Menu Simplicity can lead to greater success
Buffalo Wings & Rings perfects a simple menu for better consistency, better quality and a more satisfied customer-base.
For years, Buffalo Wings & Rings has risen above a growing flock of competitors by merging the high-volume potential of a casual dining experience with the simplicity of a quick-service restaurant—and those keys to success all start in the kitchen.
Many restaurants (think Cheesecake Factory) boast a dense menu of spiral-bound pages filled with dozens of entrée choices. While many might enjoy choosing from a hodgepodge of meals, a big menu can mean big waste, big inventory, big kitchen staff, big costs, big wait times and big confusion for the business.
Menu complexity does two things to service times: Creates congestion in the kitchen and customer-induced delay (meaning consumers need more time to order from a menu jam-packed with items). Put simply, it costs more to serve customers at a restaurant with a broad menu. Simple menus, on the other hand, can be more profitable, and have helped many fast-casual concepts generate some strong margins.
Since 1984, when Buffalo Wings & Rings served up its very first meal in Cincinnati, Ohio, it has focused on creating the best bare-bones menu of wings, hamburgers, sandwiches, appetizers and salads possible. Today, the chain sees no need to branch out into other menu categories, and the brand has stayed sharply focused on its handful of core products. According to Chief Development Officer Philip Schram, this simplicity has been a major driving force in the brand’s success. He said it leads to better consistency, better quality and a more satisfied customer-base.
“When you go to a casual dining restaurant, they have a wide menu. This can cause a feeling of disarray, and oftentimes these kinds of restaurants are not very good at anything in particular,” Schram said. “For example, we don’t offer pizza because there are already a lot of people who are very good at it. Our strategy is to stick to what we know: We’re very focused on a group of products that we build variation around. In the end, it helps us do that one thing very well.”
A simpler menu has also helped the restaurant build a more streamlined kitchen. The restaurant cuts out any confusion and difficulty that would otherwise slow things down.
“A large menu is very difficult because you need a larger kitchen, more equipment and more people from that expertise,” Schram said.
Buffalo Wings & Rings has expounded on its niche by engineering kitchens to be as simple and efficient as possible—the brand has computerized its spaces, which creates kitchens that utilize technology to produce food at a greater speed, volume and consistency.
In the end, the simpler menu philosophy helps Buffalo Wings & Rings bring in more revenue while keeping customers happy.
“We’re ultimately a casual dining restaurant but we operate a fast-casual kitchen,” Schram said. “Our success is based on repeat customers who are going to come back over and over to the restaurant. Our menu and kitchen is designed to prevent and mistakes. This way, customers are going to get a consistent experience every time, which makes them happy.”
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