Trying to out-supermarket supermarkets

I’m typing this very quietly because Security could detect me at any moment. I’ve managed to sneak into the nation’s leading restaurant thinktank, The Gravy Institute, to learn more about the startling new marketing strategy that’s taking hold of casual-dining chains.

The Institute, of course, was the crucible for the industry’s previous promotional breakthrough: Giving away food. Indeed, the internet now abounds in sites where you can learn how to eat restaurant fare for free on any given day—a dicey proposition for a trade that's in the business of selling food.

But that’s a Mister Rogers prescription compared with the crazy new idea that’s being hammered out here by the Institute’s best minds, Dr. Runyon Wanker and his longtime collaborator, Sir Ernest Turnip. Let’s listen in:

Wanker: By jove, that’s brilliant! Restaurants are losing business to supermarkets, since the economically-stressed prefer the economies of cooking at home. So why not beat those cabbage head stackers at their own game?

Turnip: Precisely, Wanker. Here’s how it works: The restaurants continue to offer free food—and a true bellyful, like a free entrée. But they provide it in an eat-at-home form! That way, the very at-home meals that keep people parked in front of “Dancing with the Stars” becomes the hook for restaurants.

Wanker: I believe you’ve lost me there, my good man. Do illuminate.

Turnip, with a tsk-tsk: People are buying meals or their components from the local supermarket. Ergo, they make fewer visits to restaurants. To win them back, a few restaurant chains have started dangling supermarket-style meals or products, like uncooked spaghetti, as the lure to get guests back through their doors. Buy a restaurant-cooked meal and get a second to have at home. The served meal becomes a means to the patrons' real end, a dinner in front of the tube.

Wanker: Huh. An example?

Turnip: Well, take Buca di Beppo’s new offer. Buy one entrée, you get a plate of spaghetti for free—and a 16-ounce box of pasta you can take with you to cook at home!

Wanker: But surely one example does not make a trend, my tweedy colleague. Remember the restaurant media's Rule of Three: Three instances make a trend, four examples indicates a sea change, but even two spottings signal a fluke.

Turnip: There’s another example, old sod. The Maggiano’s chain began a promotion last month that offered an entrée to have at home the next day if you bought a $12.95 dinner to eat in the restaurant. The freebie was packed up for you and delivered with the check, all set to pop into the microwave on Day Two.

Wanker: Diabolical, Turnip. Diabolical. But those are only two examples. You need a third instance of a chain providing an eat-at-home meal for every one you buy in the restaurant. And you don’t have it.

Turnip: On the contrary, my dear doctor. There’s a chain that offers such a deal—“eat one with us, get a second to eat at home”—as a matter of course.

Wanker: What??

Turnip: Yes. It’s called Cheesecake Factory.

With that, I'll make my escape to plot how I can take advantage of Buca’s free pasta offer. After all, it only lasts one day.

Perhaps with good reason.

That's Oct. 26, or National Pasta Day, if you want to see how the promotion performs.

You have the answers?

Recent days have left me with some nagging questions about the restaurant industry. For instance…

What if “local” doesn’t necessarily mean “better”? Patrons are clamoring right now for more local ingredients in their restaurant meals, a propensity stoked by the belief that foodstuffs grown nearby have to be fresher, more flavorful and more nutritious.

But does that equation pencil out? Don’t growing conditions make some areas the ideal source for produce, even if they’re hundreds or thousands of miles away? And can a farmer with a truck always beat a well-oiled supply chain in getting materials to a kitchen?

That thought came to mind as I was making a salad with lettuce I’d grabbed up in my local supermarket because the bag was marked, “Grown Here On Long Island!” A half-hour later, I was trying to chop the leathery Romaine, a task akin to slicing wet tissues. The heads might’ve been produced locally, but perhaps not in the current calendar year.

Nor was the flavor as good as some of the mass-market brands available here, like Andy Boy or Dole.

Lest you think I’m palate-damaged numbskull who can't grasp the advantages of local fare, keep in mind that my father ran a millionaire’s estate/farm when I was growing up. One of my jobs was to head down to the garden and get the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes that would figure into my family’s dinner, typically served a few minutes later. I know freshness, and I know what good lettuce tastes like. And, in my experience, local lettuce doesn’t always equate to better. Ditto for strawberries, melons, tomatoes and broccoli.

What happened to our outrage? Kanye West pulls a dunderheaded move for the ages and, justifiably, he’s almost voted off the planet. On the same day his transgression comes to light, Share Our Strength reports the first flush of an investigation into classroom hunger. Teachers were asked. “Do you see child hunger in your classroom?”

Quoted was a San Antonio instructor identified as Kate, who spoke about a second-grader in her school named Kimberly. The child must have qualified for the school lunch or breakfast program, because, Kate noted, she could count on getting a meal at school.

“Anytime we had leftovers,” Kate said, “she would always want to take them home. She’d wrap up the leftover food to take home to her little brothers and sisters. She was a second grader trying to make sure her family got fed.”

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have had a chance if it weren’t for school. It was still the great equalizer in my day, the opportunity that largely offset the accidents of birth. And today we have 7 or 8-year-olds whose attention is diverted from basic math or reading by the need to feed her siblings.

With all due respect to music stars, isn’t that a little more galling than Taylor Swift getting dissed?

Who drugged the nation’s restaurateurs? Being a geek, I peruse virtually all the financial reports of publicly owned restaurant companies. It's like packing your iPod with blues songs and dirges, then putting it on Shuffle mode.

Lately, just to get a bit of relief, I’ve taken to reading the reports of supermarket and c-store chains. They should be delivered with confetti, noisemakers and party hats. The big source of their growth is in prepared meals, partially prepared meals, and rawer foodstuffs that can be turned into meals in lieu of a restaurant outing. In short, they’re eating the industry’s lunch.

Yet the restaurant trade seems oblivious to the loss. The only noticeable reaction has been to strike more licensing deals with food processors. That way, the chains figure, they at least pocket a few pennies from the dollars being spent on frozen entrees and other grocery products.

If you can’t compete on price, as restaurants likely can’t, at least the industry should tout service. Yet have you heard much about experience in restaurants’ commercials or other promotional efforts? Can you recall any marketing push that made a convincing case for restaurant service?

It’s as if the industry is ceding its dinner business, with vows to win it back once the economic climate improves.

But that recovery effort could be far, far more difficult than the industry imagines.

‘Hook-up on aisle 9’

Last Friday, Milwaukee’s lovelorn were invited to hunt for Mr. or Ms. Right at a singles event featuring salsa dancing, party games, and an enticing array of Mexican nibbles. The mixer would’ve been just another night on the prowl if it weren’t such strong proof that supermarkets are encroaching on restaurants’ unique social role. Because this mating ritual was held not in an eatery’s dining room, bar or function room, but inside a Roundy’s grocery store.

The event, held from 10 p.m. to midnight, was the fourth On the Market at the Market night convened by Roundy’s, a $4-billion operator of five retail food chains in all. The company has yet to say how many people turned out on Friday, but the prior three each drew about 500 people, according to headquarters.

The attractions Friday included such ice-breaking activities as Turkey Bowling (you use a frozen turkey instead of a bowling ball), Oreo stacking, and a Pin the Tail on the Donkey tournament. The refreshments included quesadillas, chorizo-stuffed peppers, guacamole, shrimp and other appetizer-type fare.

But the real pull was undoubtedly the chance of meeting someone, and that’s what should have restaurants particularly concerned. Supermarkets have tried for years to position themselves as a dinner option on par with a night out. Consumers could either buy prepared meals and eat at home, or, in any number of experimenting groceries, try the on-premise restaurant.

Yet it had been tough sell. Supermarket food just didn’t seem to be of the same quality. And how romantic would it be to dine 20 yards from where you buy your laundry detergent and mouse traps? Not exactly the place to chill the bubbly and light the candles.

Research and chains’ sales results leave little doubt that the perceptions of supermarket’s take-home meals have changed.

Now Roundy’s special event suggests the latter mindset may be cracking, too. One singles series hardly constitutes proof. But that’s not the sum of the evidence. Hit any Whole Foods’ dine-in areas at lunch or dinner and you’re likely to wait for a seat.

Meanwhile, regional chains like Wegmans in upstate New York are packing their onsite dining rooms. Ditto for Sheetz, the Atlantic Seaboard c-store chain that has been outfitting its shops with tables and seating.

The restaurant industry has been too preoccupied with day-to-day survival to focus on looming threats. But at some point it’ll have to recognize that its relationship vis-à-vis supermarkets may be changing dramatically for the worse.

A duel with teensy-weensy swords

Hi, my name is Peter, and I’m a sample-holic.

(This is where you yell back, “HI, PETER!”)

I never thought I’d end up this way. One day a matron in a hairnet is spraying cheese on Triscuits and offering a taste in the dairy aisle. The next thing I know, I’m cut off at Costco’s perogi and turkey-sausage stations. The kid at the deli won’t even listen to my plaintive, “Is the bologna better than the ham? Could I try a slice of each?”

But there’s no shortage of freebies to be had. Supermarkets will probably be setting up carving stations soon, or allowing you to order samples ahead of time by fax. And we’re practically being pelted with free menu items—the whole damned things—by the big fast-food chains.

Which is why I’m speaking out to you casual dining specialists, before it’s too late. Get yourself a box of those toothpicks that look like little swords and start cubing your sliders, $9.95 sirloins and other center-of-the-plate additions.

It’s no secret that other food channels are eating your lunch. Supermarkets and the quick-service horde are both offering meal choices close to your league in quality—if not squarely in it. The way they whet an interest is by sampling, a concept you’ve virtually left alone because you're not willing to swallow the bump in food costs as a marketing investment.

Meanwhile, you’re adding items with cutesy names and suspect heritage, like Cheeseburger Pizzas or Mediterranean Egg Rolls . They sound like something you’d find on a c-store rack next to the Ho-Ho’s, Sour Cream & Maple Waffle Chips, and Hawaiian Pork Rinds. In short, abominations that were invented by chemists and processors, not discovered on the tables of some mountain town that had passed down the dish through umpteenth generations. They sound contrived, fake and definitely lacking in integrity. And that perceived artificiality of your menu is a big part of the problem.

Your hope is winning patrons with the taste of what you’re developing. The way to do that is with sampling.

I know firsthand that it’s an effective sales technique. When my wife sees 10 or 15 samples of the same item stacked in my shopping cart, she’ll often buy the product without trying it herself.

But I’m not sure if she sees me as a one-man focus group, or if she’s motivated by pure guilt.