Restaurant Consultants Pose Questions to Avoid These 10 Chains Fate

It is the job of restaurant consultants to constantly recommend and steer restaurants and foodservice chains to maximize their sales so as to produce constant income to sustain, expand and reinvent itself where necessary. It is also important to watch the economic landscape of its competitors and recommend a lesson or two from what is happening to its clients. There is a recent article in this light that talks about 10 restaurant chains that have been failing. Most notably among the group are Bennigan’s, Ground Round, Tony Roma’s, Big Boy and Black Angus Steakhouse. In MSN Money, 24/7 Wall St states in part that “Many restaurants on this list are casual family-dining establishments. Most offer American-style cuisine — steaks and burgers — in a bar or grill setting. These restaurants expanded quickly during the 1990s. But their presence was overshadowed by newer restaurants that consumers found more exciting. Even now, new fast-casual restaurants are outselling, and in many instances replacing, older restaurants.” So what are the restaurant consultants takeaways in this story? In the case of Bennigan’s and Ground Round, is the combination of casual dining with tried and true menu items, such as steaks and burgers, saturating the market while consumer growth remains stagnant? If an outside restaurant expert had done the proper due diligence, would the Tony Roma’s brand be equipped to survive in more cities as it has done internationally before closing its stores in the USA? Regarding Black Angus Steakhouse where the prices and check averages are high and many stores were subsequently closed, were their expansion ambitions too aggressive given that only so many customers can afford to spend a lot of money eating out several days a week? Should a failing restaurant such as the Big Boy chain reshape and reinvent itself to capture customers flocking to more exciting and newer concepts or was it inevitable? Based on the above questions, what would your restaurant consultants say about these issues at your existing and planned restaurants? Is there something that one of these failed restaurant chains did that mirrors your operation? Please share your thoughts with our readers.