If Kona Grill’s past year had been recorded in 3-D, people would be bailing out of “Avatar” to catch the more engrossing tale.
The story could’ve been lifted from a Hollywood western: A frontier boss decides he’s going to make his own rules, public be damned. In this case, that includes selling a million shares of stock to his father at a sweetheart price to raise working capital after cutting the staff. Meanwhile, the easterners on Wall Street worry about how this range lord is running the ranch they’ve staked. Shots are exchanged, albeit verbally, when they ask for an accounting during a routine phone chat with management. You could almost hear the derringers being cocked.
Enter our hero, his white hat almost glistening. Marc Buehler, best known as the marketing sure-shot who deftly used his spurs at Applebee’s, is brought in as the new honcho to fix the muck-up that the 24-unit chain had become.
He starts assembling a posse to run off the fusion concept’s problems. Because bar business is essential to Kona, Buehler recruits Rachel Phillips-Luther, a former hand at the Chammps and Fox & Hounds sports-bar chains, to serve as vice president of marketing and brand innovation.
The appointment came after one of the last key figures from the last regime, an operations specialist, had been sent galloping into the sunset.
If you want to go get a refill on the popcorn, I’ll wait.
Yesterday, Buehler showed what kind of firepower he intends to put behind Kona, a concept old enough to need some updating. This time his lariat fell on Larry Ryback, president and chief operating officer of Dean Vlahos’ Redstone American Grill, one of the most popular and admired concepts at the high end of casual dining. Ryback is serving Kona, characterized by Buehler as “polished casual,” as senior vice president of operations.
Now comes the hard work of proving the viability of Kona, a decidedly quirky fusion concept. Its signatures include a sushi bar, a 2,000-gallon aquarium, a hopping bar, a menu that stretches from pizza to noodle dishes, and 40 made-from-scratch sauces. “We have a saucier in every restaurant,” Buehler recently boasted to investors.
Buehler has suggested that those idiosyncrasies will serve Kona well by differentiating the brand from other casual concepts, or what he calls “a sea of sameness” featuring “a lot of brown food on plates.”
Yet he also notes that Kona is popular with consumers aged 21 to 35, hardly the older, more affluent customers sought by other upscale concepts like Seasons 52. Checks average $24, and units are typically running “north of $4 million” in annual sales, says Buehler.
With only 24 restaurants, the chain also lacks the marketing wherewithal of competitors. Those stores are also scatter-gunned across 15 states, so even pocket marketing is a challenge.
Instead, Buehler says he’ll rely on social media and word-of-mouth. His revised team is in the process of forming a new loyalty marketing program, a club for “Konavores.”
He also plans to blaze new opportunities for Kona in catering, delivery and takeout, while opening only one restaurant in 2010.
The job has to be a daunting one. But the dramas leading into it have made this one of my favorite turnaround efforts to watch.
After all, would the Na’vi dare to combine sushi with calamari, meatloaf and a swimming-pool sized aquarium?
Showing posts with label Seasons 52. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seasons 52. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Monday, December 14, 2009
The hot restaurant concepts of 2010?
Last week I helped some culinary students flag the differences between John Schnatter and Mickey Rooney.
Unless your cable service was down last summer, chances are high you saw Schnatter trying to give a bundle of cash to the current owner of the Camaro he sold in the ‘80s to enter the restaurant business. Schnatter used the proceeds to convert a section of his father’s bar into a walk-up pizza counter. Literally a closet operation, the venture grew to become Papa John’s, with annual sales exceeding $2 billion. Because of Schnatter’s skill at hatching a concept, he could forget a Camaro and buy General Motors instead.
Mickey Rooney, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, was one of Hollywood’s biggest draws during the 1930s. Indeed, he was the George Clooney of his time, at least in terms of fame and screen appearances. But, astoundingly, his round-hotdog restaurant chain never quite caught on during the ‘70s, even though the product fit so neatly on a circular bun.
Efforts to start a restaurant concept have yielded more train wrecks than the film careers of Pauly Shore and Tom Green, combined. Need I mention the failed attempts of Muhammed Ali, Steven Spielberg, Alice Cooper, Johnny Carson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Piazza, to name just a few?
Yet the list of aspirants continues to grow, with names like Richard Branson, Rolling Stone magazine and boxer Julio Cesar Chavez added to the roster just in the last month or so.
Because I’ve witnessed so many crashes and triumphs, I was invited last Tuesday to address a class at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education, an often-overlooked contributor to the city’s phenomenal restaurant scene. My mission was to opine on what separates a Schnatter-ly restaurant venture from the Rooney-esque, something very important to the students because they’re all in the process of brainstorming a concept of their own.
Instead of talking in the abstract and risking a symphony of text-message alerts from the kids’ phones, I handicapped what I believe will be the Hot Restaurant Concepts of 2010.
My picks aren’t new to the scene at all. Rather, these are concepts likely to enter the mainstream next year, even if they no longer elicit oohs and aahs from the black-dressed sport diners on the coasts.
Here’s the list, along with a few thoughts.
Places specializing in street foods: This is a surer thing than Tiger Woods having his text messages screened for the next month. Indeed, I can’t understand why it wasn’t on all the forecasts that were pecked out of foodie keyboards in recent weeks.
Street food certainly fits the times. Peasant fare sold in bazaars or along busy thoroughfares is simple, and simplicity (or its fellow traveler, back to basics) was on virtually every list.
The ingredients tend to be fresh—another check mark on the trend inventory—and inexpensive, which holds the price to a level consistent with the current Age of Thrift.
Foods patterned after the street fare of Third World nations also tend to be grilled, roasted or boiled—relatively healthful prep methods that fit the sometimes contradictory goals of being flavorful and better for you.
Finally, we’ve already seen street foods snag interest from a few of the industry’s Mount Olympus set—gods and goddesses like Rick Bayless, Susan Feniger, David Chang, and Ming Tsai. The trend has even merited its own Flavors of the World conference, the foodie equivalent of the Burning Man Festival.
Confidence in this one is high.
Taquerias: A sub-set of the street-food craze, authentic tacos are drawing sufficient attention from big-name chefs and restaurateurs to merit their own Hot Trend designation. Celebrity proponents include Traci Des Jardins, Bayless, and Paul Kahan, to name just a few.
As I’ve noted in this space before, the interest from fine-dining chefs makes you wonder if taquerias will supplant burger joints as their low-end concept of choice.
Burger restaurants: It’s still on my list, but only because of bandwagon-jumping. The ranks of patty specialists will undoubtedly grow, but I bet we start to see some wheezing in this sector, or at least at its pricier end. There’s just not sufficient differentiation, and the novelty of a burger flipped by a Michelin-caliber chef is going to wear off.
This is my pick of Fade of the Year, largely because of the differentiation issues.
Gastro pubs: Indeed, why couldn’t these places co-opt whatever pent-up demand is left for high-end burgers?
But gastro pubs offer so much more, including comfort and casualness, two positives that aren’t going to lapse from fashion anytime soon. They’re also prime proponents of the high-caliber beer trend, which shows every appearance of having legs.
I know, I know: Gastro pubs have been around for years. But watch for a proliferation, particularly in areas inland from the current strongholds of Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. They’ll become the choice of indulgence.
Then again, maybe I’m prejudiced. Gastro pubs are the trend I’d most like to see catch fire in 2010, speaking as a consumer.
Restaurant trucks: We’ll undoubtedly see more chefs serving from a wheeled kitchen next year, though I’m far less certain of this trend’s staying power.
Right now, there’s considerable appeal to turning the key on a new truck concept. Consumers like the convenience and typically lower prices of a mobile operation. Operators appreciate the reduced overhead and start-up costs, which in turn allow them to keep their menu prices in check.
But I can’t help but wonder if novelty figures large in the appeal that was evident in 2009. Once you’ve tried the sardine truck, are you really going to build your night around it? And what about the yearning for a dining environment, even if it’s just a table and a chair?
Most of the trucks also specialize in a particular menu item, and history has shown us that a one-trick pony has a tough time in this business. Consider such flashes as soup, muffin, croissant and frozen yogurt concepts. Most were either co-opted or abandoned by a clientele that wanted more of a selection.
The jury’s still out here, though a proliferation of kitchens on wheels should prompt a verdict.
Authentic-food chains: This is a sleeper, an up-and-comer that’s not getting as much attention as, say, Spanish restaurants, or gourmet fried-chicken places.
Perhaps the potential trend is still going unnoticed, a reflection of its limited exposure to date. There are really two proponents of note: Seasons 52, Red Lobster’s high-end little sister, and True Food Kitchen, a one-off that P.F. Chang’s is carefully studying as a possible expansion vehicle.
Both feature seasonal, fresh fare with healthful overtones. Seasons 52, for instance, could boast that its entrees are under 500 calories.
But it downplays that plus to stress the integrity and freshness of its fare. Seasons 52 is the chain embodiment of the yearning for off-the-farm ingredients you don’t have to feel guilty about consuming.
True Food Kitchen, a brainchild of Phoenix restaurateur Sam Fox, goes one step further by featuring organic and natural ingredients. It professes to “nourish body, mind and spirit,” which is music to the yoga-and-couples-massage set.
The brakes on this one are the logistical challenges—finding enough seasonal fare of consistent quality, and doing it at a cost that translates into reasonable prices. But it’ll come, especially as medium-sized agriculture continues to make a comeback.
Whim restaurants: This is a forecast virtually peculiar to me, but I’m more convinced than ever there’s something here.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, “whim restaurants” is my term for the ventures of high-end chefs who want to do something creative, small scale, and highly spur-of-the-moment. Such luminaries as Thomas Keller and Tom Colicchio are embracing these home-style niche places as a way of featuring the dishes they like to cook and eat themselves, with menus determined no farther in advance than their home dinner plans.
Since I last wrote about Keller’s Ad Hoc and Colicchio’s plan for an extension of his Tom: Tuesday Dinner into a full-scale restaurant, several other whim ventures have come to light. Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle devoted a blog installment to the phenomenon, though he didn’t use my label.
Leslie Brenner, in a blog for The Dallas Morning News’ website, described a whim sort of place, but used the term “guerilla restaurant.” She described a place envisioned by local restaurateurs that will be used to raise funds for charities. The hours and nights of service will be limited, and the chef will vary as readily as the menu does.
The concept may still sound alien to the U.S. market, but it’s already become established in the U.K., where the term “pop-up restaurant” is being stretched to cover places that chefs are opening to indulge their culinary whims of the moment.
Unless your cable service was down last summer, chances are high you saw Schnatter trying to give a bundle of cash to the current owner of the Camaro he sold in the ‘80s to enter the restaurant business. Schnatter used the proceeds to convert a section of his father’s bar into a walk-up pizza counter. Literally a closet operation, the venture grew to become Papa John’s, with annual sales exceeding $2 billion. Because of Schnatter’s skill at hatching a concept, he could forget a Camaro and buy General Motors instead.
Mickey Rooney, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, was one of Hollywood’s biggest draws during the 1930s. Indeed, he was the George Clooney of his time, at least in terms of fame and screen appearances. But, astoundingly, his round-hotdog restaurant chain never quite caught on during the ‘70s, even though the product fit so neatly on a circular bun.
Efforts to start a restaurant concept have yielded more train wrecks than the film careers of Pauly Shore and Tom Green, combined. Need I mention the failed attempts of Muhammed Ali, Steven Spielberg, Alice Cooper, Johnny Carson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mike Piazza, to name just a few?
Yet the list of aspirants continues to grow, with names like Richard Branson, Rolling Stone magazine and boxer Julio Cesar Chavez added to the roster just in the last month or so.
Because I’ve witnessed so many crashes and triumphs, I was invited last Tuesday to address a class at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education, an often-overlooked contributor to the city’s phenomenal restaurant scene. My mission was to opine on what separates a Schnatter-ly restaurant venture from the Rooney-esque, something very important to the students because they’re all in the process of brainstorming a concept of their own.
Instead of talking in the abstract and risking a symphony of text-message alerts from the kids’ phones, I handicapped what I believe will be the Hot Restaurant Concepts of 2010.
My picks aren’t new to the scene at all. Rather, these are concepts likely to enter the mainstream next year, even if they no longer elicit oohs and aahs from the black-dressed sport diners on the coasts.
Here’s the list, along with a few thoughts.
Places specializing in street foods: This is a surer thing than Tiger Woods having his text messages screened for the next month. Indeed, I can’t understand why it wasn’t on all the forecasts that were pecked out of foodie keyboards in recent weeks.
Street food certainly fits the times. Peasant fare sold in bazaars or along busy thoroughfares is simple, and simplicity (or its fellow traveler, back to basics) was on virtually every list.
The ingredients tend to be fresh—another check mark on the trend inventory—and inexpensive, which holds the price to a level consistent with the current Age of Thrift.
Foods patterned after the street fare of Third World nations also tend to be grilled, roasted or boiled—relatively healthful prep methods that fit the sometimes contradictory goals of being flavorful and better for you.
Finally, we’ve already seen street foods snag interest from a few of the industry’s Mount Olympus set—gods and goddesses like Rick Bayless, Susan Feniger, David Chang, and Ming Tsai. The trend has even merited its own Flavors of the World conference, the foodie equivalent of the Burning Man Festival.
Confidence in this one is high.
Taquerias: A sub-set of the street-food craze, authentic tacos are drawing sufficient attention from big-name chefs and restaurateurs to merit their own Hot Trend designation. Celebrity proponents include Traci Des Jardins, Bayless, and Paul Kahan, to name just a few.
As I’ve noted in this space before, the interest from fine-dining chefs makes you wonder if taquerias will supplant burger joints as their low-end concept of choice.
Burger restaurants: It’s still on my list, but only because of bandwagon-jumping. The ranks of patty specialists will undoubtedly grow, but I bet we start to see some wheezing in this sector, or at least at its pricier end. There’s just not sufficient differentiation, and the novelty of a burger flipped by a Michelin-caliber chef is going to wear off.
This is my pick of Fade of the Year, largely because of the differentiation issues.
Gastro pubs: Indeed, why couldn’t these places co-opt whatever pent-up demand is left for high-end burgers?
But gastro pubs offer so much more, including comfort and casualness, two positives that aren’t going to lapse from fashion anytime soon. They’re also prime proponents of the high-caliber beer trend, which shows every appearance of having legs.
I know, I know: Gastro pubs have been around for years. But watch for a proliferation, particularly in areas inland from the current strongholds of Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. They’ll become the choice of indulgence.
Then again, maybe I’m prejudiced. Gastro pubs are the trend I’d most like to see catch fire in 2010, speaking as a consumer.
Restaurant trucks: We’ll undoubtedly see more chefs serving from a wheeled kitchen next year, though I’m far less certain of this trend’s staying power.
Right now, there’s considerable appeal to turning the key on a new truck concept. Consumers like the convenience and typically lower prices of a mobile operation. Operators appreciate the reduced overhead and start-up costs, which in turn allow them to keep their menu prices in check.
But I can’t help but wonder if novelty figures large in the appeal that was evident in 2009. Once you’ve tried the sardine truck, are you really going to build your night around it? And what about the yearning for a dining environment, even if it’s just a table and a chair?
Most of the trucks also specialize in a particular menu item, and history has shown us that a one-trick pony has a tough time in this business. Consider such flashes as soup, muffin, croissant and frozen yogurt concepts. Most were either co-opted or abandoned by a clientele that wanted more of a selection.
The jury’s still out here, though a proliferation of kitchens on wheels should prompt a verdict.
Authentic-food chains: This is a sleeper, an up-and-comer that’s not getting as much attention as, say, Spanish restaurants, or gourmet fried-chicken places.
Perhaps the potential trend is still going unnoticed, a reflection of its limited exposure to date. There are really two proponents of note: Seasons 52, Red Lobster’s high-end little sister, and True Food Kitchen, a one-off that P.F. Chang’s is carefully studying as a possible expansion vehicle.
Both feature seasonal, fresh fare with healthful overtones. Seasons 52, for instance, could boast that its entrees are under 500 calories.
But it downplays that plus to stress the integrity and freshness of its fare. Seasons 52 is the chain embodiment of the yearning for off-the-farm ingredients you don’t have to feel guilty about consuming.
True Food Kitchen, a brainchild of Phoenix restaurateur Sam Fox, goes one step further by featuring organic and natural ingredients. It professes to “nourish body, mind and spirit,” which is music to the yoga-and-couples-massage set.
The brakes on this one are the logistical challenges—finding enough seasonal fare of consistent quality, and doing it at a cost that translates into reasonable prices. But it’ll come, especially as medium-sized agriculture continues to make a comeback.
Whim restaurants: This is a forecast virtually peculiar to me, but I’m more convinced than ever there’s something here.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, “whim restaurants” is my term for the ventures of high-end chefs who want to do something creative, small scale, and highly spur-of-the-moment. Such luminaries as Thomas Keller and Tom Colicchio are embracing these home-style niche places as a way of featuring the dishes they like to cook and eat themselves, with menus determined no farther in advance than their home dinner plans.
Since I last wrote about Keller’s Ad Hoc and Colicchio’s plan for an extension of his Tom: Tuesday Dinner into a full-scale restaurant, several other whim ventures have come to light. Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle devoted a blog installment to the phenomenon, though he didn’t use my label.
Leslie Brenner, in a blog for The Dallas Morning News’ website, described a whim sort of place, but used the term “guerilla restaurant.” She described a place envisioned by local restaurateurs that will be used to raise funds for charities. The hours and nights of service will be limited, and the chef will vary as readily as the menu does.
The concept may still sound alien to the U.S. market, but it’s already become established in the U.K., where the term “pop-up restaurant” is being stretched to cover places that chefs are opening to indulge their culinary whims of the moment.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Trends from U.S. chain menus, words from N.Y.
Fast-food, that most American of social constructs, is turning downright jingoistic in its sourcing.
Cock an ear to Wendy’s new ad campaign and you’ll hear the chain boast of using only North American beef in its square burgers. Fuddruckers, the chain that was fast-casual before fast-casual was cool, is more pointed in its nationalism. Units in Texas and New Mexico have switched to a proprietary grind called Fudds Prime, made exclusively with “All-American” prime beef from “select U.S. ranches,” the announcement sniffs. Chew on that gristle, Canada and Australia.
The rah-rah mentions of homefront ingredients are part of a larger struggle by the chain business to accommodate the public’s insistence that it be told the source of what it’s eating. Ideally, that point of origin would be a local one. Indeed, the demand for locally grown produce was forecast by chef-participants in a National Restaurant Association survey to be the Number One consumer trend of 2009.
The menus of many independent restaurants show those respondents were dead-on. The shorter the distance from field to fork, the louder the establishment tends to crow about it in menu descriptors. Not that it’s obnoxious at all. Guests want that sort of horn blowing. Why not brag about the seasonal items you’re putting on the plate?
But it’s hard to serve up that kind of lingo when you’re a sprawling chain with a nationwide supply system. Their economics call for low-cost ingredients hyper-processed to the point of absolute consistency and cooking readiness. Just add heat, forget about seasonal freshness. It was a trend many figured they’d watch independent counterparts enjoy without challenge.
Wrong. It took awhile, but regional chains are clearly finding religion. And even the national ones are buying local ingredients in some spots—or at least spotlighting the instances where that’s been the practice. Outback Steakhouses in the Louisiana area have apparently always used shrimp harvested by the state’s Gulf shrimpers. It briefly changed its mind because imported shrimp was selling at a lower price, then opted in the eleventh hour to stay local. The news prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to hold a press conference where he lauded the casual chain as the video cameras hummed.
Last month, New England-based Papa Gino’s Pizzeria and its sandwich-serving sister, D’Angelo’s, added a bunch of products that feature Cheddar cheese produced in Vermont. The chains were aiming for what one executive called “a distinctive New England flavor,” which you don’t usually associate with pizzas or subs. Yet “Vermont Cheddar” is included in all but one of the new products’ names (the exception, a Bruschetta, incorporates just “Cheddar”).
This summer, the New England outposts of Panera Bread Co. featured a lobster sandwich, a local favorite usually described as a lobster roll. It was priced at $16.99.
Units of the Smashburger fast-casual chain feature reginal riffs on burgers and hot dogs (i.e., Colorado units feature the popular local topping of green chilis), and the Kona Grill casual chain told investors that it'll introduce a menu next month that includes a section for local favorites from any given store's host area.
Then there’s the poster-concept of the localization movement among chains, the Pacific Northwest’s 38-unit Burgerville group. Right now the brand is featuring sweet potato fries made from local sweet potatoes, which are currently in season. It’s also featured Washington State cherries, in a Cherry Chipotle Pulled Pork Sandwich, and is currently touting a hotdog garnished with a slaw made of local apples.
The novelty of finding local ingredients on chains’ menus should start to wear off as several large-scale players start shopping closer to their stores. Chipotle Mexican Grill, for instance, has pledged to purchase 35% of at least one produce item per restaurant from local farmers.
With roughly 900 branches, Chipotle may be the largest chain to pursue seasonal fare. But it’s certainly not the first, nor the model example. Critics have noted that its so-called local fare may be drawn from a 250-mile radius, which certainly stretches the definition.
Contrast that with Eat’n Park, the Pittsburgh-based family dining chain. The company has a director of sourcing and sustainability who goes out to find farmers who can supply the chain. When local items like radishes are used by any of the brand’s 75 stores, notice is often given to customers via the chain’s blog.
Those early adapters are being joined by the likes of Darden Restaurants, best known as the parent of Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Its youngest brand, Seasons 52, features seasonal ingredients blended into entrees with fewer than 475 calories.
P.F. Chang’s, a strong competitor to Darden, has invested in a start-up concept called True Food Kitchen. Like Seasons 52, it features seasonal fare, but goes a step further to use local and organic foodstuffs.
Where chains can’t tout the use of local ingredients, they’re doing the next best thing of highlighting the source. Seasons 52, for instance, is currently featuring Colorado Buffalo Chili, Canadian Black Mussels Marinara and a Gulf Shrimp Cocktail.
Is there any doubt that the source-naming trend, and the local variant in particular, is going to continue?
Indeed, there’s one form in particular that we’re likely to see. It’s not widely known by the public, but outlets of the giant burger chains buy their buns from a network of regional or local bakeries set up by the home office. Those suppliers aren’t exactly mom-and-pop shops. But they do offer an opportunity for the behemoths of the business to tout a little localization. I bet we see that start to happen, sooner versus later.
Cock an ear to Wendy’s new ad campaign and you’ll hear the chain boast of using only North American beef in its square burgers. Fuddruckers, the chain that was fast-casual before fast-casual was cool, is more pointed in its nationalism. Units in Texas and New Mexico have switched to a proprietary grind called Fudds Prime, made exclusively with “All-American” prime beef from “select U.S. ranches,” the announcement sniffs. Chew on that gristle, Canada and Australia.
The rah-rah mentions of homefront ingredients are part of a larger struggle by the chain business to accommodate the public’s insistence that it be told the source of what it’s eating. Ideally, that point of origin would be a local one. Indeed, the demand for locally grown produce was forecast by chef-participants in a National Restaurant Association survey to be the Number One consumer trend of 2009.
The menus of many independent restaurants show those respondents were dead-on. The shorter the distance from field to fork, the louder the establishment tends to crow about it in menu descriptors. Not that it’s obnoxious at all. Guests want that sort of horn blowing. Why not brag about the seasonal items you’re putting on the plate?
But it’s hard to serve up that kind of lingo when you’re a sprawling chain with a nationwide supply system. Their economics call for low-cost ingredients hyper-processed to the point of absolute consistency and cooking readiness. Just add heat, forget about seasonal freshness. It was a trend many figured they’d watch independent counterparts enjoy without challenge.
Wrong. It took awhile, but regional chains are clearly finding religion. And even the national ones are buying local ingredients in some spots—or at least spotlighting the instances where that’s been the practice. Outback Steakhouses in the Louisiana area have apparently always used shrimp harvested by the state’s Gulf shrimpers. It briefly changed its mind because imported shrimp was selling at a lower price, then opted in the eleventh hour to stay local. The news prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to hold a press conference where he lauded the casual chain as the video cameras hummed.
Last month, New England-based Papa Gino’s Pizzeria and its sandwich-serving sister, D’Angelo’s, added a bunch of products that feature Cheddar cheese produced in Vermont. The chains were aiming for what one executive called “a distinctive New England flavor,” which you don’t usually associate with pizzas or subs. Yet “Vermont Cheddar” is included in all but one of the new products’ names (the exception, a Bruschetta, incorporates just “Cheddar”).
This summer, the New England outposts of Panera Bread Co. featured a lobster sandwich, a local favorite usually described as a lobster roll. It was priced at $16.99.
Units of the Smashburger fast-casual chain feature reginal riffs on burgers and hot dogs (i.e., Colorado units feature the popular local topping of green chilis), and the Kona Grill casual chain told investors that it'll introduce a menu next month that includes a section for local favorites from any given store's host area.
Then there’s the poster-concept of the localization movement among chains, the Pacific Northwest’s 38-unit Burgerville group. Right now the brand is featuring sweet potato fries made from local sweet potatoes, which are currently in season. It’s also featured Washington State cherries, in a Cherry Chipotle Pulled Pork Sandwich, and is currently touting a hotdog garnished with a slaw made of local apples.
The novelty of finding local ingredients on chains’ menus should start to wear off as several large-scale players start shopping closer to their stores. Chipotle Mexican Grill, for instance, has pledged to purchase 35% of at least one produce item per restaurant from local farmers.
With roughly 900 branches, Chipotle may be the largest chain to pursue seasonal fare. But it’s certainly not the first, nor the model example. Critics have noted that its so-called local fare may be drawn from a 250-mile radius, which certainly stretches the definition.
Contrast that with Eat’n Park, the Pittsburgh-based family dining chain. The company has a director of sourcing and sustainability who goes out to find farmers who can supply the chain. When local items like radishes are used by any of the brand’s 75 stores, notice is often given to customers via the chain’s blog.
Those early adapters are being joined by the likes of Darden Restaurants, best known as the parent of Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Its youngest brand, Seasons 52, features seasonal ingredients blended into entrees with fewer than 475 calories.
P.F. Chang’s, a strong competitor to Darden, has invested in a start-up concept called True Food Kitchen. Like Seasons 52, it features seasonal fare, but goes a step further to use local and organic foodstuffs.
Where chains can’t tout the use of local ingredients, they’re doing the next best thing of highlighting the source. Seasons 52, for instance, is currently featuring Colorado Buffalo Chili, Canadian Black Mussels Marinara and a Gulf Shrimp Cocktail.
Is there any doubt that the source-naming trend, and the local variant in particular, is going to continue?
Indeed, there’s one form in particular that we’re likely to see. It’s not widely known by the public, but outlets of the giant burger chains buy their buns from a network of regional or local bakeries set up by the home office. Those suppliers aren’t exactly mom-and-pop shops. But they do offer an opportunity for the behemoths of the business to tout a little localization. I bet we see that start to happen, sooner versus later.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
A new concept headed for Darden's menu?
Is Darden considering an addition to its restaurant empire?
The parent of Red Lobster is moving this Wednesday into new headquarters elsewhere in Orlando, its home turf for the last 40 years, according to an Orlando Sentinel story. Included in the facility, says the article, are six test kitchens and the space to house a seventh. Each will serve a different concept, the piece notes.
In addition to Red Lobster, Darden’s holdings include Olive Garden, Capital Grille, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52. Their R&D facilities will be firing up their grills in a few days. But why reserve space for a seventh? Is Darden shopping for an acquisition, or perhaps starting the in-house development of something new?
Setting aside space for expansion is hardly proof an addition is a “go.” It’s more like a young family buying a house with a spare bedroom, just in case.
But the article also notes that Darden has to add 400 positions at the new building by 2014 to earn the full tax benefits of the relocation. That’s on a base of 1,260 jobs currently housed there.
That would be a tremendous amount of organic growth, even if Seasons 52, the company’s youngest concept, really zooms cross-country.
And there’s no shortage of acquisition candidates in this buyer’s market. The last expansion of Darden’s portfolio was the purchase of Rare Hospitality, the parent of Capital Grille and LongHorn.
Speculating on possible additions is tough with Darden. Although the company is very conservative, its new concepts have been downright bold. Few would have bet it’d try a healthful concept featuring fresh, seasonal produce, as it did—undoubtedly with great success—with Seasons 52. Ditto with Bahama Breeze, still one of the industry’s few chained Caribbean concepts.
But who can resist making their wild-haired predictions. If Darden were looking to add concepts, I wonder if a burger concept, an everyday grill sort of place, would be one of types on the list. Ditto for an upscale Mexican place, with bold flavors and simple, even healthful preparations.
So, if you live in Orlando, please give a shout if catch the aroma of chipotles wafting out of the new headquarters.
The parent of Red Lobster is moving this Wednesday into new headquarters elsewhere in Orlando, its home turf for the last 40 years, according to an Orlando Sentinel story. Included in the facility, says the article, are six test kitchens and the space to house a seventh. Each will serve a different concept, the piece notes.
In addition to Red Lobster, Darden’s holdings include Olive Garden, Capital Grille, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52. Their R&D facilities will be firing up their grills in a few days. But why reserve space for a seventh? Is Darden shopping for an acquisition, or perhaps starting the in-house development of something new?
Setting aside space for expansion is hardly proof an addition is a “go.” It’s more like a young family buying a house with a spare bedroom, just in case.
But the article also notes that Darden has to add 400 positions at the new building by 2014 to earn the full tax benefits of the relocation. That’s on a base of 1,260 jobs currently housed there.
That would be a tremendous amount of organic growth, even if Seasons 52, the company’s youngest concept, really zooms cross-country.
And there’s no shortage of acquisition candidates in this buyer’s market. The last expansion of Darden’s portfolio was the purchase of Rare Hospitality, the parent of Capital Grille and LongHorn.
Speculating on possible additions is tough with Darden. Although the company is very conservative, its new concepts have been downright bold. Few would have bet it’d try a healthful concept featuring fresh, seasonal produce, as it did—undoubtedly with great success—with Seasons 52. Ditto with Bahama Breeze, still one of the industry’s few chained Caribbean concepts.
But who can resist making their wild-haired predictions. If Darden were looking to add concepts, I wonder if a burger concept, an everyday grill sort of place, would be one of types on the list. Ditto for an upscale Mexican place, with bold flavors and simple, even healthful preparations.
So, if you live in Orlando, please give a shout if catch the aroma of chipotles wafting out of the new headquarters.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
