Greetings!

With summer comes more travel, and it’s a sure bet that some of these travelers will be ending up in our restaurants, as the pursuit of “gastro-tourism” (travel specifically to enjoy the food of a particular destination) continues to gather steam.This year gastronauts have a new tool with The Flavors of the USA, a website launched last month by Brand USA, thegovernment-backed destination marketing organization charged with boosting international tourism to the U.S. Though created with visitors from Europe, Asia, South America and other international countries in mind, this “culinary content hub” is good for anyone who realizes that you can’t possibly understand a place without eating its food.Check out the site, and its associated guidebook, whenever you get a chance. And have a safe, happy, and tasty summer, whether you’re planning to travel or not.

Clean Cuisine: Enlightened Eating Accelerates

By Joan Lang, Editorial Director[caption id="attachment_5573" align="aligncenter" width="604"]

Image: Steven-L-Johnson license cc by 2.0[/caption]As with so many restaurant industry developments, it all started with Chipotle. Or at least there’s a good argument to be made that the mainstream move toward local/sustainable/minimally processed/fair trade/non-GMO/humane and other forms of enlightened eating—we’re dubbing it “clean cuisine”—has its roots in the mission statement of this bellwether brand.And make no mistake: this is more than just a menuing trend. The clean cuisine movement is more like a seismic shift in the industry, and it’s already proven itself to be a disruptor, just as Chipotle has been all along. Because now other large chains are following suit with their own commitments to enhanced transparency, among them Panera, McDonald’s (with varying perceptual success), Noodles & Company, and most recently Subway, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, the latter with its plan to cut “unnatural ingredients” and show that Less is Mas.In other news, Dunkin’ Donuts has committed to ditching the use of “nanoparticles” in its powdered sugar, Carl’s Jr. is selling a burger made with grass-fed beef, and Starbucks has announced that 99% of its coffee is ethically sourced.It’s one thing for a company like Chipotle to commit to menu transparency, which has been a brand pillar since Day One, and improved upon ever since. For large old-school chains, however, it’s no small endeavor. Taco Bell has pledged to remove all artificial flavors and colors from its menu items, along with a laundry list of no-no’s that includes palm oil, trans fat and high fructose corn syrup. (Not coincidentally, many of these are also on the hit list for manufacturers who are equally concerned with the need for enlightened eating option; in fact, many Big Food players are reformulating products to eliminate additives, sugar and more.)Consumers want this, especially Millennials. At this year’s National Restaurant Association Show, clean eating revealed itself as a major consumer trend affecting the restaurant industry: Three in five consumers say they are more likely to visit a restaurant that offers organic or environmentally friendly food, and ingredients and foods that are more natural and/or minimally processed foods are among the top five trends in the National Restaurant Association’s most recent What’s Hot annual survey.The Hartman Group’s new report on “Diners’ Changing Behaviors” reveals that the ultimate symbol of quality on a foodservice menu is “fresh,” (cited by 55% of respondents), followed by “pesticide free” (37%), “real” (36%) and “hormone free” (31%). These descriptors start to put some meat on the bones of what consumers perceive as healthy in this post-diet marketplace.As Nation’s Restaurant News puts it, in order to attract consumers today, what’s not on the menu is just as important as what it. “Real” food is food that does not have antibiotics, hormones or artificial ingredients. And with social media now so vigorous, guests have become increasingly aware of these attributes.But it’s hard work to keep it real in past-paced, high-volume settings. Sourcing antibiotic free and naturally raised proteins, such as chicken and pork, intersects with growing concern about humane animal treatment, and that costs more money. In addition, in this point in the history of the food supply chain, there may not be enough of these products to go around, a reality that Chipotle has come up against with its pork.When suppliers are asked to curtail the use of antibiotics by a company like McDonald’s, this will have a huge effect on the supply chain. For one thing, it’s expected to raise prices of chicken by as much as five to seven cents a pound, and to delay the maturation of birds to slaughter age by up to 20%. In the meantime, the effect on human health may actually be negligible. Is the typical McDonald’s customer willing to pay for that?Multiply that by the almost-certain efforts of other mainstream chains that are sure to follow suit, to say nothing of independents and smaller and more progressive fast-casual chains that have such practices baked in to the concept (such as LYFE Kitchen), and the scenario is one of sweeping change within the entire supply chain.And there are other components to the larger trend of so-called “mindful eating,” which also includes environmental sustainability and waste reduction, as well as the gluten-free movement. Meanwhile, GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are becoming an area of increasing concern for consumers, even as they continue to be widely misunderstood.And now Chipotle (remember them?) has become the first chain to cook with non-GMO ingredients. It’s a sure bet that the company won’t be the last.

Top 10 Brand Marketing Tips

By Karen A. Brennan, Marketing & Branding StrategyHaving interned at the Indianapolis TV station where David Letterman was the weatherman, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Top 10 lists. So in honor of his retirement, here are the Top 10 things I’ve learned about restaurant brand marketing over the last 30 years.# 10: Customers own the brandA brand is a set of expectations, and if what you’re promising isn’t aligned with what your guests expect, it might as well not be true.A family dining executive whose unresearched remodeling was intended to move the brand from family dining to the next “Starbucks” had a rude awakening when sales spiked up after the remodel and then settled back to before-repositioning levels. His customers weren’t buying it.Customers are in charge. Brands that don’t find out what their customers are thinking will leave their base behind.# 9: The simple secret: Make them want to come in… then make them want to come backMarketing promotion can drive initial visits, but execution really drives repeat visits and frequency. Marketing may set the expectation, but operators execute that promise all day, every day, with every guest they serve.The simple question What will make them want to come back? is the key to executing the “touch points” that make and keep loyal guests.# 8: Marketing is a philosophy, not a departmentMarketing is everyone’s job, from the hostess to the CFO to the unit-level manager. In an operations-driven business where making customers want to come back is so important, it is everyone’s job to think about the business from the guest point of view.Years ago restaurants used to solve guest complaints by offering a complimentary dessert, but when a guest is complaining about how long a meal took, making them wait around for a free dessert is completely tone deaf.# 7: You’re not selling food, you’re renting chairs to people buying foodRestaurant capacity is the secret. The highest volume, most profitable restaurants I know of are usually the ones that are busy all day, every day. Unlike retail, a busy Saturday night can’t really make up for being slow every other shift. Maximizing every daypart is the secret.Operations and Marketing working as a team can make it happen by pushing through-put, being aggressive on reservations, expediting table turns, managing check averages when guest counts are low or creating new dayparts like carryout, catering or food sales in the bar.The trick is to find where the excess capacity is and what you can do to maximize it—new products, promotion or execution.# 6: If you want people to talk about you, give them something to talk about“Word of Mouth” is the #1 reason people go to a new restaurant, but if you don’t give people something specific and concrete to talk about, they have nothing to say. That’s the reason negative word of mouth is more prevalent than positive word of mouth…it’s easier to talk about the bad stuff because it is specific and concrete and something that connects emotionally with guests.Sometimes it’s as simple as the size of the menu item—really, really big like the Great Wall of Chocolate at P.F. Chang’s or really, really small like the shot glass desserts at Season’s 52.With the rise of digital media and social sharing, this concept is even more important. Digital media is just that—it’s media—and marketers have to provide the content. You still have to give your customers something specific and concrete to talk about by orchestrating events that people care about—new products, promotions, etc. If you don’t, digital media runs the risk of being just another better and faster way to transmit coupons and guest complaints.# 5: Marketing can only make promises Operations can exceedThe restaurant business is “no excuses.” Guests don’t care that the reason their great aunt’s 80th birthday was ruined was because it was a shift change and you had two servers call in sick. But even that is more understandable than a promotion gone wrong. It all depends on flawless execution, creating an experience that will drive a return visit.A simple thing like promoting a long ticket-time appetizer versus an easy pick up item can negatively affect the guest experience. French Onion Soup was a great signature item for a restaurant I worked with once, but we had to back off from promoting it because it came off the broiler, which didn’t have the capacity to support high volumes. Again, a signature item for the brand, but a promise we couldn’t keep.An average plan flawlessly executed is better than a creative plan inexpertly executed.# 4: Avoid “Tactics in search of a strategy”There are plenty of great marketing ideas out there—people love to brainstorm them. Unfortunately, those ideas often don’t work. Successful marketing requires quantifiable goals, strategies designed to achieve those goals, and then smart tactics that can accomplish your goals. Always ask, “What’s the goal?” and “How does this get us there?”Brand Marketing is a discipline; marketers must make the ROI (return on marketing investment) case by establishing a baseline and measuring progress relative to the baseline. If you don’t measure, you waste money and effort—not just the waste from the cost, but also the “opportunity cost,” the value of what you could be doing if you weren’t so busy with ineffective tactics.# 3: The name of the game is Reach and FrequencyIn this cluttered and fragmented media world, it’s getting tougher and tougher to make an impression. They used to say that people had to see/hear a message at least three times to even know they had heard it. That number has been going up steadily since then, so smart marketers try to not only reach their target segment, but to reach them enough times to break through.What this suggests is that sticking to one message at a time and getting lots of repetition on that one point is a better strategy than trying to tell your whole story all the time and never breaking through.# 2: Only steal from the bestOK, I’m not proud of it, but I have, on occasion, borrowed inspiration from my competitors. Having said that, when one is “poaching” ideas, there are two major caveats: 1) Always evaluate if the idea fits your brand and matches your competencies, and 2) Only steal from the best.Copying the competition is dangerous. The restaurant business is not unlike an iceberg—only about 10% of an iceberg is above the surface. So much of what makes a restaurant chain successful is below the surface and can’t be seen when you walk in the front door for a competitive visit. A restaurant’s success is based on its culture, systems, infrastructure, and the core elements of the brand which may not be obvious from the outside, like purchasing arrangements, training programs, marketing strategies, etc.Years and years ago when Taco Bell first started the value wars with 39-cent tacos, I saw their CEO John Martin present the “back story” of the behind-the-scenes re-engineering and process improvement necessary to drive down the costs so that they could offer the enhanced value. How many restaurateurs do that before they hop in to the value fray?There is only one way to copy a great idea: Make it your own.#1: You’ll never be first by following the competitionI often see small companies avidly watching the competition and “re-appropriating” ideas for their own brands. When I was the head of marketing for a small restaurant chain in the ‘80s, we spent a lot of time camped out at our local TGI Friday’s to see what they would do next. But the truth is, that kind of “me too” approach will never make you Number One.Following your guest, not your competition, is the secret to being Number One. Once we learned that lesson, we were able to focus on our guests’ specific needs, wants and expectations, and deliver an experience that lived up to their expectations rather than being a second-rate TGI Friday’s. The real secret is: Run your own race.Need help beefing up your brand strategy? Call Synergy Restaurant Consultants for an evaluation.

The New Definition of Salads

By Joan Lang, Editorial Director It’s been a long time since the word “salad” on a menu meant a bowl of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, with maybe a chef’s salad thrown in to appease the dieter. Today a salad can be anything from a room temperature shared plate of roasted tri-color carrots with toasted cumin vinaigrette, to a tossed-to-order creation encompassing all of a guest’s favorite customized ingredients.At Cheesecake Factory, for instance, the salads section comprises seven appetizer selections and 10 more substantial salads, from the obligatory Caesar to a Seared Tuna Tataki Salad with wasabi vinaigrette.

A Category Apart

Webster’s dictionary defines salad as “a cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients.”But in 2015 a salad can comprise almost any ingredients, especially as shareables, small plates, and increased creativity with seasonal produce, beans and grains are transforming menus. A salad doesn’t even necessarily need to be cold. If it walks like a salad and it talks like a salad, it can be enjoyed like a salad, even if it’s menued as a main course or appetizer.

Caesar Lives

Before leaving the topic of Caesar salad, this classic concoction of Romaine, parmesan, egg, anchovies and croutons—said to be invented by Caesar Cardini in Mexico in 1924—has turned into one of the most enduringly popular menu items of all time. Its first documented menu listing was in 1946 at Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills, and during its earliest heyday it exemplified glamourous dining, especially when made tableside.That traditional recipe is still much-loved, and much-menued, but the variations have become legion, from the addition of a la carte toppings like grilled chicken or shrimp, to versions made with grilled Romaine, butter or other soft lettuce, sous vide egg, white anchovies, frico (parmesan crisps) instead of croutons and/or grated cheese…. And now, of course, it’s the kale Caesar salad (and the secret to that is trimming the ribs rubbing the leaves with dressing to break down the fibers and make it more tender).You can do anything to a Caesar, it seems, except kill it off.

New Classics

Beyond Caesar, there are other “heritage” salads that are still going strong, either in their traditional or experimental forms:Cobb: Present it as a tossed salad, rather than composed. Vary the classic ingredients of turkey, blue cheese, avocado and hard-boiled eggs (i.e., smoked turkey, poached egg)Niçoise: Use hot grilled tuna or another fresh fishWedge Salad: Use heirloom iceberg and/or tomatoes, upgraded bacon (i.e., house-cured)Salad Frisee Lardon: Substitute frizzled prosciutto or smoked salmon for the traditional bacon lardonsThe Local, in Coral Gables, FL, is a great example of how the classic-salad variations comes to life, with a short rib-topped Caesar salad and a wedge made with grilled lettuce.

Going with the Grain and Bean

One of the hottest new ideas in salad is the incorporation of newly popular ancient grains, legumes or beans, creating a more substantial, nutrient-dense salad that can, with a little adaptation, also be menued to vegetarians, vegans, and the gluten-averse.For example:• Quinoa Salad (radish, avocado, tomato, almond, cucumber, lime vinegar) – Circa 59, Riviera Palm Springs Hotel• Thai Buckwheat Noodle Salad (avocado, mint, daikon radish, Thai basil, roasted mushrooms, cashew, spicy sesame, nam pla) – Flower Child, Scottsdale, AZ• Chipotle Cowboy Salad (romaine, roasted chicken, pepper Jack cheese, black beans, cilantro, crunchy onions, chipotle vinaigrette) – Just Salad, New York City• Farro Salad (served with warm broccoli rabe, chorizo and mustard vinaigrette) – Compere Lapin, New Orleans• Hummus Tahina Salad (shredded kale + chopped romaine, tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers, pita chips, local feta, housemade hummus, baked falafel, cucumber tahini yogurt) - Sweetgreen

Tossed to Order

The customization megatrend has hit salads in a big way, and that doesn’t just mean the salad bar. Bespoke, tossed-to-order salads like those offered at The Salad Bowl, in Kitty Hawk, NC, or Chop Stop in Burbank, CA, are the next generation of the self-serve bar, allowing customers to choose their own greens, toppings, dressing and more. The new menu at Bonefish Grill features a mix-and-match salad option that includes a choice of four different base salads with signature protein toppers such as wood-grilled salmon and herb-grilled chicken.Build-your-own salad concepts have proven particularly successful in the growing fast-casual segment, with its emphasis on fresh made-to-order foods with a healthy spin.• Salad specialists, like Toss’d and Saladworks, have built the bulk of their menu around create-your-own salad platforms, plus a selection of specialty salads for those who can’t decide.• Uno Fresco, Pizzeria Uno’s entry into the f-c arena, offers both Designed for You and Design Your Own salads on its roster of salad choices.• Moe’s Southwest Grill offers the ultimate mix-and-match menu, wherein customers can choose salad, bowl, burrito, wrap, stack or more as the platform on which to build and layer ingredients like black beans, tofu, Southwestern slaw, pickled jalapenos, queso and other toppings.• At Bo’s Steak & Grill, the new fast casual sibling of the Ponderosa and Bonanza steakhouse chains, guests are welcome to create their own salad with a choice of eight different toppings, plus a la carte proteins like chicken and brisket.

Tip of the Month

If you’re interested in an alternative view of the future of farm-to-table, take the time to read Corby Kummer’s excellent article in Vanity Fair.