SheeFood

How Can Restaurants Capture Repeat Business?

It’s a jungle out there for restaurants competing for business. They face the fact every day that we consumers aren’t particularly brand loyal when it comes to eating out. The closest we come is price loyal. Offer the food cheap, and we’ll be there. That’s a rub for them, because their food prices are rising, and they can’t easily pass those costs on to us because we won’t stand for it.

But restaurants can build loyalty, and they should. Red Robin Burgers exemplifies a chain that saw a need to do something and jumped right in with a rewards program. The operation falls in the casual dining segment where competition is fierce with meal deals that have gone from limited-time-only promotions to regular menu status. Time will tell if that strategy works for them. But for Red Robin, the solution to sagging sales was to start a loyalty program in January 2011. After researching what rewards might work to coax repeat business from their customers, they decided to offer a free birthday burger every year, and they offer an incentive where those who buy nine entrees get the tenth free. Also, for those who visit five times in the first five weeks of joining the program, they receive $20 off the sixth visit. And to stave off boredom, they also offer targeted exclusive surprises throughout the year to their loyalty card members.

I talked to their director of loyalty/retention, Dana Benfield, for an article for National Culinary Review (see "Loyalty Reaps Rewards" to the right), and she was thrilled with the way the program has worked for them. They capture data on loyalty card purchaser habits, and they have their ways of drawing customers back in when they haven’t visited for awhile.

And it’s working. The company’s fiscal second-quarter profit increased 12%, according to an August 9, 2012, article in the online Wall Street Journal. The company attributes part of that success to its loyalty program.

Other restaurants should look into the concept of encouraging by rewarding guest loyalty. It’s almost a no-brainer. Yet the majority don’t offer rewards programs. I checked with the National Restaurant Association on the percentages of restaurants that have loyalty programs, and it’s amazingly low.

It's understandable why more quick serve restaurants don't have loyalty programs when they operate on such tight margins as it is, but other segments could certainly step up and go to bat.

Tell me what you think.

Jody

Ice Cream Takes the Cake

It’s hot, and ice cream sounds perfect. I know because I’ve researched it for the past few months. Some 95% of us in the U.S. eat ice cream—whether purchased at a store or ordered at a restaurant. That’s according to a consumer survey conducted for the Mintel report I wrote, Ice Cream and Frozen Novelties—U.S., July 2012.

Flavor is the most important thing we look for when we buy ice cream, followed by price. That elevated interest in price has the Ben & Jerry’s, Edy’s/Dreyer’s and Breyers of the world a little concerned. They know and you know that perfectly delicious store-brand ice cream is available for cheaper.

• Almost half (49%) of survey respondents say that private label/store-brand ice cream is just as good as name brands.
• Worse for the brand manufacturers, 67% of consumers prefer to buy whatever ice cream is the best value/price.
• But not everyone is entirely price focused. Some 67% also are willing to spend more on better quality ice cream.
• If you are one of those who looks closely at the label to see if you can pronounce all the ingredients, you’re not alone. A high 48% look for all-natural ingredients.
• What about the effects on our waistlines? Only 38% look for reduced/low fat and/or reduced sugar ice cream. (There’s obviously a time and place for suspended concern over diet and weight.)

Indulgence often reigns when eating out, and flavorful who-cares-about-calories ice cream is well represented in restaurants. I talked to innovative chefs who make their own ice cream for the July/August article I wrote for National Culinary Review magazine.

From a culinary perspective, fat and sugar are where the flavor is and can easily be maximized.

• Jeffrey Jake at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, Calif., makes olive oil ice cream using the olive oil produced right there at area wineries. He says the olive oil has buttery qualities with a slight almond flavor.
• And why not foie gras ice cream? Chef John des Rosiers of Inovasi, Lake Bluff, Ill., and Moderno restaurant in Highland Park, Ill., developed foie gras ice cream with pepper almond brittle to go with seared hot foie gras, so the customer experiences it two ways.
• He also makes bacon ice cream in which he sous vides the bacon to separate the fat. He mixes the fat into the base and tosses in chopped bacon as it spins.
• Goat cheese also makes interesting ice cream. Jeffrey Jake at Silverado Resort and Spa makes goat cheese ice cream using goat cheese from a popular local dairy and serves it with very rich chocolate and red wine pudding.
• Going from fat to sugar, pastry chef Tom Laurell at Chicago’s Bin 36 makes marshmallow ice cream, which he toasts off at the end with a blow torch to create a brown, toasted skin.
• Baklava ice cream makes perfect sense at the Greek restaurant Molyvos in New York. There chef/owner Jim Botsacos takes the trimmings from his perfectly shaped baklava and adds them to a syrup he folds into his vanilla ice cream base. Hey, he’s saving waste. Eat up.

If you’d like to read more about these interesting ideas, click on my article at the right “The Scoop on Ice Cream.”

Then tell me what you think.

Jody