The parent of the Souplantations/Sweet Tomatoes chain is rolling out an upgraded restaurant design and accompanying marketing campaign that plays up its long-time focus on fresh-from-the-farm and made-from-scratch food.
“We really wanted to update the whole feel of the restaurants to create more of a contemporary farmer’s market kind of feel,” said John Morberg, who stepped into the chief executive role at San Diego-based Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. in July, after serving as interim CEO since May, following the departure of David Goronkin.
“We’ve had relationships with family farms for years,” he said. Much of the produce supplied to the chain is locally grown in Southern California. “In some cases, produce is going straight from the farms to our kitchens in recyclable containers that will go right back to the farms. We have produce going directly to the restaurants within eight hours, and you can’t get much fresher than that.”
In addition, most of the Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes menu is made from scratch, both in central kitchens and in the restaurants — from the focaccia to the baked goods on the dessert bar.
As the remodel program rolls out, it is being supported by a marketing campaign that debuted in October with the tagline “Discover Fresh.”
In 2012, Garden Fresh attempted a completely reworked concept called Sweet Tomatoes Field Kitchen at two units in Arizona, with the goal of better communicating some of these ideas and making the brand more relevant to consumers, but it was not successful. Morberg said it went too far.
“It was too big a departure for our core guests,” he said. “We took a lot of learnings from that and applied some of those ideas to the new design.”
The Discover Fresh design is an upgrade to the dining room with an emphasis on fresh produce, which is piled high on a cart near the entrance.
From the wood floors and paint to the artwork and staff uniforms, the design aims to project the feel of a farmer’s market. Tabletop materials tell the story of the mushrooms in the soup, for example, or the broccoli from a farmer known as “Broccoli Bob.”
Morberg said the new look also leans toward a more casual-dining experience, while still offering the speed of fast-casual and fully customized service.
“It’s the most customizable experience you can have,” said Morberg, noting that giving guests more control and transparency in supply are two hot trends. “We are top notch in both of those. For us, now, it’s about making the experience in the restaurant better and getting the word out.”
The company has reworked 15 restaurants in Southern California, and two in North Carolina, as well as the two concept units in Arizona that were tested in 2012.
Next phase of brand refresh
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With marketing support, which so far has focused on radio, remodeled units are showing a 7- to 10-percentage-point improvement in same-store sales on average, Morberg said.
“This has given us a lot of confidence,” Morberg said.
The next phase is to refresh another 18 units in 18 weeks. The goal is to finish Southern California, then move to the northern part of the state, followed by Florida, Houston, Portland and Las Vegas. Most of the chain’s 128 locations will be touched, and Morberg predicts it will take a few years. Once the refresh is well underway, however, the company will return to growth, which has been on hold while the rebranding work was done.
“I’m already looking at potential sites for early 2016 for new restaurants,” Morberg said.
Garden Fresh ended fiscal 2013 with U.S. systemwide sales of $209.1 million, rising 0.5 percent, from $208.1 million the prior year.
Morberg said 2013 was a year of some “marketing snafus,” though he declined to elaborate. In October, the chain signed the Los Angeles-based advertising agency Krueger Communications, replacing former agency of record Vitro Agency of San Diego.
Garden Fresh also named a new chief financial officer in September, along with a chief marketing officer, Julie Derry, who previously headed digital commerce at See’s Candies.
Derry sees a tremendous opportunity in digital marketing, with about half of the chain’s most loyal customers using the mobile app as members of “Club Veg.” Those customers receive emailed coupons, but Derry said the chain is working toward a finely targeted approach that will segment customers based on specific attributes. Vegetarians, for example, will get emails about the dining options they’re most likely to seek out, rather than news about the chicken pot pie.
“There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for us to segment our email file and send more relevant messages,” Derry said.
The chain is also hosting live events in the San Diego area where guests can meet some of the local farmers.
Next year, Garden Fresh will look at using local broadcast television advertising, Morberg said.
“We will probably test TV in San Diego come the first of the year, and we haven’t done that for many, many years,” he said.
Garden Fresh is owned by Boca Raton, Fla.-based private-equity firm Sun Capital Partners Inc.
Contact Lisa Jennings at [email protected].
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