Takeaways from Day 1 of the Restaurant Leadership Conference

People gathered at the Marketplace at the Restaurant Leadership Conference Monday. | Photo by W. Scott Mitchell Photography.

Restaurant Business editors were out in force covering the Restaurant Leadership Conference on Monday. You can also read our stories about Mark Wahlberg, a discussion between CEOs and surprising confidence from restaurant operators. 

Here are a few takeaways.

Accuracy matters

Want to keep customers? Be accurate. 

According to a new survey from the ordering company Tillster, the economic climate is causing a dropoff in customer loyalty.

For 45% of consumers, higher prices are the reason. But 33% of consumers won’t return to a restaurant if their order is not accurate. Value also isn’t what it used to be in the eyes of consumers. 

While 59% still equate value with price, the freshness and quality of the food is rising in importance; 56% of consumers cited that as what makes food “worth it.”

A menu sneak peek

It’s a busy year for limited-time offers as restaurant chains focus on driving traffic. Technomic estimates that the number of restaurant LTOs increased 33% last year, and the innovation keeps coming. At a Lunch and Learn panel of culinary leaders, there was news of new menu launches this week, and hints about what’s coming down the pike.

Here are a few examples:

Velvet Taco, a brand that has long focused on the taco format, is about to launch bowls for the first time, with five variations coming to the menu.

Potbelly, meanwhile, on Monday rolled out a new prime rib steak sandwich and the new sauce of roasted garlic aioli.

Applebee’s is hand-breading chicken for chicken sandwiches—a move that Chef Shannon T. Johnson, Applebee’s vice president of culinary, said almost got him fired. But the hand-breading proved to be so popular, he said, “We’re saying nail it down, because if it can be breaded, we will do it.”

Scott Davis, chief concept officer at Noodles & Co., who has been leading the overhaul of that fast-casual chain’s menu, noted that Noodles has never had ramen on the menu. “No promises, but we’re hoping to bring something ramen this year,” he said.

A new normal?

Technomic will be releasing its Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report this week. But an early look at the data from Technomic Senior Principal Rich Shank shows what has been a disappointing year. 

Sales rose just over 3%. But when adjusted for menu-price increases they were down 0.8%, meaning consumers visited chain restaurants less often. 

That was the worst performance since the pandemic. But, noted Shank, it’s not all that out-of-line with the way things were going before that event. “It’s somewhere between a minor down and a return to just normal traffic patterns,” Shank said.

The reason? We’re not adding people. But companies are adding restaurants. “We’re living in a marketplace where we have low population growth,” Shank said. There are other structural issues at play today, he said, such as consumer price sensitivity and tariff uncertainty. But at the end of the day the population just isn’t growing fast enough.

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