Three Minutes to Impress
Food Menus and Merchandising Are More Time-Driven Than Ever

It is said by industry experts that nightclub and bar operators have an average of three minutes to influence and impress customers with their food and drink menus. Daily, restaurants join the battle, nightclubs and bars try to win over customers, using their only weapon: merchandising.

There Must Be A Mix-Up
Merchandising employs many different types of strategies. Today, restaurants, nightclubs and bars rely on a mix of merchandising tools, including highly designed menus, in-store advertising and staff up-selling. Then, there are outside-the-facility merchandising aids that also are called upon, including placing small display ads in local entertainment guides and alternative news publications and employing hawkers to attend sporting and other cultural events to hand out coupon specials Finally, there is the holy grail of restaurants, nightclubs and bars: positive word-of-mouth from patrons to friends and family. Whatever you do, it is important to find the right mix of the above merchandising tools that return the best success for your venue and fit your concept.

Menu Re-Do
Just designing an interesting and artful looking menu is not good enough, according to Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. Owners and managers must keep up with current food and beverage trends in an effort to provide patrons with the latest and hottest food and beverages. This means knowing what the consumer wants and having a creative chef to make it. “Menu trends are driven both by consumer demand and the creativity of chefs,” Sweeney says. “Our chef survey, which we conducted in cooperation with the American Culinary Federation, highlights flavors, ingredients and other menu components that are hot right now to help the nation’s 935,000 restaurants continue serving great meals to their guests.” Obviously, then, you must put together food-and-drink offerings that will be memorable for guests. That means providing quality and variety that will whet appetites. But be careful. There’s not a perfect menu mix that can be left alone for a long period of time. Menus must be redone occasionally, both the design and the contents, so that you maintain the delicate balance between innovation and tradition, healthy and fat, delicate and rich, all the while keeping a close eye on the public’s constantly changing tastes and trends. Erin Shipley, marketing director, Fox & Hound Restaurant Group based in Wichita, Kan., echoes this sentiment. “We redesign our beverage menu once every year to keep the drinks fresh and up-to-date with new trends, spirits and recipes,” Shipley explains. Even more frequently, Fox & Hound looks at the food. “Our food menu is updated twice per year,” Shipley says. “We typically include Limited Time Only (LTO) items as well as four to five new food items and up to four new drinks when we re-do our menu.” Fox & Hound operates 88 units around the country and is gaining immensely in popularity as a casual, friendly entertainment venue that offers the feel of both a bar and a restaurant.

Much Ad-Do In-Store
Shipley said employing several in store methods of advertising can be highly effective. “Restaurants have specific areas, or zones, that can be used to influence customers,” she says. Some key zones include the lobby, counters, takeout or carryout stations, the dining room or dining areas, and at the tables where customers are seated. This concept, called zone merchandising, offers numerous promotional opportunities. The Fox & Hound has used several of these to great success, according to Shipley. It’s more cost effective to use in-store marketing to encourage repeat business and increase sales than it is to attract new customers, says Tom Feltenstein, founder of the Neighborhood Marketing Institute in West Palm Beach, Fla. Called four-walls marketing, this approach includes in-store advertising.  And don’t forget that fishbowl advertising, Shipley said. Many restaurants, nightclubs and bars provide a fishbowl that patrons can drop a business card into for a drawing for free drinks and/or food. “The business card is a good way to communicate to customers, as most business cards include email addresses,” Shipley adds. Sending an occasional notice that you have specials and a new menu can boost business.

Spare The Rod, Use The Staff
Simply asking the staff to tell patrons about food and drink specials is not enough to merchandise successfully. Feltenstein says you must market to your internal customers — your staff — as well. “Start by treating staff members well and getting their buy-in,” he says. “Make employees partners in your marketing efforts by asking for their input.” You also can reward staff for participating in activities like distributing fliers and coupons outside the business and for selling gift certificates. Still, the staff can’t do everything. It must start with the managment. Jeff Anderson, owner and bar manager at The Belmont Grill in Memphis, Tenn., has a simple philosophy for success in foodservice or in any other endeavor: You have to love what you’re doing. “If you don’t love the business you’re in, your staff will know it,” he says. “And if you are not enthusiastic about what you’re asking them to sell, they’re not going to put forth the effort.” Anderson says managers have to be knowledgeable about staff up-selling techniques before they can effectively pass them on to staff. Shipley sees it much the same way. “Knowledge passed down from management to the front of the house staff promotes suggestive selling, which is a huge key in selling more food and drink items,” she says. “Servers will sell what they feel comfortable in selling.” Specials, whether weekly, monthly or seasonal, are only as successful as the team that gets behind the program. The ‘buy in’ of the management and staff is important in the overall success of any program,” Shipley explains.

Holy Grail!
The effective combination of all the merchandising tips listed above leads to happy customers. Happy customers tend to share happy experiences with friends and family. Friends and family want to experience that same joy. There’s no doubt word of mouth outside the business helps the merchandising efforts inside, Shipley says. “Positive word of mouth brings up new customers, but once inside, we have to deliver the goods,” Anderson says.