Your restaurant’s mission, value, and personality are the three main factors that will help you in the branding decisions of your restaurant brand. They will also help you stand out in the highly competitive market and have something that makes you unique from the customer’s perspective.
Starting from defining the restaurant’s mission
This stage is to understand what the restaurant stands for and what it wants to achieve. So, start by asking yourself what the restaurant does. The answer is to define the specific cuisine you are going after and the dining experience your restaurant will be capable of providing to its guests. For example, if your restaurant is focused on business events, where the cuisine is more professional and sophisticated, or if your restaurant is dedicated to food of specific roots, including Armenian, Chinese, etc, and where the atmosphere is more family-friendly for casual dining experiences.
The next question is to understand the reason behind opening the restaurant of those criteria. So, you can ask yourself why you’re opening that specific restaurant. In this stage, you can reflect on the purpose behind opening the restaurant, is it maybe the passion for food, a desire to bring people together, or a wish to make something your own, a functional public space that belongs to you?
The last stages of defining the mission
You can proceed to how and what you do to reach the desirable results. To understand “how”, describe the methods you will use, including the sourcing of the local ingredients and providing excellent service, paying attention to cleanliness, and other key factors that will slowly add up to your company branding. And to understand “what to do for the desirable results” you can set the main goals that reflect your mission. The letters can be the restaurant’s community engagements and even the culinary innovations.
Lastly, what are your restaurant’s unique selling points (in other words the USPs)? This stage is to help you define some factors, including procedures, special offerings, the menu, signature dishes, hall color palette, etc, that could be unique and available only in your restaurant. This is not only a uniqueness, but also a part of your restaurant branding, that will help you in the long run.
Now, it’s time to understand the concept of values for your restaurant
The values of your restaurant are the principles that represent the restaurant’s operations and interactions. These mostly cover the quality, which is recommended to be high, regardless if it’s the ingredients of the dishes you will make, or the meals and dishes themselves. The next value that a reputable restaurant should follow is the concept of community support, for example, whether your restaurant values the local community or not.
The last two values are about the sustainability and innovation of your restaurant. The sustainability is about whether you’re integrating eco-friendly practices in your business’ sourcing and operations. The innovation refers to continuous upgrades that will keep your guests in suspense and create an intriguing atmosphere for them. This can be, for example, the regularly changing menus. Keep in mind that complete changes can backfire, so, keep it simple but interesting.
It’s time to understand your restaurant’s personality
This one is about your communication with your customers and how they perceive you. If you want it to be casual and friendly, or formal and sophisticated. So, how do you establish this personality?
Start by identifying who your customer is. To do so, you can identify your target audience and the values they have. Now, that you have a brief picture, you can work on your brand voice and make it suited to your customer criteria.
The unique concept of your restaurant
The restaurant market is crowded as it is. This means that additional steps to making your restaurant unique are welcomed more than ever. For example, you can think about making some thematic elements that will support your mission and values. For example, if your restaurant is focused on organic and healthy menus, then you can include special health-conscious meals, including vegan, and gluten-free. In this concept, your restaurant can also offer some dietetic meals, including keto-friendly options. You could also widen the spectrum and include herbal teas or superfood smoothies.
One more tip that would help you stand out is making interesting menus that would reflect the brand’s personality. Here’s an example, if your restaurant has a business/formal environment, then you can personalize the menu as such, including business lunches and formal dinner menus. On the other side, if your restaurant has a family-friendly concept, then you could make the menus with interesting meal names and include the ingredients for them to have a better understanding. Keep in mind, that the menu of your restaurant is one of the first things your guests pay attention to, so make them interesting and special.
Conclusion
Develop the concept of your restaurant by the three core factors, which are the mission, value, and personality of your brand. Integrate changes that would freshen your restaurant’s identity and help it stay on top of the market. This is basically how to start to create a strong brand presence for your restaurant.
