There are dozens of things that can go wrong when you walk into a restaurant. We don`t have to list them here. They are amply reported elsewhere in this newspaper.
But a restaurateur is not helpless. ”Make the customer relax,” says Christiaan de Brauw, a senior vice president of Creative Research, a Chicago firm that specializes in focus groups for restaurants. ”A tense person notices more problems.” This secret of success might seem obvious, but it often eludes restaurant owners who are preoccupied with other things: menus, wine lists, busboys with criminal records.
Market research, using techniques tailored specifically for restaurants, may seem simplistic and expensive-even for small restaurants they cost several thousand dollars. But with restaurateurs looking for the magic dust that can make them successful, some go to great lengths to study what we are eating and saying, and how much we eat and say it.
Another conclusion: ”Women (more than men) are driven to excitement about a restaurant,” says de Brauw. ”So a restaurant wants to persuade the woman, and accommodate the man.” Not a fashionable notion perhaps, but it comes from hundreds of focus groups in which de Brauw asks restaurant-goers why and how much they like eating out. ”I always look in their faces to see if there is enthusiasm,” he says.
TAKE GOOD NOTES
Restaurants use these and a variety of other techniques for finding out about their customers. Some use quantitative research: demographics, spending habits and other statistics. Some use qualitative research, or focus groups, where opinions are drawn out by skilled group leaders.
None of this diminishes the importance of instinct. Many restaurant people have a knack for understanding customers. Some say they never do market research, even if they do.
It is ironic that the most extravagant studies, often quantitative, are done for the most prosaic restaurants. Bennigan`s, for example, knows its average customer with as much certainty as you know your spouse. So when they contemplate a new restaurant, they look at the area within three or four miles of the site location. While the company won`t be specific, they want to make sure there are plenty of 25- to 40-year-olds around, they want above-average family income, and they want ”relatively small families.” Small families means more disposable income for jambalaya and Cobb salads.
Quantitative research, while not limited to large operators, is more often used by nationwide chains. This is because trends found in polls are more reliable with large samples. It is also because research is expensive.
DIAGNOSING HABITS
The Consumer Report on Eating Share Trends (CREST) survey, based in Chicago, works very much like Neilsen ratings. And for $43,000 a year, clients can find out how often people go out, where they are going, and how much they spend.
Some of the CREST data is interesting, though the company is understandably a bit stingy in releasing much of it. Volume in Italian restaurants is growing, says account manager Bonnie Riggs. ”It`s probably because of a good price-value relationship in the consumer`s mind,” she says. Another exciting detail is that supermarket delis are one of the fastest growing market segments. CREST folds this data in with econometric projections to help companies devise new concepts and marketing plans.
Not all restaurant people believe in market research. Predictably, many believe they understand public taste with uncanny precision. And some do, especially smaller companies that have long flourished in particular markets. ”We are very good in listening to our customers,” says Bob Wattel, vice president of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, whose success in odd restaurants like Scoozi! or Hat Dance simply can`t be predicted with surveys. CONVERTING A SKEPTIC
But other types of research-like focus groups-do provide useful assistance even for the entrepreneurial restaurateur. ”I was a skeptic at first,” says Leslee Reis, of Cafe Provencal in Evanston. Nevertheless, she hired a Michigan Avenue firm to conduct focus groups for her restaurant. These consisted of a dozen or so people sitting around a table providing opinions. The value of those opinions depend in large part upon on group leaders who can draw out truthful, valuable responses.
For Cafe Provencal, researchers assembled both regulars and occasional customers. They asked about the ambiance, the parking, their willingness to drive to Evanston on a weeknight and other questions. The results motivated Reis to do a number of things. One was to to convert her porch, or ”garden room,” into a paneled den. ”Men did not like the garden room,” she said.
”They felt that they were being pushed off to the side.”
Another observation-somewhat less actionable-was that Chicagoans felt that going to Evanston was like a drive to the country; weeknight dining would be a difficult nut to crack. They also said that they wanted valet parking, which Reis had resisted up until that time.
These are small points, but small points such as these combine to make a powerful message that recurs again and again in focus groups. From other groups, Chris de Brauw determined one such message that applies to Reis as much as it applies to tiny Mexican joints. ”The first two minutes in a restaurant are the most important,” he says.
HE ASKED FOR IT
The best restaurateurs have a knack for such things, and it is not surprising that some of them even conduct their own focus groups. Jim Errant, who owns the Claim Co. and other restaurants, including America`s Kitchen at 900 N. Michigan Ave., is one who combines intuition for what people want with a knack for market research.
Before opening Zarrosta`s, located in Oakbrook Center, Errant assembled groups of patrons from his Claim Co., also in Oak Brook, to discuss his idea for ”an urban restaurant in the suburbs.” The notion was that suburban diners were more sophisticated and would support a high-style spot close to home. The focus groups told Errant that there was a limit. Gourmet pizzas with ingredients like goat cheese and pine nuts left many suburbanites cold. Other dishes-like exotic fish-seemed outlandish in the suburbs. So they opted for a more familiar menu.
At another of his restaurants, Timbers Charhouse in Highland Park, Errant experienced a downward trend in his second year. So he convened a focus group and found out that:
1. The steak and seafood restaurant needed a broader menu for the family. 2. Customers would accept higher prices, but they expected linen napkins. 3. And finally, the decor was too stark. Errant made adjustments, includng an offer to exhcange free dinners for anyone who brought in a fish trophy from his attic. Business again climbed.
IF WE COULD DO IT OVER
Of course this subject would be no fun without discussing some blunders. Chris de Brauw says that the gourmet hamburger-served by a number of nationwide chains-committed one of the most predictable. Whatever studies Fuddrucker`s and restaurants like it conducted did not do very much good, he says. That is because a combination of expensive burgers, self-service and a condiment station that is confused for a salad bar, does little to relax people. ”People spend a lot of time being tense,” de Brauw says.
Which means that if your hamburger gets cold, you`re going to notice.
This might seem simplistic. But maybe it was too simple, and the geniuses who designed these places overlooked something. From the looks of the ever-growing list of restaurant casualties, this kind of thing happens all the time.
Certainly, research of this sort, or any sort, isn`t going to make a restaurant successful. But it can make sure that you don`t skip over something that will be, in retrospect, painfully obvious. –
