Rash decisions are often ill-advised, but restaurant brands should be ready to make quick adjustments as trends change.
It’s something fast-casual brands Portillo’s and Qdoba have become accustomed to in order to meet evolving technology and customer behavior. During a panel at the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference, representatives from both gave recent examples, including one in the last several months.
Michelle Hook, Portillo’s chief financial officer, explained how the brand, which doesn’t franchise, felt it necessary to install kiosks at its locations, given the ordering channel’s growing presence in the industry.
“We recognize we were a bit slower to implement those in our restaurants,” Hook said. “But we quickly pivoted to put them in some of our units in July and saw the benefit immediately. We decided to roll it out across our system, and by the end of October, we had kiosks in all of our locations.”
Hook said an advantage Portillo’s has in making quick maneuvers is its size and operating system.
Michelle Hook is the CFO of Portillo’s.
“We have just under 90 restaurants and we’re all corporate-owned,” Hook said. “So, we have the ability to run things pretty fast and we can pivot quickly with whatever’s going on in the industry. I’ve been with a franchised brand before and understand the dynamic of things there, where you have to prove your business case to those growing with you. But for us, I just love that we’re able to move so quickly.”
John Cywinski, CEO of Qdoba parent company Modern Restaurant Concepts, said franchise brands can also shift when needed, though it can be a more thorough process.
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“We’re evaluating nationally advertising Qdoba, which we’ve never done,” Cywinski said. “I have a bunch of franchise partners who are saying, ‘I don’t know if I want to increase my contribution rate because my business is pretty good.’ That’s an example where we use influence and alignment. Rather than attempting to twist their arms, we’ll go prove it over six months in different markets before letting data drive our decision.”
The advertising is necessary, Cywinski said, as just 40 percent of Americans are aware of Qdoba, despite it having more than 760 units in 46 states. In response, Cywinski said the brand is working on its awareness through social media as it eyes new locations in major growth markets like Houston.
“TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook are all platforms that are important to us,” Cywinski said. “We don’t spend a lot of money at the moment on it, but when we do deploy those funds, our team is extraordinarily creative.”
John Cywinski is CEO of Modern Restaurant Concepts.
Hook said the creativity is key for Portillo’s, too, and brands should be ready for spontaneous chances to advertise. In her remarks, Hook described how Portillo’s quickly partnered with music producer and DJ John Summit in just a couple days for a pop-up concert at a Chicago location.
“We have a very cult-like following, and sometimes partnerships will come to you,” Hook said. “When opportunities arise, we’re going to jump on them, because we spend less than a point on marketing. We’re very gritty, grass-roots and localized in terms of our marketing, using a lot of social media. We’re doing content on TikTok and video creation, because that’s how people now want to communicate, versus traditional advertising.”
The Restaurant Finance & Development Conference, presented by the Restaurant Finance Monitor, Franchise Times and Food On Demand, runs through November 13 at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.