Restaurant and Food Service Blog

Lane Cardwell from the Chain Leader had a great post the other day about the great parallels in sales between the restaurant and retail industries this Christmas season. He used data that was just released by the Thomas Weisel Partners’ 2008 Post-Holiday Sales Report and 2009 Outlook.

Overall, customers are looking for great value and cutting back on all spending. A lot of this was witnessed with the huge sales towards the end of the year to attract customers. But what will bring the customers coming back is having solid service and a relevant concept with a value. The buy a dinner get a free dessert will not work, but rather buy one dinner, get one free.

It is a different set of rules. The companies that can understand the pains of their customers the most and make their concept adhere to the constraints of the average household will win in the end.