The Restaurant Fashion Victims

The Restaurant Fashion Victims

Not long ago, when I was growing up, dining out was a special treat. Something you did as a celebration, usually in conjunction with another leisure activity like a trip to the cinema or bowling. The Evans family restaurant of choice was Deep Pan Pizza Co in Swansea’s Plantasia development. A restaurant renowned for ‘all you can eat’ pizza, pasta and ice-cream and a buffet which would keep myself and my brother entertained for hours! We loved it, and unlike today, the venue chose us as there were no other ‘branded’ restaurants in the city.  

To some dining out is still a special treat, but to most it has become part of the psyche, something engrained in everyday life, as an adjunct to other everyday events be it shopping, entertaining, socialising or just a good excuse not to cook.  

This shift in mind-set has resulted in a market which has grown exponentially since our Deep Pan Pizza Co days and with it the quality and the quantity of branded operators. Even relatively small markets like Swansea now have a plethora of national brands including Nando’s, Ask, Pizza Express, Chiquitto’s, two Frankie and Benny’s but sadly no Deep Pan Pizza Co. 

Brands of days gone by

We can all look back at key stages in our lives and hold fond memories of the brands we shared them with. From my 10th birthday when I convinced my brother to put a teaspoon up his nose (Deep Pan Pizza Co) to my first solo visit to Wimpy, wondering if ‘Bender in a Bun’ had the same juvenile connotations outside Carmarthen to my first client lunch at Brown’s on Maddox Street. But brands, like memories, come and go as each period of life passes to the next. 

Be it Berni Inn, Benjy’s, Tootsies, Chez Gerard, Cafe Uno or Old Orleans (to name a few), it’s an unfortunate fact that in today’s competitive landscape, brands are under increasing pressure to maintain their market position or face a slow death at the hands of an increasingly discerning consumer. 

Deep Pan Pizza Co is a good example of this. People still eat pizza, Pizza Hut still do a buffet and Nando’s have more than proved a model where the customer does all the leg work save cooking the chicken. So what was it about Deep Pan Pizza Co that suddenly made it unfit for purpose? There is always the potential of gross mismanagement but I think the consumer’s thirst for evolution and innovation has resulted in casual dining having more in common with the fashion industry than one might think.

Stay fresh and relevant

So, how do restaurant brands keep up the pace with the fashion industry? Large fashion brands typically change their collections four to five times a year and change window displays accordingly, depending on sales, whereas most restaurant groups change their menus approximately twice a year (some not even that) and refurbish every five to six years. Restaurants are a capital (human and financial) intense game and it’s unrealistic to expect them change and reinvent themselves in line with the fashion category, however there is certainly an onus on them to evolve with the consumers tastes and needs.  

Maintaining brand position, whilst difficult, is certainly not impossible. JD Wetherspoon, Nando’s, Pizza Express, Wagamama and Carluccio’s are all good examples of brand longevity with a combined age of 151. Love or loathe these brands, stable financial and ownership, brand and food innovation along with a clear recognition of heritage have aided these organisations to stay fresh and relevant in the eyes of an ever demanding consumer. 

Research your customers

This is almost certainly one of the biggest questions bidders of Strada are asking themselves right now. In 1999 they were brand de jour. Despite selling pizza and pasta (nothing new, right?), they were hailed as revolutionary. The staff were incredibly well trained, the food was fresh and tasted so, the ambience was classy (but not in a stuffy way), the interiors were very well designed and you didn’t have to ask for table water, it just appeared! But what has happened over the last 15 years and the course of two ownerships? The brand is up for sale again with an expected sale price of £40m, £100m less than it fetched in 2007! Of course, the world is now in a very different place, but £100m is a considerable hit on a brand that now has twice as many trading restaurants as it did in 2007. 

It is my belief that to fully ascertain current brand health, research has to be done from the bottom up, starting with that often forgotten group of individuals, the customers. Who are your customers right now and why do they use your brand? Who were your customers in the early days and why did they use your brand? Are these two groups the same customer you hope to have in 2, 3, 4 years’ time? Is the brand still relevant in today’s market or have trends moved on? What do people love or loath about your brand?

Further up the chain internal questions such as, is there still an internal passion for the brand? Is there a belief within the management that the brand will succeed? Are the right people in charge and are they the right people to ‘turn the ship’?

Asking these questions, however difficult, will undoubtedly yield some uncomfortable home truths and this is often a mirror that many short-sighted brands often fail to look into.  

Modern take on the classics?

All good fashion is cyclical and the reintroduction of certain fashions starts with the trendies and the early adopters (think skinny jeans and sheep skin jackets). We have seen many restaurateurs develop their own take on 1980’s classic dishes like the prawn cocktail or the Knickerbocker Glory and The Breakfast Club have developed a whole brand tapping into 1980’s nostalgia. But will this go a step further into resurrecting forgotten brands? I’d be interested to see a Deep Pan Pizza Co, Pizzaland or Chez Gerard pop-up somewhere in the bowels of East London, but sadly I can’t see it happening anytime soon.