marubozo
is one Smokin' Farker
Do you have one person dedicated as a prep cook? Do you have any extra room in your cooler? Two things I would look at if you are running out of sides. One person is in charge of making the sides for the week. You could make the beans, slaw and potato salad on Tuesday to get you through Sunday. On Sunday sides could be made again so you have product for Wednesday. I wouldn't put the red cabbage in your slaw until the night before or the morning of service. Less chance of it turning purple. Not knowing how you do M&C you might be able to have those ready to put on the smoker when needed.
I was like you and did the open to close Thurs-Sun, order on Monday, be there Tuesday to put it away and Wednesday get things ready for the Farmer's Market. It was a tough summer. You are doing more volume. Be sure you take care of yourself. It will do no good if you go down due to exhaustion.
I do have a dedicated prep cook, and we're already doing all of that. All of the sides are prepped and first thing in the morning we just have to pull from the cooler and throw in the oven, or add dressing to the cabbage and potatoes, etc. We've even usually got 4 pans of corn bread always ready to pull.
But it comes down to space again. We prep as many pans of all the sides we can fit, but both walk-ins are full, the reach-in is full, so the rest of the day is spent prepping to fill everything up again by the end of the night.
I heard several of your commercials today on 96.1
But do you really need to advertise at this point?
Certainly don't NEED to right now, but the radio spots are still working and bringing in new folks from quite a distance away who have no idea we're even here. Pretty much every day someone will come in and say they heard us on the radio and had to come check us out. So it's certainly worth it for now, but it won't be an ongoing thing by any means.