By the first week of November most of the island has changed gear. The terraces in Port d'Alcúdia and Cala d'Or are stacked and chained, half the seasonal team has flown home, and the places that stay open in Palma or Sóller are running on a skeleton crew and a lot of regulars.
This is the only stretch of the year when an owner has time to think. So use November for the jobs that never get done in season: look at what actually sold, decide what the menu should be, and work out which gaps in your team cost you money this year.
It was not an easy summer for many. In mid-August the Majorca Daily Bulletin reported Juanmi Ferrer, president of CAEB Restauración, as saying turnover in the first two weeks of the month was down about 14%, with fewer customers and a lower average spend than the year before. You can't control how many guests land at Son Sant Joan. You can control what happens once they sit down, and November is when you plan that.
1. Export your sales by item while the season is still fresh
Before you do anything else, get the product mix report out of your TPV for May to October. Every till system has one, usually called "ventas por artículo" or similar. You want units sold and revenue for every item, split by month if you can.
Do it now, not in February, while someone still remembers why the arroz negro disappeared for a week in August.
Then turn the raw numbers into a few simple ratios. The ones that tell you most about selling at the table are these:
| Ratio | How to work it out | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Desserts per cover | Desserts sold ÷ covers | Whether the dessert moment is being offered at all |
| Coffees per cover | Coffees, carajillos and infusions ÷ covers | How often the sobremesa happens |
| Bottled water per table | Bottles sold ÷ tables served | Whether the water question is asked |
| Starters per table | Starters and sharing plates ÷ tables | Whether "para la mesa" gets suggested |
| Wine bottles vs glasses | Bottles sold ÷ glasses sold | Whether tables of four are offered a bottle |
As a made-up example: say your terrace served 18,000 covers over the season and sold 3,100 desserts. That is about one dessert for every six guests (3,100 ÷ 18,000 = 0.17). Whether that is good depends on your place, but now you have a number, and next year you can see if it moves.
2. Cut the menu down to what your floor can sell
With the item report in front of you, go through the menu line by line. By October most seasonal menus have grown a tail: a second burger because a British table asked, three salads that are basically the same salad.
Mark three groups:
- Dishes that sold well and make good money. These are what your team should be suggesting next year.
- Dishes that sold but barely earn. Keep them, but don't train anyone to push them.
- Dishes almost nobody ordered. If the kitchen is still prepping for them, they are costing you twice: in waste and in a menu that's harder to read.
Then ask one more question of every dish you keep: can a 19-year-old in his first season describe it in one sentence, in English, without looking at the card? If the answer is no, either the dish needs a simpler description or the team needs to taste it before opening.
If you want to push a fish of the day or a Mallorcan red by the glass next year, settle availability and price with suppliers before the menu goes to print.
3. Look at your team gaps, not just your rota
Every owner knows how many people they need in July. Fewer write down what those people need to be able to do.
Make a short list of who is coming back. On many Mallorca contracts that means your fijos discontinuos and the regulars who return every April. For each, note honestly:
- Which languages they can actually serve in. Not "speaks some German" but "can explain the menu del día to a German couple".
- Whether they sell. If your till records sales by server, look at desserts and coffees per cover for each person. Compare servers who worked the same section and shifts, so you are not comparing a quiet Tuesday lunch with a full Saturday night.
- What they were weak at in August, when it was busiest. That is where habits show.
Then think about the roles you will hire fresh. Four new servers in May means four people who have never seen your menu. Plan for that now, not on the first busy Saturday.
Before your returning staff disappear for winter, ask each of them one question over a café con leche: what made service harder this year? You will hear about the dessert card that was always missing and the wine nobody could pronounce.
4. Decide what you want suggested at each moment of the meal
"Sell more" is not an instruction a server can use on a busy terrace. "Offer the croquetas when they order drinks" is.
Pick one or two items for each point in the meal where a guest decides something, and write them down:
- First drink: a house vermut, a local beer, a spritz with something Mallorcan in it.
- For the table: pa amb oli, pimientos de padrón, croquetas, whatever the kitchen can send out fast.
- Main: the fish of the day or the premium cut, if the margin justifies it.
- Dessert: one dessert the server can describe with enthusiasm, not a list of six.
- After: coffee, a carajillo, a glass of hierbas.
- Another round: when, and how to offer it without hovering.
Keep this to one page. It becomes the backbone of your menu, your staff tasting and your training.
5. Put training dates in the calendar now
The training that works happens before opening, on your actual menu, with the people who will be on the floor. In practice that means March or April, after the menu is fixed and before the first charter flights arrive.
The trouble is that those weeks are crowded: re-hiring, kitchen testing, repainting the terrace furniture. If training is not booked by January, it tends to get squeezed into a rushed hour the day before opening.
So in November, decide three dates:
- A full session for the returning team before opening.
- A short catch-up for new hires who join in May and June.
- A check in midsummer to see what slipped.
Whoever runs it, you or an outside trainer, the dates matter more than the format. Also decide how you will measure it. A normal week of till data before the training is enough to compare against later.
6. Fix the small things that block a sale
Every season leaves small irritations nobody had time to sort. Typical ones:
- A dessert menu that exists but is never brought to the table.
- German and English translations on the menu that guests laugh at, or worse, don't understand.
- Not enough wine glasses on a full night, so servers stop offering wine by the glass.
- A coffee machine at the far end of the bar that makes the coffee round slow enough to put people off.
- A QR menu that hides the drinks list three taps deep.
None of these is a training problem, but each one stops a good server from selling. Most cost little to fix in winter.
The November list, in one place
- Export sales by item for May to October from the till.
- Work out desserts, coffees, water, starters and wine per cover or per table.
- Sort the menu into sell, keep, and cut.
- Settle next year's key products with suppliers.
- List returning staff, their languages and their selling gaps.
- Ask the team what made service harder.
- Choose what gets suggested at each moment of the meal.
- Book training dates before opening, for new hires and midsummer.
- Plan a baseline week to measure from.
- Fix the small things that block a sale.
None of this needs a big budget. It needs a few quiet afternoons, a printed sales report and a pen. Do it now and you open in spring with a shorter menu, a team that knows what to say, and a number you can check against in June.