The restaurant industry is a vast playing field, with competitors up against one another. Whether it’s quick-service, fine-dining, or café, every kind of restaurant has one goal in mind: growth.

However, there are many ways a restaurant has to work to achieve success. After all, the restaurant industry has its own factors to deal with. Here are 5 facts about the restaurant industry you never knew:

It Is A Challenging Environment

Yes, you can say that for any kind of industry – but it is particularly true for restaurants.

Factors like rising labour costs, legislative restrictions, regulatory processes, and inflation on food prices not only puts stress on profit margins, but also overall performance. One small misstep, and your entire restaurant could go down the drain in no time. That is why restaurants are considered volatile by sceptics, who would rather have their business plan as stable as possible.

It Offers A Great Deal Of Employment

And when we say “great deal”, we really do mean it. According to statistics, the restaurant industry is expected to add 1.3 million jobs over the next decade, with employment expected to reach 14.1 million by 2021.

That’s a sigh of relief, considering how fearful people can become for potential unemployment due to increased automation. However, this makes employee recruitment and retention just as hard; with such a huge pool of people to pick from, the competition just keeps getting tougher and tougher. With increasing vacancies, the amount of people made for that job also increase – making the entire ordeal that much more time-consuming.

Consumers Are A Lot More Aware

Consumers are no longer going to come into your restaurant just for a good meal – they have their own standards to be fulfilled.

Not only do they expect a comfortable yet memorable experience, they also have their own expectations, especially when it comes to food. They want their food to be procured from a place of healthy and ethical standards, free from anything remotely illegal – and they will be quick to leave the premises and shun the entire business if they see otherwise.

This can ruin a business in one fell swoop – but owners cannot control this factor. This consumer authority stems from the simple fact that it’s their presence that determines the success of a restaurant – and they have slowly come to realise this.

To Dine, Or Not To Dine?

A good amount of people like going out into town, and enjoy a good meal in a well-suited ambience. They prefer dining out with friends and family, and enjoy the restaurant experience in person.

However, there is always a portion of people who prefer the opposite; they would rather have their meal delivered to them at home, instead of going out into bustling traffic and waiting lines.

Every restaurant has to face this kind of people, and owners have to keep this into consideration if they want to keep their business from failing. That’s why they have to invest considerably in marketing tactics through social media in order to reign people in. By promising quality as good as quantity, restaurants can keep people interested.

Tech Is The Only Way

Where this would have been a debate worth having once upon a time – that’s no longer the case. It is indeed fact that a restaurant needs to have technology in order to beat the competition in the industry.

Technology not only allows you to streamline otherwise time-intensive work functions, but also gives the customers a modern, memorable experience. However, most restaurant owners shy away from such an idea, simply because of the price tag.

And for that, there is a great solution – a POS solution, offered by Oscar POS.

Oscar is one of the few point of sale companies in Pakistan that offers an automated, modern and unique POS system for the restaurant owner. It has many management systems integrated within it, like Recipe Management, Inventory Management, Table Management, Accounting System, and much more – all at a reasonable price. It’s a great starting point for restaurants wanting to step into the digital scene.


For some people, these look like challenges. But for the optimist, all of this is nothing short of an opportunity to grow. So plan smart, and work hard for success – the sky’s the limit.