A Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis is a useful tool for your business plan as a restaurant. Everyone should have one and audit it before they even open their restaurant. Without an adequate SWOT analysis, you’re out on the market without any idea of the status of your business, your competitors, and the possible pitfalls you may encounter. Because of this, SWOT is central to any business endeavor. How do you do a SWOT analysis for your restaurant so it can prosper? Read below for more details.

Know Your Strengths

What exactly do you do best? When you think about your strengths, consider what excites your customers about your business, and what you seem to “corner the market” on. What’s unique to the restaurant that sets you apart from others in your locale? What do you do well, and how do you protect that? Do you know how to price a menu? Are your menu items unique? Do customers routinely compliment your ambience and the overall environment? All these things and more may be some strengths that you currently possess.

Know Your Weaknesses

What do you lack or need to improve on? Your weaknesses are pain points in your business that require improvement. It could be poor customer service, long wait times, bland-tasting food, or even something as simple as a lack of delivery or pickup options. Knowing the weaknesses if your business is an important part of doing a SWOT analysis for your restaurant.

Know How To Grow

Opportunities are all around you. Growing your business could involve taking advantage of the hottest foodservice trends. Alternatively, it could involve creating delivery and pickup services. One of the best ways to create new growth opportunities is to see what your “competition” is doing. It’s important not to view your competitors in a negative light, but as a whetstone that you can use to sharpen your business acumen. What are some things they are doing that you could be doing better? Study and implement it.

Know the Competition

While the “threats” part of SWOT analysis typically means external threats like other restaurants of the same type around you, in some cases, the threat can come from within your own business. Do you have a particularly snooty server that’s turning off your customers? Do you refuse to see your external competition as just that? Are you listening to the complaints of your servers and cooks? While you certainly shouldn’t forget the external threats, know that you can also be your own worst enemy and mitigate that.

Overall, it pays to know yourself and your competitors. SWOT analysis is the best way to do this, so include it in your plan!