RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND:
DETERMINING YOUR RESTAURANT CONCEPT
RESTAURANT CONSULTANTS OF AMERICA™
Research Is Your Friend: Determining Your Restaurant Concept
The best decisions are informed ones. Research can take a lot of time and effort and can cost a bit of money, but great research can and does save many times its original cost and is the best way to determine your concept.
Sources of information come in many forms and in many places. Most cities in the United States have restaurant associations and business associations. These associations provide weekly and monthly meetings with people who share your interest in restaurants or business in general. They are a good place to meet smart people who may be able to help you find information.
But the person who will be the most help in reaching your dream is in the mirror every day. You will have to decide where to look for information and what information to look for. The millions of pages of available restaurant-based concept information include surveys, data, and opinions on to how choose a restaurant, and the more you look the more you can find. So where do you begin?
You need three pieces of critical information to help you choose your concept:
Demographic surveys: Demographic surveys determine and analyze such characteristics as age, gender, income levels, lifestyles, consumer habits, and more. Restaurant start-ups frequently conduct demographic surveys to collect this type of data to help determine locations, concept types, menu offerings, prices, and so on. A demographic survey helps a restaurateur pinpoint a market that is appropriate for a concept.
Target market analysis: Who is your main projected customer? What does he or she look like in terms of age, income level, lifestyle, and so on? This information is critical to know because it will be a determining factor in site selection, the marketing plan and execution, menu design, and more. This target market affects virtually every aspect of your restaurant.
Competitive analysis: A competitive analysis helps you understand and predict who your competition will be, what your competition provides in the way of products, services, and benefits to the customer, and how well you will be able to compete against the competition. Ultimately, the customer decides whether to give you money or give that same money to someone else. You need to know how they make that decision.
Tip Jar: By using a demographic survey and a target market analysis together, you can clearly determine where you want to build a particular restaurant. For example, once you know where a large concentration of college kids live, work, and party, it becomes much easier to pinpoint where to build a restaurant that produces large pizzas at low prices.
Wet Floor! If your target market is females between 19 and 35, an all-you-can-eat buffet concept may not be the best idea. This conclusion may seem obvious to you, but I have met restaurant owners who spend bags of money on marketing with no clue about their target market. They might as well have thrown their money away.
The Restaurant Concept Design Team
The overall concept design of your restaurant is your most important decision. As you try to figure out exactly what kind of restaurant you want to own, you should understand that this decision entails more than you think. It entails everything. Consider this partial list of things that will be affected by your initial decision on concept:
The equipment you order
The plateware and silverware
The amount of kitchen space you will need
The amount of freezer, cooler, and dry storage space needed
The dining room decor
The building signage and exterior
The size and ability of your staff
Employee dress codes and uniforms
You can design everything yourself and trust your ability to juggle a million things at once and understand how it all fits together, or you can find some help. The choice is yours. But unless you are an expert in all of the areas of restaurant concept design, your best bet is to hire, partner, or network with a restaurant concept design firm.
The amount of money you spend on hiring professionals to help you will be small compared to the money and time they will save you. These professionals usually work in teams of two or three and guide you toward wise decisions. A good team will provide help in five areas:
Clearing away obstacles
Growing ideas
Determining feasibility
Determining restaurant flow
Making everything work together
Clearing Away Obstacles
Stuff happens. Especially in the early days of preparing a restaurant, the unexpected can shake you up. Expert restaurant design and concept people have been through it all many times before and can add a solid dose of confidence to your efforts. They have experience in dealing with vendors, manufacturing companies, designers, and marketing firms and can deal with nearly any obstacles you may encounter to the concept design process.
Tip Jar: You can find restaurant concept design professionals by locating their advertisements in the back of trade magazines. You can even contact my firm:
