Customer Counts at Restaurants Continued Discontinuity

Consumers are not eating less, they are eating somewhere else.  In fact obesity in America is at all a time high.  78.6 million U.S. adults suffer from obesity that’s 34.9 percent of the population. So why is it harder and harder for legacy restaurant operators to maintain a customer?

In fact in a recent survey of restaurant operators by Restaurant Business found that “Maintaining current guest counts was ranked at the high end of the difficulty spectrum by 46 percent of respondents, and increasing traffic was rated as difficult or extraordinarily difficult by 77 percent.” …

“A fourth (24 percent) of the respondents said their targeted customers were visiting less often, 19 percent noted that patrons spend less when they do dine out, and 43 percent reported that customers are pay more attention today to the prices of what they order.”

Here is what is not reported in the mainstream press.  Restaurant sector customer counts since the recession began have never fully recovered.  That’s right it is 2014 and 5 ½ years later and customers are still shopping elsewhere. Where? The migration has centered itself within Grocerant Niche of course.

Yes, Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food today can be found in Liquor stores the ilk of Texas based Pinkie’s, Chain Drug Stores the ilk of Walgreens, and vastly improved grocery store deli’s.

Restaurateurs that waiting for the ‘good old days and customers to come rushing the doors will be on the side lines soon.  The customer has moved and you must move with them.  What business are you in anyway?  You are in the meal business? Do you have a ‘Boomer CEO’ look at how stores ran not how they will be running?

It’s time to extend your brand of fresh prepared food (not frozen) into new non-traditional locations.  Don’t get stuck in footprint malaise.  Consider entering your branded products locations that your customers are migrating too.  Join us on our fourth Grocerant Niche immersion Tour.

www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  specializes in outsourced business development. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities or a brand leveraging integration strategy.  Foodservice Solutions of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche since 1991 Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us