Tip of the Week

Restaurants often appeal to a broad range of customers. This is critical to ensuring a large enough pool to draw from and to sustain the operation. The problem can be that when planning your offerings, restaurateurs can try to be too many things to too many people and lose their unique identity.

While focusing your concept and emphasizing its points of differentiation can help you stand out from the competition, the concern still remains that this may alienate some potential guests.

The key for operators is to identify your core market and to create a service offering that best meets their needs. By targeting a specific segment and satisfying them better than anyone else, you are positioned to establish a strong base to grow your business. The identified group must be large enough to support the financial viability of the operation, and will also help in attracting additional business.

The focused nature of the operation should lead to a high level of satisfaction and foster loyalty, which will in turn make them strong allies in promotion. Some aspects of the operation are bound to appeal to other customer segments at times and will create additional, although less frequent, demand. Too many businesses have closed because they failed to resonate with the market. Avoid this by ensuring that your brand is the first choice for a clearly defined customer.