RESTAURANT IDEAS COULD COOK IN STORE: PANEL

LIZA B. ZIMMERMAN

CHICAGO -- Restaurant promotions, which could be used by supermarkets to be more competitive with food service, were explored by a team of two restaurateurs and a marketing consultant at a seminar at the National Restaurant Association Show here.

Ray Coen, president of Coen Co., a marketing consulting firm based in Pacific Palisades, Calif., noted in an interview after the session that retailers had much to learn from the lessons of food service. "The industries are getting closer together as restaurants try to capture people and supermarkets try to capture them back."

He expressed his belief that supermarkets generally didn't make good use of the advantages they have over restaurants. "People go to supermarkets automatically. Restaurants have to work harder."

Moderated by Beirne Brown, a partner at Cuisine Management, Naples, Fla., a company that owns four Florida restaurants, the session explored a variety of innovative ideas, with potential retail applications, that restaurateurs from Nashville to South Africa had implemented to increase sales.

During the seminar, Coen noted that "doing standard promotions won't get you ahead of the competition." He stressed the importance of bringing out the individuality of an operation and noted that "if the customers don't hear you, then it's not loud enough."

One of the main arenas in which supermarkets compete most with restaurants is in their home-meal replacement programs, an area where many of the promotional ideas presented by the seminar's panel might be particularly effective.

"The decision to eat takes place 20 minutes before leaving the office and everyone thinks of 3.5 places," said Coen, stressing the importance of making an operation stand out in order to be competitive at the retail level.

"Supermarkets need to have concepts that are more exciting to the public," he continued. Taking into account such factors as an operation's market, neighborhood and competition, Coen recommended that retailers set their sights on "developing something that is No. 1 in its category."

He stressed the importance of providing customers with a unique shopping experience and not what he called a slapped-together solution. "When you put in your own prepared-food department and establish something under your name, you bring in more traffic and give your customers a better experience.

"The decision to buy prepared food is an option, so it has to be more powerful, and supermarkets sometimes tend to underestimate that need." Low prices may initially grab customers' attention but they need to be combined with high quality to keep customers coming back, he noted.

Food service has shown itself to be innovative not only with promotions, but also in the relative flexibility, often absent in retail, with which they are carried out.

An example of inflexibility can be seen in the fact that many supermarkets have obstinately stuck to a weeklong promotional format that, according to Coen, is far from ideal for items like prepared foods.

"Supermarkets should be willing to depart from that and operate on a restaurant format," stressed Coen, noting that sometimes a one-night or even a two-week promotion might move the products better.

Promotions need to be tackled on a case-by-case basis that requires a certain willingness to diverge from what has traditionally been viewed as the most efficient way of doing things, Coen noted. "A category leader requires more flair."

Several of the other panelists at the seminar offered ideas for promotions that could have retail applications. Basil O'Hagan, an owner of 41 O'Hagan's Irish theme pubs in South Africa, echoed Coen's advice on how to be the best in your field by reminding attendees that "We are not selling food or liquor. We are selling a whole concept."

In order to use that concept, he stressed that retailers "really have to understand who you are in order to create as broad a customer base as possible."

O'Hagan also noted that it was essential, at the same time, to aggressively keep up with what competitors are doing. O'Hagan discussed one of his most successful promotions, Ladies' Night, which could serve as a springboard for similar theme-inspired retail promotions. On Ladies' Night, when the less expensive of two items that women order comes free, the pub attracts a large crowd, because, "If you have a pub of 100 ladies, you'll have 100 men," explained O'Hagan.

Another restaurateur, Randy Rayburn, owner of the Sunset Grill in Nashville, Tenn., talked about how he has focused on wine sales to increase business.

During the restaurant's downtime, between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m., Rayburn holds wine classes, which not only generate profits and educate his customers' palates, but also bring in dinner business when students decide to stay for a bite after class.

He said that internal marketing, such as in-house classes, was the most affordable type of marketing. It also has the advantage of "building long-term relationships" because it is community-based.

Noting that liquor consumption has been decreasing in the United States, Rayburn saw "an opportunity for people drinking better." He stressed that providing people with more information about wine, through a customer-friendly list, and with more options, like a wide selection of half-bottles, were essential aids in helping them to drink better.

Many of Rayburn's promotions, much like O'Hagan's, could easily have a variety of retail applications. Wine classes could be a good method to cross promote different departments and Rayburn's tactic of raising product quality along with price is also an effective tool to increase profits on a variety of retail items, it was pointed out.