All of the restaurants interviewed also designate specific parking spaces close to the door for take-out orders only.
Following Through
For customers trying to tap into the convenience and also the experience of the restaurant when ordering take-out, branding becomes important.
Hasulak says that this is the portion that is often overlooked in a take-out operation. “You get a nice meal, and you take it out and it’s just in a plastic bag with a plastic fork,” he says. According to Hasulak, a successful to-go program includes high-quality napkins and utensils and extends the brand into the customer’s home by using graphics and bag inserts.
Horne warns, however, that over branding might confuse customers about a restaurant’s main focus. By overemphasizing and heavily labeling, Horne says, consumers can get confused about what the restaurant really offers. He says places like Chili’s do this by heavily emphasizing its to-go program and inundating the packaging with its logo. Pat & Oscar’s tries to keep its branding at a minimum for its to-go meals by placing its logo on the packaging, but not heavily advertising their other programs, like catering, in the to-go bags.
“At some point if you start branding everything and pushing so much into one brand, you start confusing the guest,” Horne says.
At any degree, branding that is consistent and well-positioned will give customers higher perceived value, Hasulak says. Aside from the food, good branding reminds customers, “You can take a piece of that restaurant home.”
The Next Frontier
As the fight for bigger market shares in the take-out industry becomes more competitive, concepts are trying new ways to differentiate their products from those of competitors. Full-service concepts like Outback Steakhouse and even quick-serves like Domino’s Pizza are beginning to unveil the latest way to enhance customer convenience: online ordering.
Pat & Oscar’s has online ordering in all of its locations. Horne says even though the chain was initially hesitant to use the Internet, it is now seeing a strong response from customers who do online ordering while at work. Since Pat & Oscar’s offers online ordering for both dine-in and carryout, consumers with tight schedules have more options.
McAlister’s responded to increased competition in a similar way. “A lot of our competitors were getting into the online ordering, so our franchisors really felt like it was something in their markets that they really needed to stay competitive,” Walls says. “Obviously, this was clearly the wave of the future.” McAlister’s has been testing the online system in about 30 stores in various markets for six months.
Although 35 percent of the deli’s business is takeout, Walls says that very little of that is from online ordering. “The people who use it are the very die-hard Internet users, but we think that it’s possible we’re getting some business out of it.”
He says that those who do use it tend to “skew young,” mainly between the ages of 16 and 25, but that the convenience of the system will most likely catch on in the future.