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People who accomplish remarkable things process inflection points differently than the rest of us or so says legendary filmmaker Brian Koppelman. His podcast, aptly named “The Moment by Brian Koppelman” is a podcast that looks at how and why successful people deal differently than us. I came across an episode of this podcast talking with David Chang, the extraordinary culinary visionary who at a young age opened his first NYC restaurant Momofuku Noodle Bar and sought to change the way the world thinks of food. This podcast is a fascinating look at how people generally don’t know what they want, how to stick to your gut instincts and how David’s emotions fuelled him to become the success he is today. It’s well worth the time to listen - check it out:

Opening a full-service restaurant takes a ton of money and capital and if you don’t have an idea of budget numbers, it’s a shot in the dark in terms of the financing required. I found this extremely detailed infographic on the costs it took a restaurant called Roija, based in Denver, CO, and the 2013 Winner of The James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Southwest. This infographic shows in great detail costs for equipment, wages, and general costs – along with the total investment required to run the 4400 sq. ft., 110 seat establishment. Here are example costs to open a full-service restaurant:

by mikhall.

Restaurants have limited space and better things to do with their time then to stain remove and wash their restaurant linens. That’s where a restaurant linen service comes into play. Having a restaurant linen rental service able to drop off the linens you need on a weekly basis helps ensure your front of house is looking its best. We like to be considered a trusted partner and because of this we’re interested in providing business value to our customers. While we don’t personally rent linens or provide restaurant laundry services, we do sell high-quality tabletop supplies to the hospitality sector across Canada – so we know a thing or two about the category. We’ve crowdsourced the best restaurant linen supply so you don’t have to do that work – and you know it’s coming from an unbiased source. Check out the best below:

Canadian Linen and Uniform Service

Headquartered in Toronto, ON, Canadian Linen and Uniform service is one of the largest uniform and linen supply companies in North America. They operate more than 115 production facilities and service centers throughout the US and Canada and service nearly 150,000 customers every week. They service the hospitality, automotive and manufacturing industries. One of the more flexible suppliers out there, they offer full service rental, flex lease and purchase of restaurant linens. They offer customizations, and laundering, repairs and upgrades.

Faster Linens

Headquartered in Etobicoke, ON, Faster Linens is a family owned business who can offer a cost effective solution to your needs. They offer consistent quality, special order tablecloths in a variety of styles and colours, and also offer uniforms, mats, napkins and kitchen towels. Their customer service representatives meet with each client on an individual basis to establish an inventory number, pick-up and delivery schedule that is best suited to a restaurant’s operating requirements.

Cintas

Headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, Cintas is a global company operating more than 430 facilities in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia, including six manufacturing plants and nine distribution centres. Some of their more well-known customers include McDonalds, W Hotels and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. They provide a multitude of services including restroom supply and cleaning, floor mat cleaning and supply, towel cleaning and supply, uniform supply etc.

The Party and Equipment Rental Industry is undergoing a mass transition from paper based processes to software based processes – not only to keep up with the technological times but also in an effort to standardize rental processes, become more efficient and therefore more competitive in this industry.

Investing in software of any kind can be a time consuming and often anxiety ridden process. Having the right questions available to either ask the software vendor or your team will help guide you along the process and ensure you’re choosing the best rental management software for your business needs.

1. Is there a limit on the number of inventory products, number of contracts issues or number of concurrent users you can have on the software?

Asking a question like this will ensure that the software solution is scalable and able to grow with your organization. There’s nothing worse than being stuck with a system that limits your growth so knowing the answers to all three of these is important.

2. Can it be accessed from a client site, from the road, at the office and pretty much anywhere at anytime?

It isn’t reasonable to expect to be tied to a computer in the rental industry so having the ability to access the rental management software to track the location of your rental fleet, take photos of equipment at the job site and tie back to a customer’s contract, get signatures upon delivery and the ability for drivers to mark when a delivery has been made and that they’re moving to the next job is super important.

3. Is there a service level agreement for the software solution?

You want to know that there’s levels in place to ensure that you have as close to 100% uptime with the software as possible. If the software is going down, and you’re unable to operate your business having a service level agreement in place helps ensure the company can be held responsible. Most cloud-based software solutions should have this in place.

4. What reputation does the support team have?

You want a software vendor that has a stellar support team so if anything goes wrong, you can access support in a quick and timely manner. Support should be available 365 days of the year during your regular business hours. Additionally, a number of software vendors should have a user forum where their customers can go to troubleshoot their own issues before escalating the problem.

5. Can the software be customized?

Most rental management software – and any enterprise software these days for that matter, is customizable to fit an operation’s needs. Writing down ahead of time what specific items you need to be customized – such as custom reports to run your rental operation – will help ensure the software can be altered to fit your processes and how you best do business.

6. What software integrations does the rental management software work with?

I can imagine that as a rental company you could be running a customer relationship management solution such as Salesforce or SugarCRM and an accounting system such as Sage Simply Accounting or Quickbooks. Life is so much easier with a closed-loop process so being able to integrate all your current software with your rental management software is worth inquiring about. Map out your current rental processes to ensure that you’re comfortable

7. Are there regular updates to the software?

Requirements in the rental industry change from year to year. Perhaps the country you reside in enforces a new law that you need to track in the software, or Google Glass becomes how we all do business – whatever the case may be, knowing that the software vendor is continually updating the software ensures that you stay ahead of the trends instead of behind them.

8. What analytics does it track and what reports can you run?

Realistically you want to be able to run reports so you’re able to work ON your business not IN your business. Being able to track things such as seasonal inventory demand on a year over year basis for example is an important report to have.

9. Is there training and a self-service knowledge base available?

Implementing a new rental management software is only one half of the puzzle – the other half is actually being able to use it. You want to make sure there’s adequate training available and self-serve knowledge base articles so you can help yourself. Having the articles available in video demos as well would be helpful.

We have been selling crystal and glass glassware for a while now but we lacked a storage and transport solution. I’m pleased to announce we now have medium and large catering glassware boxes in stock.

Our catering glassware boxes offer a secure solution for storing and transporting glassware for party rental companies and caterers. Featuring strong, durable polypropylene plastic corrugated material, the boxes can be safely stacked on top of one another for easy storage. Ideal for the storage or transportation of glassware to and from events. They also ship and pack flat when not in use to allow for cost savings and increased storage space.

We have two sizes available – a medium and a large catering glassware box. For more information on each of the sizes please see below:

Medium Catering Glassware Box:

• No handles
• Available in Black
• Ships flat - some assembly required
• Box exterior measurements: 15 7/8" W x 23 7/8" L x 7 1/2" H
• Interior glass compartment measurements: 3 3/4" W x 3 3/4" L x 7 1/2" H
• Maximum glass diameter: 3 5/8"
• Number of compartments: 24

The following National Event Supply glasses fit the medium catering glassware box:

• Victoria Crystal 10oz Old Fashioned Glass
• Victoria Crystal 13oz Highball Glass
• Eclisse 7oz Wine Glass
• Eclisse 10oz Wine Glass
• Eclisse 6oz Champagne Glass
• Eclisse 11oz Water Glass
• Eclisse 12oz Beer Glass
• Eclisse 14oz Beer/Water Glass
• Copa 9oz Wine Glass
• Copa 12oz Wine Glass

Large Catering Glassware Box:

• Handles for easier pick up
• Available in Black
• Ships flat - some assembly required
• Box exterior measurements: 16 3/8" W x 24 3/4" L x 9 1/4" H
• Interior glass compartment measurements: 3 3/4" W x 3 3/4" L x 9 1/4" H
• Maximum glass diameter: 3 5/8"
• Number of compartments: 24

The following National Event Supply glasses fit the large catering glassware box:

• Serenity Crystal 7oz Champagne Glass
• Serenity Crystal 12oz Wine Glass
• Serenity Crystal 14oz Water Glass
• Serenity Crystal 16oz Wine Glass
• Serenity Crystal 19oz Wine Glass
• Serenity Crystal 22oz Wine Glass
• Eclisse 12oz Wine Glass
• Eclisse 14oz Wine Glass

Both catering glass boxes are available in additional colour choices for special order. Minimum order and manufacturing lead times will apply.