Pei Wei Asian Diner LLC is honing its restaurant design, broadening its menu and planning a July debut of a new smartphone app with built-in ordering, payment and rewards, the company’s chief marketing officer told Nation’s Restaurant News.
The changes come as the privately owned, 222-unit fast-casual chain plans to open more than a dozen new restaurants this year, said Pei Wei CMO Clay Dover.
“We have three areas that we are working on,” Dover said in an interview at remodeled restaurant in Addison, Texas.
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“First of all, we are rebranding the restaurants and changing some of the messaging. We have test on that,” Dover said. “We also have a remodel program, where we are remodeling older restaurants with a new look and refreshment overall. We are also working on a new menu initiative as well. … We have a lot of new food items in test.”
Last year, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Pei Wei opened 12 new restaurants. “This year we’re on track to do 15,” Dover said, with new development in Arkansas, Florida and Texas.
Move the slider above to see Pei Wei's look before and after.
“We spent the last half of last year doing research, analyzing menu trends, breaking down markets and dayparts, and really understanding why people go to Pei Wei and how we can increase the reach and the frequency,” Dover said.
The first half of this year has been focused on training, introducing new food items and researching the impact, he said.
“We want to be very meticulous about how we test,” Dover said. “We’ve got 200 restaurants. They are successful now. We don’t want to mess anything up, but we also want to have a long-term strategy both for growth and the restaurants.”
While new restaurants are opening under a prototype that features lighter woods, Pei Wei is also taking a two-pronged approach to older units in the system.
Eight restaurants — four in the Dallas area and four in the Phoenix market — have undergone a full-scale remodeling that Dover said costs in the “low six figures” and requires unit closure for a week and a half or two weeks.
The remodeling includes more two-top tables rather than the predominant four-tops of the past, as well as new chairs, tile flooring and lighting.
“They are trending up in sales,” Dover said of the remodeled units.
The second approach to older units features what Dover called a “refresh,” which offers new design elements and requires no closures. This facelift approach, applied to three restaurants so far, requires no construction permits and is being studied in surveys of 200 customers before and 200 after, Dover said.
“We’re looking to put elements of that into the restaurants,” he said.
New construction follows a more dramatic design departure from the past.
“As we go into new markets, we thought we could have a little more leeway in branding,” Dover said.
The newer units are going into end-cap or inline shopping areas and cover about 3,000 square feet, with 60 to 70 seats, he said.
Renewed emphasis on food
Dover said the brand is also launching new brand positioning under the tagline of “Eating Well Is Well Being,” with more focus on Pei Wei’s Asian foods prepared in house, including hand-rolled sushi and kitchen-cut meats.
In mid-April Pei Wei also introduced quinoa as a substitution for white or brown rice, for an additional 99 cents. The company is also testing new proteins, like ribs and chicken wings, which are aimed at the typical Pei Wei user of families and younger couples.
Unlike many fast-casual brands, Pei Wei’s daypart mix is divided evenly, and is not skewed heavily toward lunch, Dover said.
The company will work on its digital menu boards as well. “We need to make the ordering process easier,” Dover said. “We have to have a better flow.”
To help in testing restaurant elements, especially new menu items, Pei Wei in July will officially open its new consumer-facing Pei Wei Test Kitchen, a reflagged, nine-year-old unit in the Grayhawk shopping mall in Northeast Scottsdale.
“We will have real operations feedback from our operators and guest feedback from the guests,” he said. It has been already been renamed and is testing some new items.
Also on tap for July is the introduction of a new smartphone app, currently in beta test, which will integrate online ordering, payment and rewards. The brand is also installing wi-fi across the system, which Dover said is aimed more as a customer service.
“I feel it’s a cost of entry now,” he said.
Pei Wei has 210 company-owned restaurants, 10 licensed units in airports and one college campus, and two international locations in Mexico.
The brand is owned, along with casual-dining P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, by private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners LP under the corporate umbrella of Wok HoldCo LLC.
Pei Wei was founded in 2000.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected]
Follow him on Twitter: @RonRuggless
