I went out for dinner recently planning to make a point. While sitting in a Cheesecake Factory in suburban Boston, I looked around, expecting that I would be able to discuss in this column the variety of ethnicities I saw there. My goal was to illustrate just how much the world is changing.
But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. As I looked around the large, crowded room, most of the folks were surprisingly homogenous—in this case, white—thwarting my hopes of recounting the diversity of today’s dining public.
But wait. That makes no sense. According to experts and as revealed in this issue’s special report on the consumer, the 2010 U.S. Census is expected to show that, in the United States, minorities are gaining on the majority, the so-called traditional family is a rarity, people are on the move, baby boomers still have clout, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.
Just a few days earlier, while helping at my daughter’s Brownie troop meeting, I had been struck by the ethnic diversity of the small group, whose members reflected a variety of ancestries. Why did the crowd at the nearby restaurant not do the same?
As I weighed the two experiences, it dawned on me: Niche marketing has never been more important. As the world changes, restaurant operators must be more aware of the demographics of their own clientele. The results of the census will provide a road map for understanding the changing world around us. But they don’t discount the importance of understanding who your actual customers are.
“The way in which any restaurateur can keep up is to constantly be in touch with their customers—their specific customers,” said Peter Francese, a demographic trends analyst for New York-based Ogilvy and Mather. “I eat out a great deal, and I’m always stunned by how seldom I get a questionnaire. Comment cards are absolutely essential, and if you can get e-mail addresses, you can query them back for demographics. But the key thing is to constantly be in touch with your customers to see how well the value proposition worked for them.”
In our special report on today’s consumers, which begins on page 1 and continues in the Marketing section, we examine how operators have capitalized on such research. And at
The timing for such tuning in couldn’t be better, as the spring season brings with it more signs that the harsh economic climate is improving. According to recent government reports, the rate of job losses slowed in February, while consumer spending, including on restaurant meals, inched slightly upward. Also notable is the apparent thawing of the mergers-and-acquisition market as outlined in our other page 1 story, which jumps to this issue’s Finance section. According to industry watchers, private-equity firms are itching to get back in the restaurant game, offering one source of funding that has been sorely missing for more than a year.
The apparently recovering environment does not mean restaurateurs should abandon any of the operational improvements they’ve made in the recent past, however. In Operations, we look at the efficiencies to be gained through cross training and cloud computing, as well as some best practices for dairy purchasing.
With the warm weather just around the corner, we also offer a story on new trends in soft-serve ice cream in our Food & Beverage section. A perennial favorite, soft serve is being modified through the addition of some untraditional flavors, such as olive oil and coconut water.
Which brings us almost full-circle. Our world obviously is changing—and that’s a good thing. After all, the evolution of the “average” American is giving us room to grow beyond just vanilla.
