#RestaurantBusiness

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by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Indies: Which Cities Lead the Way?

Independents: Which Cities Lead the Way?

by David Klemt

Aerial view of Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan coastline

The majority of the top ten indie restaurants on the Restaurant Business Top 100 Independents ranking are in two American cities.

Those two cities are Miami Beach, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois. While Miami Beach claims two spots among the top three, Chicago has the most restaurants in the top ten. However, the top three indies are all in Florida, with number two being the Boathouse in Orlando.

So, Florida and Illinois are home to nearly the entire top ten of Restaurant Business’ Top 100 Independents. That’s impressive.

What’s even more impressive is the combined annual sales figure of the top ten: $333.4 million. Now, let’s separate Miami Beach. The three indies in the Florida city generated nearly $114 million themselves. Chicago’s four indies among the top ten generated $118 million.

Taken together, the top 100 indies generated $1.95 billion.

All told, 14 of the top 100 indies as ranked by Restaurant Business are in Chicago. Five are in Miami Beach, and five are in Miami. Before I move on, no, Miami Beach and Miami aren’t the same city; they’re entirely separate municipalities. In total, 16 restaurants on this list are in Florida.

New York boasts 15 restaurants on the list. Four are in San Francisco, and just two are in Los Angeles. However, California claims 15 restaurants in total.

However, as you’ll see below, this Restaurant Business list consists of more than just the usual big cities.

Restaurant Business Top 100 Independents: The Top Ten

Below, the top ten independent restaurants, per Restaurant Business.

  1. Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant (Miami Beach, Florida)
  2. The Boathouse (Orlando, Florida)
  3. Komodo Miami (Miami Beach, Florida)
  4. Maple & Ash Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
  5. Mila (Miami Beach, Florida)
  6. Sierra Mar (Big Sur, California)
  7. Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse (Chicago, Illinois)
  8. Gibsons Italia (Chicago, Illinois)
  9. Alexxa’s (Las Vegas, Nevada)
  10. Alinea (Chicago, Illinois)

Alinea commands the highest average check among the top ten, at $650. The most reasonable is the Boathouse, averaging $45.

Interestingly—and perhaps logically—these two restaurants find themselves in the inverse when it comes to annual meals served. The Boathouse serves the most: just over one million. And Alinea, among the top ten indies, serves the least: nearly 45,700.

Notably, when we move on to numbers 11 to 20, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York account for six restaurants.

However, it’s also notable that it’s not just the usual big cities with restaurants on this list. Smaller cities, such as Frankenmuth in Michigan, are home to some of America’s top-performing independent restaurants.

For some context, Frankenmuth has a population of less than 5,200 people. However, Michigan’s “Little Bavaria” draws three million tourists per year. So, it’s no surprise that Zehnder’s Restaurant generates more than $19 million in annual sales.

Restaurant Business Top 100 Independents: The Bottom Ten

Just for fun, let’s take a look at the bottom ten on the Restaurant Business list.

  1. Siena Tavern (Chicago, Illinois)
  2. Fleet Landing Restaurant & Bar (Charleston, South Carolina)
  3. Electric Lemon NY (New York, New York)
  4. Bar Siena (Chicago, Illinois)
  5. El Vez (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  6. Mi Vida (Washington, DC)
  7. Scoma’s Restaurant (San Francisco, California)
  8. Mexican Sugar (Las Colinas, Texas)
  9. The Shed Barbecue & Blues Joint (Ocean Springs, Mississippi)
  10. Chef Adrianne’s Vineyard Restaurant and Bar (Miami, Florida)

Adding context, these ten restaurants have generated $114.6 million in annual sales. That’s roughly the same amount of annual sales as the three restaurants in Miami Beach in the top ten.

Each of the “bottom” ten has annual sales ranging from $11.2 million to $11.9 million.

Takeaway

We all know the following axiom: “Location, location, location.”

It’s tempting to assume this means a business must be in a major city. That’s a woeful oversimplification. Myriad considerations must be made when looking at a market, whether the population is in the hundreds or millions. Assuming a concept will drive traffic and generate millions of dollars solely because it’s in a major city is foolish.

Let’s take another look at Zehnder’s in Frankenmuth. The restaurant, number 47 on the list, generated $19.2 million in annual sales. Moreover, it’s in a town with a population under 5,200.

Number 46 generated $19.3 million and is in (on?) Waimea in Hawaii. Number 48 boasted annual sales of $19 million and is in a city with a population of almost 2.7 million: Chicago.

Clearly, tourism a key contributing factor to the success of Zehnder’s. Not population, not the demographics of the permanent residents, not big-city status.

So, what about check average? Alinea, number ten, has the highest at $650 and generated $28.3 million in sales. However, the Spot, number 85, has an average check of $18 and generated $12.3 million.

The success of any restaurant, bar, nightlife or eatertainment concept doesn’t come down to a single element. What sets a concept apart is a deep understanding of a specific market, the surrounding markets, “sister” sites and competitors, guest desires and expectations, and so much more.

How does an operator come to understand their operation and their market? A feasibility study to start. Then comes a thorough, coherent concept plan and a complete business plan, and an obsession with data.

Operators who put in the work to attain strategic clarity have the potential to earn their way onto the Top 100 Independents list.

Image: Cameron Casey on Pexels

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by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Time to Revisit Your Hours of Operation?

Time to Revisit Your Hours of Operation?

by David Klemt

Collection of antique clocks

Many operators, in response to the past few years, find themselves slashing dayparts—even entire days—from their hours of operation.

Obviously, this makes sense. Reducing the hours a restaurant or bar is open can control and reduce many costs.

However, the industry is now seeing an increase in demand from restaurants and bars. Today’s consumer craves a return to normalcy. While delivery, carryout and pickup are here to stay, people want to return to in-person dining.

Generally speaking, people like to socialize (at least with their friends). And, of course, restaurants and bars are spaces that fill the human desire to get social.

At KRG Hospitality we certainly understand how reducing hours and days of operation can be effective. In fact, depending on experience level, concept, and market, we sometimes recommend that clients limit their hours and days when first starting out.

However, as guest demand for in-person dining and drinking increases, it may be time to revisit this operational strategy.

Increase Visit Time, Increase Check Average

There’s a battle that takes place in restaurants and bars during each daypart. Operators are engaging an opponent they can’t defeat: time. The best one can hope for is to keep up with or otherwise mitigate the damage done every time the second hand on a clock ticks.

Therefore, most operators fall into two camps: Turn and Burn, and Keep ’em Spending. Hospitality and foodservice professionals are (or should be) familiar with both strategies.

Turn and Burn is about getting butts in seats, getting orders out, and getting those butts out of those seats as quickly as possible to get new butts back into them.

Keep ’em Spending focuses on increasing check sizes through keeping guests in the venue. The thought is that the longer a guest or party is on site, the more money they’ll spend.

Rich Shank, vice president of Research & Insights at Technomic, addresses the latter strategy in a recent Restaurant Business article.

“What is interesting about that is that our dining party often impacts the time we spend in a unit and the amount of money we spend while dining in,” writes Shank. “Even dining in at limited-service restaurants is heavily correlated with how much time we spend inside the restaurant—making time and money a perfect pairing in most restaurants.”

It’s not Just About Hours

In Shank’s Restaurant Business article, the Technomic VP points out that families with children tend to spend the most at restaurants. This has long been the case, and it’s logical. After all, families with children are purchasing more F&B items per visit, and they tend to spend more time per each visit as well.

However, it’s not just about the hours and days of operation, as Shank also says. It’s important that a given concept be attractive to occasion-driven guests. In other words, people gather in pairs and groups for life events.

These events can be as simple yet important as date night, to huge gatherings such as large family reunions or corporate gatherings. So, when operators are reviewing their hours of operation and the days and dayparts they’re open for business, the guest experience and their life events are important elements to consider.

“If you take the time and money relationship seriously, then the idea of throttling down on our dine-in strategies to preserve on costs or to narrow our focus to off-premises occasions only is causing us to miss the occasions that drive check-average,” writes Shank.

It’s also crucial to have a close relationship with data. Operators need to be obsessive with location and guest data. Unless they know their market, location, and guests incredibly well, operators are just guessing before making important operational changes. Guest feedback can be an effective method of knowing if it’s time to increase hours and add days of operation.

Only the operator can know if it’s time to, well, increase time. Yes, costs will go up if a venue is open longer. However, revenue can also soar. Maybe it’s time to finally be available for in-person dining for longer.

Image: Lucian Alexe on Unsplash

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by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Addressing Substance Abuse in the Industry

Restaurant Business Articles Address Substance Abuse

by David Klemt

Two full shot glasses on a bar

Two revealing Restaurant Business articles paint a startling picture of the industry’s struggles with drug and alcohol abuse.

Unfortunately, the subject of substance abuse in restaurants and bars isn’t new. This has long been a pervasive, prevalent issue in the hospitality industry.

There are, as Restaurant Business authors point out, several reasons our industry continues to grapple with substance abuse.

Since we’re nearing Sober October, this topic’s importance seems particularly poignant. Of course, the health of hospitality industry professionals should always be a paramount operator concern every day. It shouldn’t take a specific month for us to address this issue, just to forget about it after 31 days of consideration.

Hospitality workers should feel supported by the business owners and operators for whom they work. Additionally, they should feel safe among the leadership team and their fellow team members. In part, this feeling of security and safety should manifest in being comfortable speaking about substance abuse in the workplace.

A significant element of creating a supportive, safe, and healthy culture is removing the stigma of struggling with substance abuse that persists today. How can operators, leadership, and team members help one another if they make peers feel shame for struggling with drugs or alcohol?

A crucial step toward addressing the issue of substance abuse is fostering a culture of respect, support, and safety. If anyone in any role—from ownership and leadership to front of house and back of house—feels as though they can’t speak with someone safely about their struggles, we can’t address this topic effectively. And if we can’t address it in a meaningful way, we can never effect real change that can improve and save lives.

Pervasive Struggles

A Restaurant Business article from last week addresses substance abuse and culture. “How Restaurants Feed a Culture of Substance Abuse” reveals disturbing statistics.

At the start of their article, editors Peter Romeo, Heather Lalley and Joe Guszkowski share a horrific story. In February of this year, Colorado law enforcement found six adults and a toddler in an apartment. The six adults had all overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine; five had died. All six adults worked in chain or independent restaurants.

Four years ago, Delaware officials investigated the state’s opioid crisis. They found 10 percent of Delaware residents who died due to opioid overdoses were foodservice workers. According to Restaurant Business, state officials concluded that foodservice experienced a higher rate of opioid deaths than any other industry.

Among the most-shocking revelations in the Restaurant Business article pertains to the US workforce as a whole. Frustratingly, the US government hasn’t researched illicit drug use in the workforce since 2015. So, for all we know, the numbers I’m about to share have either increased or decreased.

In a typical month in 2015, 8.6 percent of the US workforce was using illicit drugs. However, that number pales in comparison to the rate of illicit drug use among restaurant and hotel workers: 19.1 percent.

Examining Substance Use Disease (SUD), a term encompassing drug and alcohol abuse, the numbers expose the weight of our industry’s struggle. In 2015, 9.5 percent of the US workforce suffered from SUD. For restaurants and hotels? That number was nearly double: 16.9 percent, higher than any other industry.

Fentanyl Deaths

Restaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze reveals how “restaurants are ground zero” for fentanyl overdoses.

Fentanyl is cheap to produce and transport. It doesn’t take much to be deadly. And most people who have the misfortune of consuming it do so unwittingly. As it turns out, drug dealers lace all manner of other drugs with it because it’s so powerful. So, cutting drugs with fentanyl is more “cost effective” for drug dealers.

This particular excerpt from Maze’s “As Fentanyl Deaths Soar, Restaurants Are Ground Zero” is startling: “Throughout the country, restaurants and bars are such common places for overdose deaths among customers that advocates are training bartenders and servers to administer Narcan, a medication used to treat opioid overdoses. They are also becoming sources for fentanyl test strips so customers can see if the drugs they’re taking are laced with the powerful drug.”

Further, this troubling excerpt: “The fentanyl epidemic is particularly troublesome in the restaurant industry given the generally high rate of drug use among workers. Restaurant work is notoriously intense. The hours are long and late, and employees are on their feet all day. They often get hurt on the job and can turn to painkillers, legal or otherwise.”

When I say that we need to address substance abuse in our industry to save lives, I’m not employing hyperbole. I mean it quite literally.

Please take the time to read these two Restaurant Business articles in their entirety. We need to take action today.

Image: cottonbro via Pexels

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