Shopping for Inspiration: Retail
Can foodservice learn from upscale retailers? Panera Bread and others already have. Here are a few lessons worth considering.
By Christine Speer, Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 11/1/2007
 Retail space seeks to be energetic and inviting. British chain Wagamama’s new restaurant in Boston...  ...and Max & Erma’s new prototype capture those feelings.  Panera Bread’s ability to evoke the comforts of home wins praise from design experts. |
In hosting a "sake brewer’s dinner" with guests Niichiro Marumoto and Takaaki Yamauchi, master brewers from two of Japan’s oldest sake producers, and offering a special sake-pairing menu for the event, Executive Chef Barney Brown of San Francisco’s Anzu restaurant employed a business-building tactic that has become common in fine dining.
Whether Brown knew it or not, he was thinking like a retailer. Bringing designers of furnishings, apparel or perfume into stores to meet customers has long been a successful marketing tool for high-end retailers.
Connecting products and producers is one of many ideas foodservice operators have picked up from the retail world, and consumer-marketing experts suggest that operators continue to watch and learn.
"Pay attention to any good idea you see in another business," advises Seena Sharp, principal of Los Angeles-based consultancy Sharp Market Intelligence. "Let that business be your test market. Once you know it works, all you have to do is adapt it to your business. A good idea is a good idea—for anyone."
With the Armani/Nobu restaurant in Milan, Italy, marrying high fashion and high-price sushi, and with Starbucks selling music CDs under its own label in its coffeehouses, the line between foodservice and retailing continues to blur. Here, then, are a few examples of what retailers know about consumer buying behavior that are useful for those in the business of selling experiences.
Assume the Position
"The biggest thing that restaurants can learn from retailers is the magnitude of the brand," says Lee Peterson, vice president of creative services with Columbus, Ohio-based WD Partners, which has done branding and unit design-and-development work for many restaurant companies. Effective branding, he says, requires a "central position": an understanding of what the company wants to be.
"The positioning for Victoria’s Secret is what it calls ‘sexy and glamorous,’" Peterson says. And that central idea, he explains, dictates the other "Ps" of branding—product, price, process (how the goods are made), people (employ-ees), place (location) and projection (advertising).
"Of course, with Victoria’s Secret, the product works with the positioning," Peterson says. "But also look at pricing: You’re not going to price something at $1.99 if you’re trying to be sexy and glamorous—and they don’t."
A foodservice operator needn’t have lingerie models working the host station in order to mimic Victoria’s Secret’s unified brand focus, Peterson says.
"Look at Panera Bread," he says, noting that the Richmond Heights, Mo.-based chain has developed a central positioning "based on comfort, authenticity and home."
"Yes, the food is good, but it’s not the central focus," Peterson says. "It’s the feeling: the warm colors, the classical music, the elevated food [displays], the smell of bread." He adds: "They’ve created a brand model everyone can understand."
Successful retail brands stand for something that consumers can grasp and remember. Foodservice concepts should as well.
Be Consistent, Consistently
The retail world is abuzz discussing "the cluttered marketplace," says Les Hiscoe, vice president of retail with Boston-based Shawmut Design and Construction, which has a client roster that includes Apple, Chanel, Burberry and Louis Vuitton. "There are too many choices [for consumers]," says Hiscoe, "which makes it even more important that people see a brand and identify it with what they trust and know."
Brian Stys, vice president of Shawmut’s restaurant group—which has worked with restaurant brands including Capital Grille, McCormick & Schmick’s, Nobu and Yard House—seconds Hiscoe’s point. "Consistency is key," Stys says. "In the case of Nobu, brand means everything. Hotels will say, ‘We want you in our hotel because it will make our hotel more sellable,’ and that’s the brand.
"But the brand only works as long as the food is consistent. If the food is lousy, customers are not coming back," Stys says. "Nobu works because the food is always consistent, everywhere you go."
… But Also Change
"One thing that has made [Swedish apparel retailer] H&M so popular," Sharp says, "is that they are constantly turning around their stock. People keep going back and back to see what’s new."
Consider GAP stores, which change colors, models, campaigns, and styles several times a year while remaining the place for "iconic American style." Many restaurants have adopted seasonal menus, but they also could take a cue from retailers that change displays as well as product lines seasonally.
"Plan for remodels," Peterson says. "Again, look at Panera. ‘Authenticity and home’ can go lots of directions—they can go with warmer colors, refresh the menu, or go more global and still be the brand. They’ve left themselves room for change," he says.
Last month, New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni awarded two stars to New York City’s Park Avenue Autumn, a restaurant that changes the menu and the décor with the seasons.
"Before you can get bored of the restaurant," he wrote, "it will close for a few days, then unveil a new décor, new server uniforms and a tweaked name on the awning," thereby proving its brand—seasonality—"from the outside in."
Know Your Customers (And Cater to Them)
It’s Sales 101: You can’t be everything to everyone—so don’t try. "My daughter loves Abercrombie & Fitch, and I can’t even go in there because the music is too loud," Shawmut’s Stys says. "And Abercrombie knows it. They’ve found their target audience."
So it goes with restaurants. When Eric Steinhoff, the director of franchise development for Columbus, Ohio-based Max & Erma’s, learned through market research that 35- to 45-year-old women formed a substantial part of the casual-dining chain’s customer base, he nixed the restaurants’ hunting-lodge motif (complete with dark woods and kitsch-covered walls) in favor of a new design that would be "more female-friendly."
The new prototype boasts brighter colors, not as many "artifacts" on the walls and higher-end finishes, he says—and attracts about five times as many female customers as the previous design.
Take Care of the Environment
Consumers make judgments about price, selection and quality based on the look of a retail store before they walk in. Expectations set by that look should match the reality, retail experts say. High-end apparel won’t sell in stodgy, outdated surroundings, and the same is true of foodservice.
"Environment is the physical representation of the brand," says Shawmut’s Hiscoe. "Think about Apple stores—crisp, clean, with lots of white and stainless steel, minimalist in design." In other words, the space mirrors the product itself.
"That’s the draw—an alluring environment consistent with the brand," he says. "If I’m in a steakhouse, I need to feel like I’m in a steakhouse."
Matching environment with concept requires considering all aspects of a restaurant design, says Stys, from the height of ceilings (which affects the noise level) to the music guests hear and the fabrics and materials used throughout. All elements should be in harmony with each other and with the brand.
Give Them All They Need in One Space
Cafe SFA at Saks Fifth Avenue and 745 Cafe at Bergdorf Goodman are among the retailers that use foodservice to encourage shoppers to stay. Restaurants can adapt such cross-retailing tactics as well.
When Chef-owner Daniel Orr opens Farm Bloomington next month in Bloomington, Ind., the operation will have not only a restaurant but also a cafe, a market, a streetside "waffle window," a bar and a music venue called the Root Cellar.
"We want to give people different experiences," Orr says. "One day, you want the waffle window, the next day, you come back for tapas, and that night, you come for the Root Cellar."
Troy Schwehr, a retail consultant with F.C. Dadson Inc., says such cross-merchandising approaches "can increase shoppers’ exposure to different products and promote impulse purchases—two very nice bonuses."
Subdivide and Conquer
Upscale retailers understand how to break up huge spaces into boutiques. The sportswear department has a different vibe from the area where formalwear is displayed.
Restaurateurs are catching on and adapting that thinking.
Cleveland’s Table 45—a collaboration of Chef-owner Zachary Bruell and architect-designer Bill Blunden—puts retailers’ store-within-a-store concept to sleek use. Mirroring the variety of global influences on Bruell’s menu, Table 45’s 6,000-square-foot space is subdivided into five dining areas (shown), each intended to have its own ambience.
Additionally, a small bar-within-the-bar is enclosed by sandblasted-glass partitions.
Highlight the Product
“At the Tom Ford store [in New York City] on Madison Avenue, Tom Ford himself looked around and commented on the lighting,” says Les Hiscoe, vice president of retail with Boston-based Shawmut Design and Construction. “If you’re buying a $1,600 pair of crocodile shoes, you want to see every angle, the color, and the texture. We sometimes spend days programming and adjusting lighting.”
Brian Stys, vice president of Shawmut’s restaurant group, follows the same prac-tice with restaurants. “Lots of places are investing in high-end lighting and taking care to make sure light falls in the right places on the table to show the food to its best advantage.”
Eight-18 in Toluca Lake, Calif., appeals to diners with a small-plates menu and a wine list of more than 150 bottles, 30 of which can be ordered by the glass.
To keep Eight-18’s well-stocked cellar top of mind with diners, owner Brad Roen incorporated wine bottles into the décor, displaying bottles on a dining-room wall just as retailers showcase apparel.
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