The Ten-Minute Manager�s Guide to ... Tailoring Lunch to Busy Diners

By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 9/1/2007

Service speed is essential when it comes to capturing diners’ lunchtime dollars. More than 70% of consumers say they frequently or occasionally eat lunch at a restaurant; and one-third of those consumers cite time constraints as a key reason to dine out, according to R&I’s New American Diner Study. Grabbing a quick combo meal at the drive-thru isn’t always the most appealing option, however.

Fortunately for time-starved customers, operators are pursuing new strategies for furnishing quick, satisfying meals that prove that food served fast doesn’t always have to mean fast food.

Among the latest lures are multicourse meals ordered and served in well under an hour, online ordering with user-friendly enhancements such as prepay options and dedicated pickup areas, and speed-centered promotions that please diners and keep staff on their toes.

Multiples in Minutes

Many diners augment midday meals with extras such as salads, starters and desserts, as the graphic on the opposite page attests. For customers who crave multiple courses but don’t have time to dawdle, sleek newcomer bluprint in Chicago introduced the Designer Lunch, a three-course meal diners can enjoy in 30 minutes or less.

"I think the ease of it is what has been most appealing to people," says Executive Chef Doran Payne. "Customers know they can eat relatively fast and still get a full meal."

The process is briskly paced but not rushed. Guests who order the Designer Lunch peruse a paper menu with three choices each for starters, entrées and desserts and check off their selections. Servers deliver the courses at the same time—perhaps chilled gazpacho, grilled chicken with tomato-caper relish and a brownie—on individual plates fitted atop one large square dish.

At Dallas’ Belo Mansion & Pavilion, Executive Chef Steven Weir of Dallas-based Culinaire International recently employed a similar strategy for a 60-person corporate meeting. His four-course lunch was served and eaten in less than 40 minutes, with all dishes arriving simultaneously on long, rectangular platters.

Putting together such a complex meal for a large party demands dead-on kitchen timing and clear, frequent communication among the employees charged with cooking and assembling each dish, Weir says. Menu planning requires special attention as well. Portion sizes are conservative enough that diners needn’t spend a lot of time eating but large enough that diners feel they’ve had a complete meal. Each course also needs to meld well with the others.

"I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more meals like that. It was so well received, so different and unique," Weir says.

Fast-Paced & Fun

Diners may not equate a steakhouse with a speedy lunchtime dining experience, but executives at Hutchinson, Kan.-based casual-dining chain Montana Mike’s Steakhouse intend to change that perception. Montana Mike’s Fast Five promotion invites guests to choose from five $5.99 lunch specials, each of which is guaranteed to be served within 15 minutes or the meal is free.

The selected menu items—chicken-fried steak, chopped steak, beef tips, a grilled chicken salad and a cheeseburger—fit key criteria: They represent some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes; they offer portions not overly hearty for lunch; and, of course, they are able to be prepared quickly.

A well-trained staff is integral to the program’s success, say Vice President of Marketing Pat Patterson and Director of Operations Don Egbert. Servers immediately enter Fast Five orders into the point-of-sale system, and kitchen expediters alert servers when those meals are nearly ready.

"We also have to lose [on the time guarantee] once in a while to make it fun for employees and guests," Patterson says. "Then other guests see that and want to come back and try it."

High-Tech Help

A significant segment of the population already is using the Internet to order restaurant meals for pickup or delivery, and one-quarter of those who have never placed a cyber-order say they’d be likely to order lunch online if it were offered as an option, according to National Restaurant Association research. Operators can stand apart from competitors by offering extra time-saving benefits.

Detroit-based fast-casual chain Zoup! Fresh Soup Company allows online-order customers—who now account for almost 3% of the chain’s total sales—to pick up orders at a dedicated register, bypassing the regular line. Whether stores also have staff assigned to handle those meals depends on order volume, but either way, online orders are top priority, says Co-founder and Managing Partner Eric Ersher.

"It allows us to increase throughput because fewer people are in line ordering, and transactions go faster," he says. "It also promotes online ordering when other customers see someone who is in and out in a second."

So employees don’t have to check monitors repeatedly for incoming Internet requests, orders go directly to print and then are entered into the point-of-sale system, which automatically prints the order for assembly 15 minutes before its scheduled pickup time. The system soon will be able to funnel orders directly from Zoup!’s Web site to its Web-based POS system, eliminating another step, Ersher says.

At Zoup! and other concepts, customers can save additional time by paying for meals online. A new Internet ordering system being tested at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus makes payments even simpler, though: Employees can have meal costs deducted from their paycheck using staff ID cards.

"A lot of people here are so busy they can’t get down here and spend time waiting in line," says Mary Angela Miller, administrative director of nutrition services. "Even though our staff is quick, you’d have to wait in line for your sandwich and then wait in line to check out. So customers go from two lines to no line."