What Makes Your Restaurant Different?

Choices… We all have choices whether it’s is in life, or specifically where we will dine when we go out to dinner. A recent business trip to Florida really hammered home to me the importance of differentiating your business from all the restaurants in your area.

The gulf coast of Florida is a beautiful area to say the least. Larger towns like Tampa and St Petersburg coupled with a growing population base. Just to throw in a little extra you have a large tourist population which swells in the winter months. They may be there for the warmer weather, visiting the beaches, attending baseball spring training camps or possibly visiting Orlando which is not far away.  So many opportunities if you are a restaurant owner.

With opportunities comes risk as we all know. For an independent restaurant owner, it looks like a gold mine is waiting to be yours. It can be, but it can also be a daunting task. The area is full of restaurants from national chains to places like Wawa for grabbing that quick lunch. The supermarkets all have prepared foods that cater to that prepared foods segment. Each of these operations have tremendous brand awareness and large advertising budgets to build their business. This picture is not just the Gulf Coast of Florida, it’s every market in America.

How do you compete is such a competitive market? What makes your restaurant stand out from the others? What gives you the edge that will help you reach your goals for the next five years? As a restaurant owner, these are the things that keep you awake at night.

Planning your business to grow in a competitive market is not an easy task.  We know the basics of food quality and service, but it takes more than that when you walk among the giants of the restaurant industry. What will make the consumer choose your restaurant?

My visit to Florida included meals in many restaurants. My decisions were guided by location preferences, cuisine types and consumer reviews. Each of those choices had competitors in those segments. Looking at it with a critical eye, each restaurant could have done better to make me a fan who would visit again. Only one succeeded at that task. Yes, one stood out, but many missed the mark in a highly competitive market. One restaurant commented that in a tourism market, they are not concerned about the repeat business, there will be new consumers next week. That can be a business strategy I guess, but what happens when the tourist go away and you have no local customers. That is a choice a restaurant owner can make.

Does your restaurant have a strategy to stand out from the competition to acquire and capture new customers in a competitive market?

At CORE Restaurant Marketing, we have helped many restaurants design and execute a business strategy. Our mission is simple, how can we help restaurants succeed. Our services we offer touch and the experts we utilize have generated proven results for restaurants of all types. Contact us at info@corerestaurantmarketing.com for more information or schedule a time to speak with one of our restaurant marketing coaches.