Compromising position?

Moving to higher ground is a sound strategy if you’re running for president or trying to escape a flood. But what if you’re a broad-market restaurant chain that wants to out-class the sector? Consider what the heads of Ruby Tuesday and Applebee’s have to say on the matter. Then climb a mountain and ponder how such similar assessments could prompt them to move in such opposite directions.

Both have acknowledged to investors that management pushed the concepts beyond the comfort zones of longtime customers when they drove the chains up-market. ““We often overshot the brand in the pursuit of a more upscale customer while frankly failing to deliver on the expectations of our core users,” said Julia Stewart, CEO of DineEquity and the proclaimed chief strategist for Applebee’s, which the IHOP parent acquired in November.

Sandy Beall, founder and CEO of Ruby Tuesday, had similar things to say when he addressed analysts last week in a conference call. The past year was a tough one for the casual-dining chain in part because of the environment—“as difficult as I’ve ever seen it,” remarked Beall, who started the company in 1972. But, he admitted, “We also probably hurt ourselves.”

The company remodeled 650 restaurants in less than a year, which may have distracted the team, Beall explained. And some patrons may have been driven off by the new look—“lower-end guests who maybe felt less comfortable in our reimaged restaurants,” he observed.

Stewart has indicated that Applebee’s will shed its highfalutin ways and refocus on the brand’s traditional strength of offering reasonably priced finger foods and a centerpiece bar. In short, it’ll shift back to the concept’s longstanding position as an everyday dining choice—a true neighborhood option.

Contrast that direction with Beall’s pronouncement on Ruby Tuesday’s upscale push. “We now have a completely integrated high quality brand with consistency among its key elements of food service and the restaurant’s look and feel,” he told investors. “This is very, very important.”

He didn’t reconcile that enthusiasm over the chain’s new positioning with his earlier comment about alienating some customers. But he did add, “The soundness of our strategy is also indicated by the fact that our customer base is changing…For example, it is becoming a little more affluent, which is what we wanted, with 44 percent of our customers having income greater than $75,000 compared with 38 percent three years ago.”

Clearly he wants the brand to be more of an Acura, while Applebee’s is betting that a Honda is really what the market appreciates.

Both, of course, could be correct. Meanwhile, the industry as a whole seems to favor the third option of claiming the middle ground, whether that means sliding up or down the spectrum. Fast-feeders ranging from Burger King (with its Whopper Bar, a high-end diversification featuring cocktails) and Subway (with its Subway Café) are nudging their brands further up the pricing scale. At the other extreme are fine-dining chefs like Bobby Flay and their launch of burger concepts, like his just-opened fast-casual concept, Bobby’s Burger Palace. Like many a presidential candidate, restaurant operators seem prone at the moment to drifting toward the center.

Unless, that is, they’re already there, like the family dining specialists. Denny’s, for instance, is edging into quick-service turf with its scaled-down Express concept and B-FST 2GO program. And IHOP has aired intentions to diversify into the fast-service arena of airports.

It sounds like a mess, but it’s really a much-needed shake-up of the status quo. Brands are reconsidering what they are and what they want to be. Unfortunately, many are likely to discover that those are two extremely different things.

A different sort of Big Mac attack

Fast food is getting less respect these days than Kevin Federline’s acting abilities, even from quick-service chains themselves. Marketing campaign after marketing campaign is disparaging the fare as the sort of mass-produced plastic you won’t have to choke down at ______ (insert the name of whatever family, casual or fast-food chain is airing the ads, be it McDonald’s, Denny’s, Taco Bell, Bonanza/Ponderosa or KFC). Invariably, the spots proceed to point out that you don’t have to pay more, in time or money, for “real” food.

Much of the mud is being flung at fast-food breakfasts, which have been selling like, well, hotcakes. Denny’s current campaign blasts them explicitly as fake, unlike the true platters you’d find at the home of the Grand Slam.

McDonald’s touts its McSkillet Burrito as “a sit-down-style weekend breakfast you can eat on the go.” Translation: The real food you’d buy after church at a Denny’s, available every day via a drive-thru.

Panera Bread is bragging that its new breakfast sandwich line is a morning option “made by bakers, not microwaves.” In Tuesday’s announcement of the rollout, CEO Ron Shaich crows that “we’ve developed a hand-crafted, made-to-order grilled breakfast sandwich that literally breaks the mold.”

Chains of all stripes are equally adamant about differentiating their lunch and dinner fare from fast food. The campaign that broke Monday for Bonanza and Ponderosa touts the sister chains’ buffet specifically as an alternative to burgers and that lot. Give it a try, the promotion stresses, “because great tasting meals aren’t served in a wrapper.” It slams quick-service value meals in particular, asserting that they’re "not much of a value or a meal.” Curiously, however, the effort subtly promotes visits to a quick-service chain. The budget steak brands are inviting patrons to submit a bag or receipt from a fast-food place to get a break on the price of the buffet. Eat at a burger or fried chicken joint one day, the promotion suggests, and you can have unlimited fresh fare the next day for $5 at lunch or $8 at dinner. “This is an incredible alternative to getting lunch or dinner in a bag at a drive-thru window,” says Sheryl Randolph, senior director of marketing for the pair.

Here again, even the major fast-food brands are scrambling to showcase products you wouldn’t associate with fast food. Taco Bell describes its Fiesta Platters as “a complete real meal solution,” “the favorite dishes of a sit down Mexican meal in a convenient and portable plate.” Promotional materials also stressed the price: a mere $4.99, or probably less than you’d spend in a full-service place.

Sister concept KFC is sounding a similar tune for its new Kentucky Grilled Chicken. President Gregg Dedrick proudly cites research indications that consumers view the fast feeder's new non-fried option as a "step above fast food."

All of the initiatives echo what Carl’s Jr. did several years ago with its Six Dollar Burger, a sandwich touted as being as good as the burger you’d spend $6 to get in a casual-dining restaurant, available at just over half that price from the West Coast stalwart. You’d think it’d be the most zealous proponent of the movement. Yet the CKE Restaurant holding is one of the few quick-service burger brands not to adapt the café-caliber coffee that consumers can now find at almost every other player of size. Nor is Carl’s racing to develop the Jamba Juice-caliber smoothies you’ll soon be able to buy at fast-food places ranging from a Taco Bell to a Dairy Queen.

If Carl’s is once again astutely gauging which way the pendulum will swing, the key question could be how long fast food remains the standard against which all chains, even the brands most readily affiliated with that style of fare, are favorably gauging what they serve.

Divide and conquer?

I hope you can hear me over all that fiddling. It’s that damned pack of economists, wailing away as they watch the business climate soften like an overripe peach. They’re more concerned about declaring a recession at precisely the warranted moment than they are about the meltdown already evident in industries like the restaurant business. It’s a good thing the trade is taking matters into its own hands. While the Brooks Brothers set jams away, restaurateurs are trying R-word remedies like this recent phenomenon of adding more pricing tiers.

If you stop by an Au Bon Pain bakery-café right now, you can forego the usual salad or sandwich and economize a bit with one of the regional chain’s new small plates. But your options don’t end there, or even with picking which of the 14 new Portions you’d like. Go for the hummus and cucumbers, and you pay $2.99. Trade up to one that includes meat, like the Thai peanut chicken, and you’ll have to pop for $3.49.

In another economic climate, might the fast-casual chain not have bothered to create two pricing groups a mere 50 cents apart?

Similarly, if you wanted to trade up from fast food to a full-service breakfast, Denny’s has just the option for you. Or options, really. Try one of its three new “real” breakfasts (as opposed to the “fake” ones purportedly offered by quick-service restaurants), and you’ll pay $5.99. But each has a trade-up option: Pay a buck more, and get a few add-ons—another bacon strip, sausage link and hash browns, maybe.

The notion is certainly not new. It’s a staple of the industry to offer a soup or salad add-on for a slight bump in the price of an entrée.

But the tactic seems to be gaining momentum, and sometimes with a twist. In the standard version, you offer a lower priced option, like Quiznos’ $2 Sammies sandwiches. In some instances, even that price is segmented, into Bargain and Bargain Plus.

Perhaps the poster concept is Starbucks. Once upon a time, the coffee king offered its drinks in three sizes, in prices ranging from high to stratospheric. Now the chain is testing a $1 “short” option that comes with free refills. Some stores are also experimenting with coffee made in a press pot, priced at more than $2. That price falls between the charge for a standard cup of Coffee of the Day and the usual hit for premium espresso-based drinks.