Greetings!
As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time for all of us to take stock of what transpired in 2012 and what we each expect from our businesses in the year ahead.
There’s good reason to think that the economy is turning a corner, and with it the hospitality industry—the number of new openings and chain expansion plans for both restaurants and hotels is a healthy indicator of this. Of course, that means more competition, and many of you will want to consider a building remodel, new prototype design or brand refresh.
That’s an area we’ll be covering more in our newsletters ahead, sharing the insights of Synergy team members who are experts at restaurant branding and design. Let us know if there are any particular topics or projects you want to hear more about from us in 2013.
To your success,
Dean and Danny
The Latest on Late-Night Dining
In St. Charles, MO, the local Applebee’s offers karaoke and half-price appetizers and drink specials from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., courtesy of the chain’s “bee’s Late Night” alter-ego. McDonald’s has featured its Breakfast After Midnight program in a number of test markets, including 24-hour locations. And in Boston, several serious restaurants are offering casual Asian-style post-party fare such as ramen and Korean-style fried chicken.
These are just a few of the many ways that restaurants are taking advantage of the “nocturnivore” cravings of a new generation of diners who want to eat out late but still well—a segment that early-to-the-trend Taco Bell famously dubbed fourthmeal. It’s a daypart that appeals not only to shift workers and college students on late-night study breaks but also to after-hours revelers and a whole lot of restaurant employees—and it also features prominently in the growth strategies of a number of savvy operators.
It’s all part of a larger trend toward snacking and eating smaller meals throughout the day, and it means that patrons no longer want to be locked into the standard breakfast-lunch-and-dinner schedule. Dunkin’ Donuts chief chef Stan Frankenthaler calls the phenomenon clockless dining, and it’s also driving such developments as 24-7 breakfast menus, late-afternoon bar menus, and smaller snack-size portions on menus (think Mickey D’s $1.99 Angus Snack Wraps and KFC’s Snacker line of little sandwiches).
While the main-meal idea still exists it’s been chipped away by the snacks that are in growing demand by on-the-go consumers, and now account for 20% of all meal occasions, according to the NPD Group. The research firm’s new “Snacking in America 2012” also reports that more than half of all Americans are snacking two or three times a day.
After-dark sales are a big beneficiary in these tectonic lifestyle changes—it stands to reason, especially where sales at lunch and dinner may have maxed out and fixed costs are already covered. At Applebee’s, for instance, the late-night daypart reportedly accounts for 13% of total sales, and has helped to boost demand for higher-margin alcoholic beverages.
Many restaurants satisfy hunger cravings with pared down late-night menus that are more in keeping with what guests want at that hour, and are also easier for the kitchen to execute. The Capital Ale House, in Richmond, VA, concentrates on such “simple servings” as sliders, meat and cheese plates, Belgian-style “frittes” (fries), and chicken wings. Sauce Restaurant in New York City dispenses packaged to-go fare like pasta with sauce, meatball sandwiches, and scrambled eggs with toast from a late-night window that’s open from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, when prep crew is onsite anyway, cutting meat and cooking the long-simmered foods that are a specialty of the dining room. Uni, an upscale Japanese sashimi specialist in Boston’s Eliot Hotel, morphs over into a more casual ramen bar at 11 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, with commensurately egalitarian prices—many an off-duty ramen-loving chef can be spotted there.
Speaking of late-night dining and chefs, in-the-know diners know to follow their favorite chefs to their chosen after-hours dining destinations for some of the best food and fandom. To that end, many restaurants sponsor after-hours Industry Nights knowing that not only will they get post-shift business from restaurant employees but they’ll also attract groupies and friends.
Vincent, a neighborhood bistro in Chicago, co-sponsors a regular first-Sunday-night-of-the-month Koffeeshop – Industry Night that does double-duty as an educational event. And part of the appeal of a new website/app called Chef’s Feed, in which high-profile chefs share their tips for where to eat and what to order, is finding out where they are when their own kitchens close.
Choosing the Right Contractor
By Gary Wiggle, AIA, Restaurant Design
You have found the perfect location. Your design team has come up with a solution that encompasses your vision. So now, let’s get it built!
Who should I call? My neighbors had a great contractor remodel their house. The contractor who built the offices next door seemed like a very nice person. That may not be enough, however, because as it turns out, this is one of the most important decisions you can make as you start your project.
Building a project that involves specialty systems requires a contractor with experience in that type of construction. Restaurants are complicated—lots of plumbing, mechanical and electrical. Health and safety requirements reviewed by numerous agencies. Coordination of the kitchen equipment installation. Refined interior finishes in the public areas. It takes an experienced contractor to make it all work, and stay on budget and on schedule.
The type of restaurant is also an indicator of your contractor selection. A contractor who has built 20 chain fast food locations may prove to be a poor choice to build your full- service restaurant. A contractor with a great reputation building in food courts may not have the proper experience in building your new ground-up dinnerhouse.
Do your homework. Find out who builds similar restaurants, in type (fast casual, quick serve, full service), size, and budget. Get references and then talk to them and view their finished projects. Did they build for the same client more than once? Look at projects that are a few years old. Did the construction hold up? Are the systems still working? Has the maintenance been reasonable?
If the contractor is being selected early in a negotiated contract situation to help on the budgeting of the project, make sure they are experienced enough to give you accurate numbers—if they’re giving you the numbers that you will be basing all of your financial decisions on, they have to be right. If you have a $500,000 budget and you base all of your financing on these numbers, but the bids come in at $600,000 because the contractor was not familiar with what it takes to build a restaurant, your project is in jeopardy.
When this happens, the tendency is to blame the design team on “overdesigning” the project, when the reality is that it has been underbudgeted. Restaurants are inherently expensive building projects. The amount of furniture, fixtures, and equipment can add up to a great deal of money for even the simplest restaurant. And a successful restaurant, which is what you want, will also be used hard, meaning that durability is important.
Cost cutting to meet a poorly budgeted project typically involves less expensive finishes and poorer quality equipment—maintenance issues that will possibly impact the quality and success of your restaurant.
Do not base your decisions only on budget. It is very tempting to take that low bid. But I advise my clients that the best choice is not the lowest bid, but the lowest qualified bid. Price is very important, but look also at past experience, schedule and references. Is the bid following the plans and specifications or are there a number of substitutions and “value engineering” ideas included to make the number artificially lower? Is the schedule too good to be true? Doing your homework and researching the contractor’s reputation and abilities will always pay off.
Good restaurant contractors are out there! Using the right one cannot guarantee the success of your restaurant, but it will give you the right start to what we all hope is a tasty, enjoyable, and profitable restaurant business.
For help designing or rebranding your new restaurant project, contact Synergy Restaurant Consultants.
In an Era of Hospitality Specialization, More Specialty Bars
Back in the July issue of this newsletter, we wrote about the blurring lines between bars and restaurants. Now, like restaurants, bars are specializing—not just along the lines of wine bars and brewpubs, but even by concept and type of spirits. And is it any surprise that many of these are run by restaurateurs who are diversifying into cocktails that complement the cuisines they love?
• Encore, a new high-end hotel-casino from Steve Wynn in Las Vegas, will play host to VDKA, a martini bar showcasing more than 150 types of vodka, including rare, top-shelf pours and such flavored vodkas as bacon, basil, tangerine, whipped cream and sugar cookie. The new bar will also feature a dispensary system that delivers the vodka perfectly chilled, which thickens the spirit and makes it more smooth
• Zapoteca Restaurante & Tequileria in Portland, ME, stocks more than 100 different kinds of tequila and mescal. In order to help educate guests about this relatively unfamiliar beverage, the restaurant offers tasting flights and weekly samplings, as well as private events that can be arranged via New England’s only certified tequila “sommelier”
• The Third Man, in New York City, styles itself as “an early 20th century Vienna themed bar,” with chef-inspired muddled cocktails and a limited menu of Austrian-style small plates prepared next door at Edi and the Wolf, an Austrian restaurant with the same owners
• Chicago’s new Three Dots and a Dash is a tiki bar (read: rum drinks) being developed by Rich Melman’s sons Jerrod and R.J., partnering with well-known Windy City bartender Paul McGee. It’s located downstairs from the Melmans’ relaunched Bub City, itself a country bar and barbecue restaurant that was originally started by Dad
• New York City has several new speakeasy-style bars specializing in gin, including Madame Geneva, which is adjacent to the popular Saxon & Parole. The cocktail list includes the Singapore Sling, a variation on a French 75, and of course an artisanal Gin & Tonic, and the brief menu of snacks touts such Asianate fare as shrimp toast, salt-and-pepper squid, and fries with vindaloo ketchup
• Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, in Los Angeles, serves—surprise—some 375 kinds of whisk(e)y from around the world, including comparative tasting flights of rye, bourbon, single malt, and Irish, organized for drinkers at three different levels of experience (entry-level to connoisseur). Seven Grand is even home to a Whiskey Society that is dedicated to educating the public about rare whiskies. Parent company 213 Nightlife, which operates 10 high-profile cocktail bars and pubs in the Los Angeles area, also owns Cana Rum Bar
• The underappreciated South American brandy called Pisco gets its own special treatment at Amaru Pisco Bar in the Queens, NY, neighborhood of Jackson Heights. Owned by Rodolfo Mayor, who helped introduce Peruvian-style rotisserie-chicken via the local chain Pio Pio, Amaru showcases some 16 different types of Pisco, for sipping straight or mixing into cocktails, plus a menu of snacks like anticuchos (beef heart skewers)
Tip of the Month
The National Restaurant Association has released its much-anticipated “What’s Hot” culinary forecast of menu trends for 2013. Based on surveys of more than 1,800 chef-members of the American Culinary Federation, this year’s list runs the gamut from locally sourced meats and produce to whole-grain items on kids’ menus. This year, the NRA also surveyed nearly 200 professional bartenders, who shared their predictions about barrel-aged drinks, food-liquor pairings, and culinary cocktails for next year.