Many Happy Returns (Santé)
For newly opened restaurant bars, getting customers in the door the
first time is a significant task. But for operations that have been
doing business for some time, establishing long-term relationships with
regular customers is success defined. Well-honed marketing programs and
employee participation produce the best results.
Making the Connection
For Pazzo, a fine-dining Italian restaurant in the Hotel Vintage
Plaza, a Kimpton Restaurant Group property in Portland, Oregon, the
combination of an old-fashioned happy hour and awareness of various
area trends does the trick. Deep happy-hour price breaks have faded as
operators worry about over consumption. But according to Pazzo General
Manager Jon Dow, the daily attraction of sizable discounts on drinks
and small plates gets neighborhood professionals to return. In addition
Pazzo connects with regulars by appealing to the Pacific Northwest’s
pride of place, changing menus quarterly and offering seasonal local
ingredients.
It’s not only fresh local fruits and herbs that make it onto the
changing cocktail list; Pazzo features popular regionally produced
spirits, such as brandies made by Oregon distiller Clear Creek. The
restaurant also connects to the community by sharing profits from
select cocktails with local charities. The drink and the charitable
tie-in are promoted in-house. Pazzo has also plugged in to the
independent movie scene by turning over once-dead Sunday evenings to
screenings of local films on a 60- inch TV. “We fill the room now,”
crows Dow.
Rewarding Loyal Customers
Filling many rooms for Old Chicago, a 92-unit operation based in
Louisville, Colorado, is its industry-heralded World Beer Tour
customer-loyalty program. Corporate Beverage Manager Tracy Finklang
explains, “The Beer Tour is all about getting people invested in our
restaurants and bringing them back, over and over.”
The promotion invites registered guests to sample 110 beers in any
unit. More than 500,000 registered participants use an electronic swipe
card to track their list, and prizes are awarded at different
completion levels. The ultimate prize is a name plaque placed at the
customer’s home restaurant. “Our customers are incredibly loyal, and
this matters to them,” Finklang remarks. “They take ownership of the
Tour, [and] they get to know our managers and servers through their
careers with us.”
At the four-unit Chicago-based Adobo Grill, co-owner Paul LoDuca
employs another classic marketing tool to reward regulars: a
frequent-diner program. “When we develop a lot of regular customers at
the bar, we waive the program’s sign-up fee to give them a little
benefit,” he notes. Members earn points toward free meals or gifts with
every dollar they spend.
Adobo has also built a following with its monthly Tequila dinners
and keeps these events fresh by changing themes—for example, basing the
meal on corn, tomato, or mole or focusing on a region of Mexico. A
drink served at the dinner is promoted before and after to extend the
program’s awareness among regulars.
Involving the Staff
While new Adobo customers are likely to favor margaritas and
guacamole at the bar, Adobo’s bartenders are expected to connect with
guests by introducing the bar’s range of Tequilas. “When we have a
chance to talk to them, show our list and the Tequilas on the backbar,
and talk a little about the spirit, they may try a Tequila or a flight
the bartender recommends,” LoDuca offers. “The bartenders are the ones
making the converts.”
Making certain that staff is trained to convert newbies to regular
guests is also important at Old Chicago. “We do a lot of training to
get our staff to recognize and greet old customers when they arrive and
to introduce new customers to managers and other staff,” Finklang says.
A friendly staff welcome has been a core company business-development
strategy for years, especially since the chain did not advertise,
depending instead on word of mouth. The beverage manager encourages
staff to be genuine—not to greet tables with pat phrases—and to sit
down and talk to guests. “We want [guests] to feel like our friends, so
we are friendly to them.”
Servers and bartenders can resolve issues without going to managers
and are allowed to buy guests drinks or desserts, and the chain focuses
on making every unit seem like a neighborhood joint. Finklang
concludes, “We’re a bunch of individual stores that happen to be part
of a restaurant chain, rather than a chain with a lot of different
outlets.”
Pazzo’s employees also do the heavy lifting in recruiting return
customers, and with much of Dow’s team at Pazzo marking ten-plus years,
they’re well aware that this approach has legs. “Inevitably, it’s [our
staff] who bring people back,” says Dow. “If we don’t have any return
business, we don’t have any business at all.”
Jack Robertiello writes and consults about beer, wine, spirits, food, and restaurants in Brooklyn, New York.
This article first appeared in the November 2007 issue of Santé.