthly appetizer of useful information.

Restaurant Economics
by Emily Durham
In-House, Outsource, or Combination of Both: Determining the Best Way to Manage Your Startup’s Accounting Function – From a practical standpoint, the time commitment required to complete the daily and weekly tasks that go along with all of this is often tough to fit into a busy restaurateur’s day. At some point, everyone has to consider whether they have the capacity to do it themselves, hire someone to come in and do it, or outsource some or all of the function to an outside party.

Bar & Cellar
by Patricia Luebke
Barrels of Money: How to Sell More Beer, More Profitably – There are great margins in beer; really good margins. Here’s how to build and maintain them in your restaurant.

MenuMakeover
by Mark Laux
Turning a Price List Into a Menu – T.J. Hooligan’s Restaurant, Minneapolis
Good design is good business; but it isn’t always easy to tell someone that their menu is ugly, and it’s more subjective than objective anyway. But in this case, the menu wasn’t professionally designed and there wasn’t any engineering done to it at all. Here, the author shows how he took “a big old price,” and turned it into an effective menu.

What Our Readers are Building, Buying and Remodeling
by Diane Lambdin Meyer
This month we visit Newport, Oregon, where a restaurant seeks to reflect the owner's values of economic sustainability and commitment to the community.

RecipeMapping
by Joe Erickson
RecipeMapping is a three-step process that allows you to add new items to the menu consistently, methodically and profitably. This month, we help you offer your guests Crispy Alligator Bites and Whiskey-Grilled Lodge Steak without losing your way or  your shirt.

Points of Origin
by Doug Turner
A bird's-eye view of both the number and the geographic distribution of the nation's new restaurants.

New Products and Services
A description of useful gear and services for your restaurant, and how they can benefit your operations.

Showtime
by Gene Gentrup
Your best ideas might be waiting for you at trade shows staged across the country.

Last Seating
by Karla Pavese
Learning the Easy Way – Formal education through schools and seminars is not a guarantee for success, but it gives you insights and knowledge based on others’ trials and errors rather than your own.

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