A healthy future for restaurants?

A lot of restaurant companies are trying to figure out how to re-build their revenue after so many customers cut-back on out-of-home dining in response to the great recession. If you’re among them, this story from Marketing Daily might appeal to you (click here to link).

It suggests that tactics like “bundling” or a more health-conscious strategy could enhance and accelerate the industry’s comeback.

Implications: A lot of family casual and other sit-down restaurants are wondering how they can regain market share they lost to fast food joints during the recession. I was challenged to a debate on the topic last week while working with some marketing executives in west-central Florida. A couple of folks thought that price points might be the way to win customers back from the fast food competition. But I don’t think “cheap,” in and of itself, is a sustainable position for most full-service, sit-down restaurants. Certainly, “cheap” does not make a restaurant distinct… so it does not classify as a unique value proposition.

Service, flavor, ambience… these are things that a more sophisticated or specialized sit-down restaurant can deliver more consistently than a fast food restaurant (my opinion). Perhaps healthy dining (like that explained in the Marketing Daily story) is another way for more complex cafes to regain share that was lost to fast food places.

If you’re a full-service, sit-down restaurant, why should I come back to you? What is it that I (as a former customer) might miss about my visits to your café? Are you seasoning your invitation to me with that kind of flavor?

If you’re a fast food restaurant, how do you defend against the inevitable competition, as your sit-down counterparts decide to romance the customers you gained during the recession?

Mike Anderson