Growth Strategy, Social Media Development, and Menu Redesign for a Family-Owned Italian Restaurant

Our client is a family-owned restaurant specializing in authentic Italian cuisine coined as “Nonna-approved”. While their menu covers a number of dishes, they are well known for their “focaccinas”, or sandwiches made with focaccia bread. 

Situation

At the time of Rem’s collaboration, our client was looking to expand their restaurant hours to dinner times. However, considering that this new business came into existence during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to conceptualize how to best employ a growth strategy. Primarily, our client was looking to increase guest acquisition and awareness via social media campaigns, especially for marketing dinner times. There was also an interest in increasing customer interest by improving readability and design of websites and menu offerings. Our client was also concerned that their menu prices and staffing schedules were lagging behind competitors and industry standards, and were looking to improve operational efficiency.  

Challenge

The core challenge of this project was how to expand our client’s consumer population to increase guests from younger age groups, notably Gen-Z. Our client was hoping to utilize their social media presence to tap into these demographics.

Another major challenge of this project was to improve website, menu, and operational design to match and exceed those of competitors. Our client noticed that their staffing schedules were inefficient and their website was difficult to navigate. They were hoping to improve readability and efficiency on all ends.  

Approach

With the team’s goal to provide our client with a comprehensive growth strategy and tangible redesign models, our team took a three pronged approach.

Social Media Development and Website Redesign: The team analyzed social media analytics and customer data to determine the client’s current customer base. From there, the team engaged in secondary research to determine the best posting and content strategies to engage with lesser-involved demographics. The team also underwent market research to inform a redesign of the front and about page on the website.

Menu Redesign: The team underwent secondary research of menu design strategy, to determine how to best redesign the client’s offerings. The team then developed a menu redesign strategy that would improve readability and sales. The team also performed market research on competitors to provide data on possible price inflation tactics. 

Operational Efficiency: The team analyzed staff schedules, sales trends, and customer data provided by the client to determine possible inefficiencies. The team then performed extensive secondary research on industry standards in order to compile a redesigned staffing schedule that included dinner hours and improved operational efficiency. 

Impact

Our strategy focused on increasing guest acquisition and sales through extensive redesign and marketing strategies. To streamline the communication of these improvements by providing clear social media and customer base analytic breakdowns, with comparisons to competing restaurants in the area. Our strong focus on data analysis, secondary research, and market research, allowed for further understanding of the client’s spaces for growth and development. We facilitated the implementation of these growth strategies by developing tangible redesigns and samples for the client to utilize as foundation. The team created a newly designed website page, menu, and staffing schedule that will all be made available for the client to implement. These aforementioned redesigns were heavily informed by secondary and market design research to improve efficiency and guest satisfaction.

Team Breakdown

Team Lead: Ethan Bell

Strategist: Hollis Belger

Strategist: Nhi Nguyen 

Strategist: Reilly McKnight

Relevant Background Information

Business Type: For-Profit

Industry: Food and Beverage

Location: Silver Lakes, Los Angeles

At Rem and Company, we're on a mission to keep doors open and dreams alive. Rem and Company started as a social impact initiative offering free consulting services to small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Rem and Company has become an information hub and digital community platform for small businesses in need. At Rem and Company, small businesses stay up to date on trends in their industries, learn new approaches from peers, build a network, and develop the capacity to adapt as the world around them changes.  Our consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies and facilitate execution. If you are a small business owner and want to learn more about how we can help, request a free consultation.