I have always admired Hard Rock Cafe for it’s uniqueness and more importantly it’s restaurant business philosophy for success. They care about the people.They care about their employees and their customers. This is their mantra to success. Many other big restaurant brands have come and gone including Planet Hollywood, but Hard Rock Cafe remains strong and solid like a rock right in the heart of down town Atlanta.
Mission Statement of Hard Rock Cafe
“To spread the spirit of Rock ‘n Roll by delivering an exceptional entertainment and dining experience. We are committed to being an important, contributing member of our community and offering the Hard Rock family a fun, healthy, and nurturing work environment while ensuring our long-term success.”
From the mission statement you can tell that they take care of their employees. They treat them like a family and create an environment of fun where the employees look forward to come to work not just for the sake of the job but to enjoy the work. They do it by delivering exceptional entertainment and dining experience to their guests. It becomes so natural to them that the work seems like play and more fun. Who wouldn’t want to work in that kind of fun and entertaining work environment?
Also they focus on customers making sure that they deliver unique entertainment and dining experience. Mastering on these two things they have created a huge successful restaurant empire. They have been able to expand to different countries around the world and become an international brand. There are several reasons that has led to the success of Hard Rock Cafe. Below are the seven reasons that I noticed after watching the video and will try my best to explain them to you. Hope it will give you some ideas and more importantly the mindset of a restaurant entrepreneur who wants to be successful not only in United States but world wide in any country around the globe.
7 Key Reasons are:
- Flexibility is the key to win in this complex Global competitive restaurant market
- Use Speed to your advantage
- Restaurant should focus on experience economy
- Be different than other restaurants in the crowd
- Music has a mystic formula for success
- Merchandise can be mobile marketing billboards for your restaurant brand
- You are in People Business and not in Food Business
Flexibility is the key to win in this complex Global competitive restaurant market.
Hard Rock Cafe is flexible with the product, design and so many other aspects of their restaurants based on the local market they enter into. It means that they try to present themselves customizing things to the likes of their local customers. Every different restaurants have unique design customizing to the local country they are in.They empower the local franchisee to create their own unique Hard Rock Cafe that delivers unique guest experience. This is What I call being flexible. Flexibility also means that you respect the tradition and culture of the locals and design your restaurant settings with that view in the mind. Other wise you might build something that you think is ok but then later find out that it is not accepted by the locals. The perfect example is when Disney Land in Paris, built some of the restaurants with American Consumers in mind. Americans consumers are used to eating while standing or even walking on a busy street in New york. Well the consumers in Paris have a different custom. They prefer to sit and relax for few minutes to enjoy their food. Even a great company like Disney Land can fail in that aspect if they are not flexible to custom make the designs and settings according to that country’s local norm.So I hope if you are planning to expand your restaurant whether in US or internationally please make sure you are flexible.
Use Speed to your Advantage
With flexibility comes Speed.When you are flexible, it means that you are willing to work with what is available locally. You are willing to take consideration of the social culture or the local government rules, local business practices.This will allow you to accomplish the things faster even after having to deal with the most bureaucratic governments or different culture in most unique places in different countries around the world. Speed is the key for faster expansion. In every business in most cases who is early in the innovation curve wins. So when you see a market whether in US or in a different country try to be the first and capture the market before your competitor. For example KFC was early to recognize the opportunity in China. So they went into that market first before McDonald’s. KFC enjoys the greater market share today though McDonald’s has started to expand rapidly once they knew that they were getting late in Chinese market.Right now China and India are the best international market for any restaurant business entrepreneurs if you have thought about expanding your brand in international market.
Restaurants should focus on experience economy
One of the main mistakes most of the restaurants make is, they think that they have to make the best food in the town to be successful. That is far from truth. McDonald’s doesn’t have the best food. I am not suggesting that your restaurant should not strive to make the most delicious food in the town. You should. In the process of focusing more on this part of making delicious food (tangible product) they loose track of providing the intangible product which is experience. Hard Rock cafe sells experience. Food is just the medium that allows them to sell what they are good at and that is delivering exceptional entertainment and dining experience. I hope you will focus more on selling experience than just the food.
Be different than other restaurants in the crowd
To stand out in this crowded restaurant market you have to differentiate your restaurant. If not then your restaurant gets lost in the crowd and no body notices it. Just look at Hard Rock Cafe. It is different out side and inside. Just looking at their big guitar outside attracts me to their restaurant. Since I love music and guitar, it connects with me even without going inside. Even for the first timers who have never visited Hard Rock Cafe it connects with those music lovers who like to enjoy food in a fun and entertaining environment.When you look at the world of sub sandwiches, Subway is different.They have Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and that is fresh subway sandwich, made the way you want it, on fresh bread baked that day. They are different from other thousands of Sandwich places around by being unique and different. So please create your own USP for your restaurant and be unique and different from other restaurants.
Music has a mystic formula for success.
Music is life. Music is universal and doesn’t have boundaries. Whether one is from India,China, Japan, Mexico, France, Australia or Nigeria, everyone likes music and of course the food too. But the trick is when you have so many different cultures and may be different food preferences how do you bring all of them into your food establishment. Not by trying to sell them the food first because they might have different tastes. But if you begin by selling them the entertaining experience using music first you might have more chances to attract that diverse clientele into your restaurant. Hard Rock Cafe has been successful at selling the Rock and Roll,Hard Rock experience.That’s why they attract all the tourists from around the world. Music has a mystic formula for success. So use it to your restaurant’s advantage.
Merchandise can be mobile marketing billboards for your restaurant brand
Merchandise is another area where even other BIG restaurant brands go wrong. Hard Rock Cafe has done it right. That’s why I admire it’s creativity. If I would compare Hard Rock Cafe with Technology company, I would say it is Apple of restaurant industry. Like Apple Hard Rock Cafe delivers the best design, best user experience, and best marketing. Did you hear the last part? I said best marketing. Let me tell you why?
Selling merchandise alone is another revenue stream for their restaurant business. They make good chunk of money from just selling those t shirts, jackets, and hats. May be more than what they make from selling foods.(Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m just guessing looking at the number of t shirts, jackets, and hats worn by other people that I have seen myself and considering it has a world wide appeal.)
Do you see the genius of a restaurant business which is also a great marketing company?
Hard Rock Cafe is shooting two birds at one shot. I consider Hard Rock Cafe not just in the business of restaurant but also marketing. Just think about this, all the Hard Rock Cafe restaurants in different countries are selling the merchandise to all those tourists coming from around the world to that particular country. Hard Rock Cafe is smart enough to make sure that jacket, t shirt or hat from that particular city is available only in that place. This makes it more attractive for the tourist to buy it as a souvenir. Now this is the genius part. First of all they make the money selling that t shirt, hats or jackets or any merchandise. The tourists after the vacation go back to their country. Either they wear those t shirts, hats or jackets themselves or give as presents to their friends and families. In either case they are essentially making their own customers as a moving advertising bill board. Instead of having one billboard on a highway, they have thousand if not millions of those small billboard walking around the cities of the world. Thus promoting further the brand of Hard Rock Cafe. This is what I call a genius of a restaurant business leveraging it’s own customers to market it’s brand.
“You are in People Business and not in Food Business”
Let me make the above statement clear to those who have not got the concept. Some of you might be in a false perception of what business you are really in. Yes, I understand that you as a restaurant owners or operators sell food. But the real customers come to restaurant not just for food. They come for experience. Food is a tangible product. Any competitor can come behind you and make exactly the same product or may be even better. But with experience which is intangible product which can only be felt but not touched, it is hard for any one to duplicate. It is a unique experience your restaurant should attempt to deliver. There could be other restaurants who can make better food (tangible) than Hard Rock Cafe. But I can bet with you that they can not deliver the same level of exceptional entertainment and dining experience. It is intangible. It is different. You cannot touch the experience. You can only feel it. Hard Rock Cafe has special group of people who are the team members of the restaurant but also who are as a part of the family, that delivers the unique experience to the guests.
So my recommendation to all the restaurants is to focus on creating a great team of employees (people) that can deliver exceptional service and dining experience. You might have to do lot of filtering through lots of interviews, but it is worth it until you find the right people. Sometimes you might not find them right away. But keep looking and they will appear. Once you locate, try to attract them to work for your restaurant even if you have to pay a little extra than others that are average. Create a fun environment to work at like Hard Rock Cafe. Your restaurant must be like a fun place to be for both your employees and customers. The synergy is powerful when you bring two most passionate, fun loving group of people together in one place into your restaurant. Food is actually just a medium to connect two group of people to create a most unique dining experience which they both might remember for long time to come. This is what I believe a restaurant should aim for.
What do you think? Do you think restaurants should focus on making the best food in the town or delivering the exceptional dining experience to their guests? I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.
