GOURMET burger chain Red Robin has some serious growth planned despite closing more than 10 restaurants since 2019.
The first Red Robin opened in Seattle, Washington in 1969.
Since then, the restaurant has grown to become a nationwide empire with nearly 550 stores across 44 states.
However, Red Robin has been fighting through financial troubles in recent years.
Back in 2006, the burger giant was at its peak – it had opened 48 new restaurants, and revenue surged by a whopping 27.3 percent.
But by 2019, the chain had shuttered 18 of its restaurants, and revenue was falling across the board.
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And at least 10 stores have closed since then as the brand battled its way through the pandemic.
As the chain fights its way out of its financial circumstances, the company’s chief executive officer, GJ Hart, said the brand will lean into its family-friendly roots to boost sales.
Specifically, Red Robin is making several changes to its restaurants under its “North Star” plan in an effort to to restore the company to its previous glory, Restaurant Dive reported.
While fostering a more kid-friendly environment is one change, Red Robin is also investing in its staple menu items, company wide hospitality, and staffing quality.
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The chain has always been known for its iconic burgers, milkshakes and bottomless fries but customers can expect burgers to be even more delicious in the near-future, Hart said.
This is because the chain is updating its cooking method for burgers.
Red Robin will also be serving up new buns and plateware to elevate the eating experience for diners.
“Those four things wrapped together were those competitive advantages,” Hart said, according to Restaurant Dive.
Alongside the menu and operations changes, Hart plans to offer franchisees more autonomy when it comes to restaurant decisions..
“It’s not trying to reinvent the wheel or Red Robin,” Hart said. “It’s taking the best of what Red Robin was as an iconic brand and bringing it forward. When you look at our first quarter results, we’ve started to make some progress.”
During the first quarter of the year, Red Robin saw comparable restaurant traffic increase by 0.6 percent while overall comparable dine-in sales surged 16.4 percent.
Comparable restaurant sales had also grown by 10 percent.
BETTER STAFFING
Red Robin is ambitiously overhauling their entire staffing structure,
The company plans to shift to a more traditional management style with salaried managers, believing that it'll be easier to recruit and retain high-quality employees.
Under its current model, Red Robin employed a range of general managers, assistant managers and hourly managers.
But starting this year, assistant managers will be replaced by kitchen managers or ‘hospitality’ managers.
The number of managers will be determined by each store’s sales volume and operator needs.
The restaurant will also return to its previous front-of-house model, with server assistants bringing out food to patrons.
More bartenders will also be added into the mix as Red Robin looks to improve the customer experience.
With a full staff, Hart said Red Robin stores have broken more than 700 hourly and weekly sales records.
The chain will also be bringing back its certified training restaurant model as well.
Under this initiative, new team leaders learn from the best operators within the Red Robin system, guaranteeing that they receive superior training.
The customer experience has also been significantly impacted by interactions with hosts at the front of the restaurant.
Ensuring each restaurant has a fully staffed host lineup will be of utmost importance in driving future Red Robin visits and higher sales overall, Hart said.
“Our overall guest satisfaction scores have gone up pretty dramatically and at a pretty rapid pace, which is nice to see,” Hart said. “Our scores are up about five points. That’s a pretty big jump over that period of time.”
MENU CHANGES
Red Robin has joined a long list of chains who are looking to improve their menus coming out of the pandemic.
While many stores opted to simplify their menus in the wake of the coronavirus, Red Robin will be looking to expand its menu in order to keep up with its customers' demands.
That means your next burger will be cooked at a higher quality, under a flat top grill designed to make your burger juicier than ever.
The look of each burger will also be different.
Instead of lying inside a food basket, your next Red Robin burger will be served on a white place, and the burger itself will be 20 percent larger.
Ingredients will be upgraded as well, with better quality mushrooms, grilled onions, tomatoes, chicken and even higher tier mayonnaise.
When it comes to Red Robin’s new menu lineup, customers should also expect some healthier options on the appetizer menu.
That means you’ll be able to get non-fried foods as well as non-burger options for those with various diet restrictions or preferences.
Customers should keep their eyes out for new salmon and ribs entrees, Hart said.
A fresh chicken sandwich could return, as could some of the chain’s previous burger favorites like the Chili Chili Cheeseburger, Shrimp & Cod Duo and Bruschetta Chicken.
“The idea there is that we’ll have low entry points from a pricing point of view, higher exit points than burgers with these other entrees,” Hart said.
The new menu will debut in some locations as early as October 2023 and should be widespread by the beginning of 2024.
The burger joint will also be expanding its partnership with pizza chain Donatos.
Red Robin already has seen significant success with the pizza brand, as stores that offer Donatos products outperformed other restaurants by 300 basis points in 2021.
“While it is a way off for us, we do believe there is a lot of whitespace for Red Robin,” Hart told Restaurant Dive.
“We can get back to growth in a few years once we do first things first and get the brand positioned properly, executing at a high level, being productive, and then being able to communicate and get the results of that so that our guests frequency goes up and that our sales grow.”
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In other burger news, White Castle is making changes to more than 100 of its drive thrus.
Meanwhile, Wendy’s fans are threatening to boycott if the chain doesn’t bring back a discontinued burger.
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