If you run your own lunch shop or cafe, you know that quick, hot food is a must when people are rushing during their lunch break. Even better, hot food displays for parties can be an affordable way to offer prepared food to your guests.
However, you may not feel as if the cost of hot food displays is worth the investment. We’re here to educate you on the numerous benefits you can enjoy after a single, upfront cost. Beyond serving just a utilitarian function, hot food displays can even benefit the success of your business.
With this in mind, read on to learn how a hot food display can benefit your business today!
Keeps Food Warm and Fresh
You’ll find that the best hot food displays will help keep warm food and fresh for hours at a time. This is because most come equipped with convected thermal air-flow and humidity control.
You also have the ability to control the temperature on the back of the unit. To make it more convenient, some also give you the ability to read the temperature on the front of the unit.
If you run a cafe, this can help you prepare for large lunch rushes even if you don’t have any customers yet. You can get people out the door quicker by keeping pre-prepared food warm and fresh.
Help Customers Make Decisions
When it comes to hot food display ideas for weddings, events, or businesses, you can help speed up the process for ordering. The reason for this is because people can see what you’re offering in the display without needing to look at the menu.
Oftentimes, customers can feel tricked by menu pictures of food that aren’t what it appears like when it’s brought out to them. You can set accurate expectations and help keep customers happy by displaying all your menu items.
Reduce Waste
Since you’ll be able to prepare food in advance for party-goers or people looking for a quick bite for lunch, you can ramp up your efficiency exponentially. If you’re running a small business, this means less time preparing food and more time working on marketing, cleaning, and administration work.
Investing in a hot food display means you’ll also reduce the amount of food waste you produce each day. This is because you can prepare food in advance depending on the traffic in your store on a given day.
Even if you over-estimate the amount of food you need, the food warmer will keep everything at a safe temperature so that people coming in later can still enjoy a fresh hotdog, sandwich, and more.
Entice Walk-Ins
You’ll find that pizza chains almost always have a food warmer on display because they can entice walk-in customers with fresh, warm slices of pizza. Baked goods are also a popular item to display in a food warmer.
If your business is based in a busy downtown area or in a walkable area, you’ll find that enticing walk-ins who weren’t planning on going to your restaurant are a great way to get additional business.
You can convince people to come inside by keeping the doors open and letting the smells of pizza, baked goods, and more waft onto the street. This isn’t a new idea–scent branding and scent marketing have been used for years in order to make an impact on consumers.
You can copy the Hyatt and create your own signature scent from the food you make in order to make an impact on customers. This can even help you differentiate yourself from the competition–people will keep coming back when they associate your restaurant and food with delicious smells!
Details to Keep in Mind
Once you invest in your hot food display, there are a few factors to keep in mind to utilize it in the best way possible. Here are a few of our quick tips:
Access to Food
If you’re worried about hygiene, keep in mind that you can block access to food by keeping the front portion turned towards staff. This way, people can still see the food that is displayed, but they’ll need the help of a staff member in order to select the item they want.
If you’re not worried about hygiene, keep the door pointed towards your customers. Make sure that the hot food display is positioned in a convenient place so that a line of customers isn’t blocking doors or traffic.
Measure the Space
Before you purchase a hot food display, it’s also important that you take the time to consider where you’ll be placing it. Measure the surface both vertically and horizontally where you’ll be keeping it.
You’ll also need to consider how much traffic you get per day. This will factor into your decision about whether to get a small four-tray heating display or a large one with ten trays. Click Now to get a look at all the hot food displays available to you.
Invest in a Hot Food Display Today
From keeping your hot food warm and fresh to helping set accurate expectations of your menu items, hot food displays come with a variety of benefits that you may not have considered.
From reducing your food waste to being able to prepare food far in advance, you’ll find that hot food displays bring you peace of mind as a restaurant owner. Even better, you can entice walk-in customers to come in more frequently.
Ready to learn more ways you can improve your events or businesses? Keep reading the blog for more tips and strategies!
