Are You Following The Four Pillars of Fast Casual Dining?

If you help to run a fast casual restaurant, you know exactly what makes “fast casual” special.

Fast casual restaurants offer a “best of both worlds” approach- the convenience and value of fast food, with the elevated quality of a sit-down restaurant.

We’ve put together a list of four core fast casual pillars (in no particular order) that you need to nurture through your business decisions. Every action you take needs to enhance one or more of these pillars in some way.

1. Consistency

For a fast casual brand to stand above fast food competitors, customers must be able to carry expectations from one restaurant to another if they share the same name. Consistency includes everything about the way a restaurant runs, from the way customers order food to the way the food is packaged.

One of the best ways to ensure consistency is to have customers order using self-service kiosks. Of course, kiosks can malfunction, but as long as you can quickly troubleshoot kiosks, their benefits still far outweigh potential negatives.

2. Respect

Fast casual restaurants must make patrons feel intelligent for having chosen them, which requires high-quality ingredients, thoughtful food preparation, and a clean and upscale dining area.

At the same time, fast casual patrons likely need to pay, eat, and leave quickly. This means that they must be able to order swiftly and obtain food promptly.

You must ensure that your employees dedicate themselves to the customer experience, respecting the customer’s intellect and limited time . If you find that employees get distracted on smart devices, you will need to prioritize helping them focus.

3. Narrative

Fast casual customers have a story they tell themselves about their needs and their standards- and by hearing the story your restaurant tells, they can discover a match between their values and yours.

Every aspect of your restaurant needs to tell a story. Rather than a traditional narrative, this story presents a set of values you think are important, and that govern how you prepare and serve food.

Digital signage that explicitly mentions your values can significantly boost coherence and endear your brand to customers. As long as you can ensure that signage can consistently display the content you want it to display, you can base your narrative around the content you display on your digital signs.

4.Value

Whether competing with fast food or sit-in dining, fast casual restaurants that offer a good value will have an edge.

Still, if restaurants offer customers value at the expense of maintaining a healthy work environment, or spend far more than they earn, value will become harder and harder to sustain. You need to be sustainable for yourself and your organization before you can offer your customers a truly valuable experience.

Many fast casual restaurants offer true value. This means it isn’t impossible to find solutions that are both cheap and high-quality. Taking the time to research until you find solutions that work for you is essential.

The Key to Upholding All Four Pillars: Mobile Device Management

Mobile device management software is the central thread that connects all of the fast casual pillars.

You might have noticed one pillar missing- what about value? Not every good MDM solution is affordable enough, and not every affordable MDM solution is good enough.

SureMDM by 42Gears is affordable and comprehensive, letting you uphold all four pillars at a cost you can afford.

To learn more about SureMDM’s features, and why it aligns so well with the needs of fast casual restaurants, click here.

For a risk-free 30-day trial of SureMDM, click here.