Oil Money
Offering Fried Food is Healthy for Sales and Guest Satisfaction
By Mason Harris

    We were down to the last bite of this unusual food item. I could see it in my wife’s eyes — she wanted it, but so did I. Our kids watched us nervously; they had never seen us both with forks poised so aggressively.
   Was it lobster? A fine steak? Beautifully prepared fish? A tender veal dish? Nope. It was none of these. It was better than these high-end menu items. It was a fried Twinkie. 
   Go ahead and laugh, but this non-traditional Twinkie was truly mouth-watering. And, the next time we’re in Colorado for a family ski vacation, we will drive the extra 15 or so miles to this restaurant/sports bar for another fried Twinkie — or maybe four of them — so that we don’t have to spar over
the crumbs.

Easing Concerns
   Many consumers will tell you they enjoy fried food because it tastes great. For most of your customers, taste drives the purchase decision. As the key to generating revenue is to provide what your guest wants and will buy, fried food on your menu is critical to attracting the quantity of customers you need to succeed. This assumes, of course, that your establishment is not known for and does not exclusively offer “healthy” food items. 
   Let’s go back to your guests, though. Some consumers, despite not being health-obsessed, still think about the negatives associated with fried foods. They’re fattening, have poor nutritional value, can contribute to acne and have been linked to certain cancers.
   Some of these negatives are in dispute. Assuming your customer is not rubbing fried egg rolls on his face, increased acne should not be a concern. The most serious accusation, that there is a link to certain cancers, also is shaky.
Since the facts are in dispute, why not just eliminate fried foods from your menu, or simply limit the variety of fried items that you offer?
   Sure, and while you’re at it, eliminate red meat, salt, alcohol, any food item not raised in a “free-range” setting or grown without pesticides and smoking. (Even though the government already is taking care of the smoking decision for many restaurants and bars.) And, go ahead and lower the volume on your sound system. Loud music causes significant hearing loss — don’t you know what happened to Pete Townsend?

Fried Fits the Scene
   Your business meets different customer needs than simply just selling food and beverages. People purchase food, beverages and alcohol at grocery stores so that they can consume, primarily at home, the meals that sustain them.
   When these same consumers choose to eat at a restaurant or other establishment that serves food and beverage, and maybe offers entertainment as well, their purchase decisions are psychologically very different.
   Your bar offers the ability to socialize with existing friends and meet new people. Your restaurant/bar does more than feed a family; it provides great “family time” in a special way. Eating at home as a family is important to create a strong family bond. Eating out as a family is exceptional because it reinforces the bond while removing the demands of preparing and cleaning up after the family meal. Every family member is equal; no one is stuck with the dishes. Every family member can choose from a wide variety of menu items; they’re not all stuck with the same baked chicken and rice. And, every customer can get a great-tasting fried food item — one that is very difficult to duplicate at home.
   Fried foods, through the test of time and revenue, are popular with consumers. They are typically less expensive for you to purchase, store and cook. An experienced line cook is needed for your more complicated and non-fried food items, while the less expensive line employees can count out or place the chicken wings, egg rolls, onion rings, French fries, or any of 100 other items in the deep fryer and wait for the buzzer to indicate that they’re ready.
   Your margins are probably higher with fried foods, unless you’re using them as a “special” to encourage larger crowds. Increased fried appetizer food sales lead to increased beverage sales and frequently to higher priced entrée sales, as well.

Capitalize on Opportunities to Sell
   You need to take advantage of the opportunity. What works in fried food marketing? Your most important marketing tools are right there in your establishment. These are: 1) your POS material, 2) your servers and 3) your menus.

1) Your POS material includes banners and signs throughout your venue, especially table tents that depict specific items you are promoting. Menus also are POS tools, of course, but they will be
considered separately.
   We know that marketing has the greatest impact when it reaches a guest who is in the mindset to make a decision about your product. Table tents can influence this decision right when they are being seated. They may not be thinking yet about their entrée, but they are thinking about a drink order and possibly an appetizer order, as well. A well-designed table tent that depicts three or four of your best appetizers, usually your fried, high-margin appetizers, for example, can influence a customer’s decision at the same time as the drink order is placed. You have made the customer’s decision easy to make.

2) Your server, when taking the drink order, should gently sell those fried appetizers you offer. He or she can suggest two or three of the favorite appetizers while also offering some non-fried items at the same time. If you have received recognition for the “Best Chicken Wings” in a recent consumer poll, verbally communicating this has more impact with some customers than just a line on your  menu.
   Your servers can highlight the “lightly fried” or “grilled” options for those customers who are more health conscious. Your guests typically want this information, particularly if some of these fried food items are not available every day. This creates the “I love these, and they weren’t available last time I was here, so I better order it now” mindset among some customers.

3) Your menu: Undoubtedly, this is a major selling tool for you, and it is the equivalent of a directory of all your options. The pictures and descriptions of your menu items are critical not only to the sale of those items, but also to how you are perceived relative to other competing establishments. Everyone has a menu, but few restaurants make their menus remarkable in their design and layout. Remarkable contributes greatly toward a memorable meal. Memorable contributes toward more frequent returns from your customers.
   It should be obvious that your printed table tents and menus need compelling and attractive pictures and copy.  Dine at Outback Steakhouse and you don’t order onion rings, you request their “Bloomin’ Onion”, described as “An Outback Ab-original from Russell’s Marina Bay.” The pictures on the menu are sales generators, and the appetizer descriptions are written to enhance the customer’s total experience and satisfaction.
   I’m not sure what Outback Steakhouse would call it, and how they would describe that fried Twinkie, but I know they would sell a lot of them.                                

  NCB

Mason Harris, president of YouGotMeals, is the author of “ENTRÉE Marketing: Six Critical Principles for the Overworked Restaurateur,” accessible at www.entreemarketing.biz. Feel free to share your questions, comments and experiences related to this column, or nightclub and restaurant/bar marketing/loyalty with Harris via e-mail at or sign up for his e-newsletter at www.yougotmeals.com. (c) Robin Technologies Inc. 2006