Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | December 11, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 13 F O O D & D R I N K F O C U S W Knowledge + Experience + Trusted Advice. It all adds up. Large enough to serve the needs of most businesses and individuals; small enough to offer the personal attention you expect and deserve. Greenberg, Rosenblatt, Kull & Bitsoli, PC Certified Public Accountants 306 Main Street, Suite 400 • Worcester, MA 01608 508.791.0901 • www.grkb.com Who has time/money for lunch? Pressure for time, costs trends and more employees working from home have combined to take away 433 million trips to restaurants for lunch nationally in 2016, and an estimated $3.2 billion in lost sales, according to the market research firm NPD Group. When polled online, more than half of WBJ's readers say they barely go out to lunch any more. F L A S H P O L L How often do you go out to lunch at a restaurant during a workday? COMMENTS: Every day or nearly so Once every few months or less 51% About once a week 14% "One employee picks up takeout daily for everyone who orders." "I wish I could afford to eat out more often and support local restaurants, but I don't see it happen- ing any time soon." "I generally eat lunch at my desk in order to keep working rather than take time out during the day." Several times a month 14% Several times a week 10% 11% increasing, Covino said, forcing owners to find the right balance among costs, quality food and competitive prices. "But people don't really want to pay more for lunch," he said. "That's a chal- lenge for restaurateurs to find where that right price point is." "If you're doing a good job," Covino added, "then people don't say, 'You're expensive,' they say, 'You're worth it.'" Making it a quick meal At Northborough-based Bertucci's, a new program gives patrons a free meal if they order off the lunch menu and don't get their food within 15 minutes. Bertucci's is serious enough about the initiative a server even puts a stop- watch on the table for guests. "They saw it almost as part of a game," Bertucci's CEO Brian Wright said of guests of the pilot program in the Philadelphia area. In a test, one group of businesspeople was happy to have a delayed – and free – meal, and returned two days later, he said. The program will roll out in Greater Boston starting in December. Wright, who joined Bertucci's in mid-2016 after stint as an executive at Boston-based Au Bon Pain, said full- service restaurants need to match their fast-casual counterparts like Panera Bread or Chipotle Mexican Grill on price, quality and speed. "I just knew we had to do some- thing different," Wright said. In addition to the Express Lunch rollout, Bertucci's has simplified its order-by-app process and before the end of the year will start a new app where customers get a four-digit code upon entering a restaurant. That patron can give that code to a server, and not have to wait for a check at the end of the meal. The bill is connected to a credit card through the app. Boston-based Uno Pizzeria & Grill has put more of an emphasis on its take-out business, which has become the fastest growing part of its business, Chief Marketing Officer Skip Weldon said. Sales are increasingly coming from an online ordering system, too. "Everybody is trying to find out ways to make it really easy for the consumer," Weldon said. Rise of delivery Industry publication QSR Magazine called 2016 the worst year for restau- rants since the Great Recession, with a 1.1-percent drop in same-store sales. DineEquity, the owner of Applebee's and IHOP, saw sales drop from $713 million in 2012 to $502 million last year, a fall of nearly one-third. The chain closed 46 Applebee's on what it says was a sustained decline in sales. Darden Restaurants, the owner of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and others, said in its 2016 annual report it expected increased competition from prepared meals in supermarkets. Rushed diners have given a boost to online delivery service providers like DoorDash, GrubHub and UberEats. Non-pizza delivery purchases have risen by 30 percent in the past four years, according to NPD. The firm Morgan Stanley said in July it expects today's $30-billion online food delivery market to hit $220 billion by 2020 – what would mark a more than seven- fold increase in just a few years. More than 50 percent of delivery meals are now ordered online, Morgan Stanley reported from its survey. The shrinking amount of time the business crowd has for lunch has led to a rise in technology-enabled services, designed to make buying food from restaurants faster and easier.

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