Captain D’s finds customers like to lingerCaptain D’s finds customers like to linger

Quick-service customers typically have a need for speed, but Captain D’s has found that its guests like to take their time, with about half of customers dining in restaurants.

Captain D’s vice president of product innovation Jason Henderson, now in his third year in that position, discussed those findings, plus menu development, at the 512-unit, Nashville, Tenn.-based seafood chain.

Captain D’s recently conducted an attitude and usage study about its customers. What did you learn from that?

Our guests said we provided a great meal experience and space in the day for people to sit down and enjoy a meal. So we’re trying to amplify what everyone said they like most about us, and we now use real plateware and silverware. Our general managers try to do what we call “modified table service.” People order at the counter and they’re given a buzzer. Our customers have time to set up their table with all the condiments and sauces they want, and then when the buzzers go off they can pick up their food, but often one of our staff members is already bringing the meal out.

Does it take that long to set up condiments?

We actually have a cool condiment culture at Captain D’s. We give away a lot of great sauces, and I think we have world-class tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. Our Captain D’s sauce is a really nice rémoulade.

So customers don’t treat Captain D’s like a typical QSR.

We’re not providing that meal on the go. Almost half of our dining is in-house, and a very small percentage of people would not be taking that meal to a home or office to sit down and eat it. In that sense, we’ve been operating more as a fast-casual restaurant for a very long time. But one reason our customers wouldn’t come would be if we weren’t conveniently located to them. You can go in and have a nice meal and be out in 30 minutes, and our check average for 2014 fell just under $7.

What are you working on in terms of menu development?

We’re really targeting what we’re good at, which is being experts at creating great seafood.

And, apparently, sauces.

Yeah, we’ve got a great following with our sauces. And about a year ago we went to look at who was preparing our sauces. It was even surprising to me just how tricky it is for even the biggest and best sauce makers to present us with those perfect profiles and nuances and mouthfeels. It was really difficult for some of the biggest and best and brightest manufacturers to match our current sauces.

Are any new seafood offerings in the works?

We’re developing what we call a Crab Bite. We’ve put crab and some other seafood in it, and vegetables and onions, which I think makes it more than just a great crab cake, and because it’s bite-sized we can give our customers a lot of them. We love these smaller bite-sized items and put them in shareable baskets that customers might order in addition to an entrée like Butterfly Shrimp.

So you’re working on items that will help with incremental sales?

We just finished up a Shrimp Jambalaya Soup. We’ve gained some real traction in the soup category. We see a lot of folks ordering soup with their meal. We’re going to offer through April a Loaded Potato Soup that I’d put against any potato soup, even in the casual-dining segment. And because of that full meal experience and the similarities we share with casual dining, we do OK with our dessert mix, too.

Right now through April we’re probably going to offer our Funnel Cake Stix. It’s got everything you love about a funnel cake, but in a stick format. It’s a hot, fresh, glazed product. When we first put those out we served them with a caramel sauce, but we noticed that a lot of people weren’t using it, and we found they were just as satisfied without it.

We’ve also got a lot of new ways to package our items. Whenever we [offer] a bite-sized item, you can pair it with other items, too.

We’ve created a fish lover’s meal — breaded flounder and Southern-style fish tenders [farm-raised white fish cut into whole-muscle strips and breaded in a cornmeal breading with Cajun spice].

But we sell more of our batter-dipped Alaska pollock than anything else. Our customers come to us for that and the hushpuppies.

How are Captain D’s grilled items selling?

We started rolling out the grilled menu when I started here, and we could confidently say that every store had a grill at the beginning of last year. I’m expecting our grilled product mix to increase by a double-digit percentage again this year. We offer some standard grilled fish items, like a well-seasoned wild Alaska salmon or tilapia or shrimp skewers. We also brought back shrimp scampi over pasta in a sauce with lemon, garlic and butter notes. It’s reminiscent of a creamy Alfredo pasta, and our guests responded really well to that.

We also did a Surf and Turf of grilled shrimp with beef tips and shrimp skewers, and grilled whitefish, and in February we’ll be doing a tilapia with a shrimp skewer.

We also continue to use flavor in different ways. Everybody assumes you need the grill for the healthy halo, but for our core guest the grill is something they love not necessarily because it’s healthy, but because of the variety. They’re very receptive to a sweeter glaze or a creamy sauce or something decadent, like shrimp or crab on top of the fish. It’s been good to see our folks appreciate the grill for more than just reducing the calories and the fat. But it’s also helped us respond to the growing trend of “me diets.” For whatever people are trying to reduce — calories or fat or sodium or gluten — this grill platform has allowed us to service just about everybody.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
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