Breaking down the segment wallsBreaking down the segment walls

Nobody cares about segments anymore.

I mean, the restaurant industry does. Sometimes the editors here at Nation’s Restaurant News get creative correction requests. More than once we’ve been asked not to refer to a brand as a restaurant chain, but instead as a collection of restaurants. Other times we get asked to use polished casual, QSR plus, fine casual, fast fine. The list goes on and on and on. There are valid arguments behind all, I’m sure.

It’s hard to put restaurants in boxes, and it’s even harder when restaurants aren’t the only ones selling restaurant-quality food.

If you take a look at NRN’s 2018 Top 200 list of the chains by foodservice systemwide sales, you’ll see that supermarkets, c-stores and other retailers have a strong presence.

Whole Foods Market isn’t a restaurant, but customers don’t have a problem going there for a hot dinner. Costco sold $834 million in foodservice items in the fiscal year ending August 2017. That’s not chump change.

At the end of the day, customers don’t think about restaurant segments. They just want to eat delicious food in whatever setting they prefer. If it means they buy sushi at a pharmacy, so be it.

And restaurants are getting the message. They are adopting new features based on what their consumers want.

Related:Fast casual’s answer to slower growth? Be more like quick service

Click to read the Nov. 26 issue.

Senior editor Nancy Luna reports on how fast-casual operators are becoming, well, faster. They are looking to their quick-service forefathers for ideas.

“Fast casual was predominantly designed for dine in,” says Noodles & Company CEO Dave Boennighausen in the article.

Fast casual is being born again with drive-thrus, kiosks, delivery and smaller footprints.

It shouldn’t be that surprising that fast-casual operators are making this change since quick-service brands have been stepping into their marketing territory for a few years now.

Many quick-service brands have been touting higher quality ingredients, sometimes prepared onsite. Antibiotic-free proteins are the new standard now. Fresh is king. McDonald’s fresh beef patties have been making news for a while now.

The challenge while embracing change is to keep your brand promise at the same time.

“You’ve got to contemporize your brand. Consumers are moving too quickly,” said Del Taco CEO John Cappasola at NRN’s MUFSO conference last month.

“But that does not mean you walk away from things that make you great.”

So go on, shake things up, but remember what makes your restaurant great.

And don’t get so tied up with labels.

Email Jenna Telesca at [email protected] 

Follow her on Twitter: @JennaTelesca