Restaurant Trade Area Research

Hello to everyone in the restaurant industry, welcome to my new blog, my name is Rick Phillips. In this blog, I intend to draw on over 30 years of direct, in the field, restaurant research that I have conducted for numerous restaurant chains. Some of this research was qualitative - focus groups or one-on-one research; most of it was quantitative - done on-site with 10’s of thousands of restaurant customers over three decades.

Ideally, this blog will speak to the restaurant owner who wants to read frequently about store operations, marketing issues and promoting ones business. It will often feature links to daily stories in the restaurant field - spiked  with  my commentary and analysis. I hope you enjoy the daily links - such as these three today July 10th 2008:

Denny’s Responds To America’s Demand For Breakfast

Link - http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dennys-responds-americas-demand-breakfast/story.aspx?guid=%7B0911022C-AD79-4B44-8B1C-7376F7D1A870%7D&dist=hppr  Denny’s introduces  the `Denny’s Dome’ to facilitate To Go business. The `Denny’s Dome’ is an innovative, multi-level and task, carrying device that seems to handle any type of full sized breakfast - and keeps it fresh and hot up to a half-hour.You have to see the picture of this multi-leveled  see-thru container - which even has a method for keeping foods crispy (read to find out the science).  >>>>>>>>>>>> RATR Rating - 9 - Interestingly, in the 1980’s I conducted one-on-one research for several package good companies; even in the 80’s `tupperware’ type of containers could store foods at the same temperture they were first stored at  for HOURS. The funny part was research respondents were worried about `bacteria’ forming if the food was kept hot for an extended period — but - at 1/2 hour - that should not be a perception problem. Indeed, this is a great idea and seems like the top of the line product/device that `to-go’ food customers may have been waiting for. It also could increase the size of the stores trade area since the product would remain warm to take home to nearly any local area. For example, it could permit the `drive thru the area’  customer traffic to `stop in and pick up’ a breakfast before driving home 8 miles away - such as having a store by a Home Depot or other big box store. Additionally, in these cash strapped times, it allows for the customer to avoid the tip, possibly increasing customer frequency (viewed as a surcharge these days?) - that said, many tip at the counter on the pick-up orders.

Lack of Advertising May Have Doomed Fast Food Restaurant

Link - http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/business/local/lack_of_advertising_may_have_shut_down_fast-food_restaurant_07-08-2008_18_17_04.html Article indicates that having a poor location, and difficult obstructions to your restaurant - along with having an unfamiliar product (being the only franchisee in a market) AND a lack of advertising and community invovlement - MIGHT have been reasons for a Krystal’s demise.  >>>>>>>>>>>> RATR Rating - 7 - One of the things this blog will do is feature stories about the success or lack of success of various fast food restaurants - chains or individual stores. Indeed, my experience in seeing first hand hundreds of fast food outlets - both high and low sales units - provides me an overview of characteristics important to customers. This article, which could be written about many thousands of restaurants nationwide, is an example. One finding I’ve had for example is the near absolute neccessity of making flow of customers onto the restaurant property mindless - hurdles should NEVER have to be jumped - especially if you value your female customer base. The article implies that perhaps the demograhics weren’t the exact fit either - while demographic `fits’ might be nice - the size of home and worker bases within specific milage is more important to success. Often your demos for a restaurant won’t fit the area - but - your restaurant does fine by dominating within your subgrouping (besting your competitive environment). Finally, of course, being NEW or ALONE in a market (brandwise) does usually require some outreach or education of your market about your restaurant - and probably does require even some advertising. But, what RTAR suggests is that when one’s unit is in sales trouble (as opposed to a unit that never has good sales, after initial opening month) is to look first at the competitive environment (new restaurants) and then at operations (frequently some daypart - ie: employee group - is the problem; this will first show up slowly as only the Heaviest store user is aware of the operation problem - they are forgiving as they love the product or the location - but they will reduce frequency. If the problem, daypart related, continues - a unit can be in for a big decline suddenly after 6 weeks or so.) Finally, it’s unlikely your store will go out of business do to a lack of `community involvement’ - but - obviously, a banner at the local softball field - can be worth it’s weight in G.

Fast Food Veggie and Fruit Carts

Link - http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1468962/call_for_fastfood_fruit_and_veg_carts/ >>>>>>>

RATR  Rating - 6 - Story is about a call in England to favor push carts that feature fruits and veggies so that folks get their needed five servings daily. —– Could the `States’ be next? Could real food be the next `brand extension’ for FF restaurants?

Thanks so much for reading this first blog post - To find out more about my services - please use my blogroll to my other `restaurant sites’. Please bookmark this site, I will try to post 3 or 4 times a week the type of stories owners of restaurants want to read.