Vicorp Restaurant Chains Partner with Independent Restaurants

Bakers Square and Village Inn chains showcase recipes from small “legendary” restaurants.

By Staff -- Restaurants & Institutions, 11/6/2007

Vicorp Restaurants doesn’t want the menus at its Bakers Square and Village Inn chains to be simply interesting. It wants them to be legendary.

The two Denver-based chains this week launched a new menu-marketing program—themed “Legendary Restaurants. Legendary Recipes”—that adapts recipes from small, well-regarded independent restaurants. This month, breakfast menus at both chains offer three stuffed French toast dishes prepared from recipes developed at The Maples Inn in Bar Harbor, Maine.

On lunch and dinner menus, both chains also have added a sirloin baguette sandwich that uses a steak-seasoning blend created by Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap, Texas. Bakers Square also serves a stuffed-jalapeños appetizer, seasoned-sirloin entrée and seasoned-sirloin salad featuring the seasoning blend.

“We were looking for ways to stand apart from the crowd in the family-dining segment as far as menu innovation,” says Josh Kern, Vicorp vice president of marketing. “We believe this approach is more relevant with consumers and has more talk value than if we simply brought in a famous-name chef. Limited-time offers are so common that they aren’t news with consumers anymore. This is a way to differentiate ourselves in a meaningful way.”

Kern says Vicorp researched consumer dining magazines, local cook-offs and competitions and other sources for information on established, local-favorite restaurants. “It’s easy to identify great restaurants and recipes. It’s harder to get on the phone and explain the partnership we had in mind,” Kern says. Vicorp worked on recipes with The Maples Inn, Perini Ranch Steakhouse and other restaurants that will be involved in the program, and those restaurants had final approval on preparation and presentation of dishes carrying their names.

In January, the chains will cycle in a pot roast recipe from The Dorset Inn in Dorset, Vt. Although Vicorp primarily has scouted restaurants in areas where it has no restaurants, it is talking with a Chicago restaurateur about a future menu item, Kern says.