How To Go Brand A Successful Restaurant –Hint, Consistency!

Consistency!  Consistency!  Consistency!  It’s a branding imperative! 

Folks, I’ve written and spoken a lot about how consistency –i.e., giving the customer a consistently positive experience with your brand— is the key to successful, long-term branding and there is no better example of this truth than with some fine restaurants –eating at them is one of my favorite pastimes!  I live in New York and the fact is fine restaurants come and go here –mainly they just go. 

These places open to fanfare and then a year or so later they close their doors (statistically speaking, if you open a restaurant odds are you are going to be broke for the first year and be very, very lucky if you survive – restaurants are the “death match” of branding and show just how unforgiving bad branding can be!). .   

That’s why when a fine restaurant sticks around, I take notice and being the Marketing Doctor I naturally think brand!  What about the brand works and why does it work? 

Le Bernardin has been around for twenty-plus years and it still has the same four-star rating it got soon after it opened in 1986.  It is one of my favorite brands –and my favorite seafood restaurant— and here’s why (I’ll turn this into a “how to” down the page):

1. Every time you go to Le Bernardin you know that you are going to leave happy and not have a doubt in your mind that your money was well spent.  Chef Eric Ripert (pictured above) prepares his food flawlessly and lets the main ingredients do the talking not –like many celebrity chefs— the spices and sauces which can “correct” taste if something’s not the best in the main ingredient but often lead to a “food hangover”;
2. Part of the restaurant’s brand is about bringing the diner new culinary experiences with the best ingredients.  And you feel like the chef cares about you having these new experiences –last time I was there he came out for a chat.  He might be a celebrity chef (he’s considered the best seafood chef in the U.S.) but I walked away knowing that he cared about his food and his customers and seemed truly happy that we were happy –and unlike some celebrity chefs he sticks close to his kitchen and rarely appears on TV!  He really gets it!
3. Le Bernardin’s staff gets it too!  They share in the culinary mission so the customer gets the sense the whole restaurant is behind you having the best experience possible.
4. You never forget that you’re the customer!

And in NYC this is a rarity.  After a tough day fighting the brand war for a client in the marketplace –it’s refreshing to go out and find a place where “no” is not on the menu!!!

Restaurants –whether the cheapest or the most expensive— are a complicated business and I’m not even going try to outline everything about making one successful, but in terms of brand here’s the corresponding “how to” to my Le Bernardin experience (and, quite frankly, it applies to every kind of branding –personal, product or service):

1. Be consistent!  Your customer has got to believe without a doubt that they can count on your brand.  Part of this means delivering what you promise and delivering it every single time!
2. Consistency doesn’t just happen!  There is a lot of hard work and planning behind being consistent.  Every day Ripert makes sure the best and freshest ingredients are being use –every day!  And every day he has to remember make sure his staff remembers that they are there to provide the Le Bernarding experience and to serve!  And on top of that he has to let his customers know that he is there, available and working hard for them!  Brand survival and success depend on it!
3. Consistency at every single point where your customers encounter your brand!.  If one aspect of Le Bernardin’s brand is off, it throws off everything.  All brands touch their target markets on many different levels and if something is off on any of these levels, then everything gets thrown off and after a while you stop meeting the needs of your target market and you lose them.  Again, hard work, good planning and smart implementation are needed to make this happen –and usually strong personal involvement to stay on top of things!
4. Remember your customer really does come first!.  No matter how successful your brand becomes, if you forget this rule then sooner or later things are going to go bad.  If it’s a service industry you’re in, then it means being available and responsive to your customers.  Being responsive doesn’t just mean acting like your responsive … it means actually being responsive –if something wasn’t quite right with my meal, I guarantee that Chef Ripert would want to hear about it and when he did hear about it, he would listen with humility and make sure something got done to fix the problem.  And fast! 

A successful brand only seems inevitable.  Fact is, no brand is inevitable and the best brands take this marketing truth for granted because they never take their customers for granted!!!

And, remember, it’s always easier when you keep branding in mind!

Here a few sites for more on Le Bernardin and others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/dining/reviews/16rest.html
http://www.dininginfrance.com/LeBernardin_Bown_review.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/dining/26nside.html?em&ex=1206763200&en=033ca8ccfec69b52&ei=5087%0A
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A84315
http://www.le-bernardin.com/
http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/jean-georges/
http://jean-georges.com/
And here’s some basic do’s and don’t guidelines:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2001-04-25/food/how-to-open-a-successful-restaurant.php
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2002/08/26/focus6.html