Barbeque Nation entered the Indian restaurant market with a unique All You Can Eat concept. The CEO, Prosenjit Roy Choudhury introduced the Buffet system for its customers along with the Independent dining experience.
Guests pay flat prices for their meal depending upon their food preference. These prices range between Rs 650 and Rs 800 per head, depending on location and time. Customers get a choice of five vegetarian and five non-vegetarian starters that they can season and cook on the grill at their table, move to the main course buffet and eat as much as they want.
Between 2006 and 2008, Barbeque Nation grew from a single outlet to 13. Today, it has 35 outlets, 18 of the opening in the last year alone.
But have you ever wondered how do restaurants like the Barbeque Nation actually earn their profits if they allow their customers to eat on an unlimited basis?
Well, these restaurants follow a couple of ground rules to ensure that their business is fetching them desired profits. Here are a few things they do.
The Clock Is Always Running.
Even if it is an all you can eat buffet your time at the restaurant is always limited. Buffet restaurants usually serve the three meals of the day. For instance, the dinner buffet starts at 7 PM and goes up to 11 PM. During the four hours, customers can only eat so much.
A restaurant in China made this mistake of allowing patrons to eat all they could all day long and ended up getting bankrupt.
All You Can Eat Until You Cant.
Most people will eat only what they can handle, leaving the restaurants in profits. While there are many customers who will eat more than they can handle, the damage these consumers do is far less than the profit these restaurants make from others.
Marketing Is The Key To Success
It becomes all the more crucial for the restaurants offering unlimited food as a lot is at stake here. Since the minimum spend of customers is also high, it gets even more difficult to gather footfall in such restaurants. This is why these restaurants spend a lot in marketing their brand. From offering cuisines from different countries on specific days to celebrating certain festivals at their restaurants. These restaurants have always improved their marketing game.
However difficult it may seem, the fact that these restaurants are still running after all these years of offering an unlimited buffet proves that their profit-making strategies are on point.
