Domino’s XXX option and 4 other head-spinning developments
By Peter Romeo on Mar. 01, 2018Restaurateurs are notoriously open-minded, but even the freest spirits might have let a gasp slip after the past week’s excesses. Think about it: In the quest to make delivery more accessible, consumers can now order a Domino’s pie via their sex toy. Talk about a buzz from new technology.
And that’s not the only way the food business is pushing the limits of reason and sense. The mixed results of a silver bullet menu strategy from one of the industry’s biggest names hasn’t stopped a much smaller and more troubled player from trying a similar move.
Meanwhile, the fast adoption of a new age menu item has prompted suppliers of the staple it’s replacing to ask the government to provide consumers with some clarification on what they’re really eating. And then there’s the new tendency to boast about whose loyalty program is the biggest, a fit of trash talking rife with surprises.
Read on to see what we mean.
1. Putting the 'o' in omnichannel
Domino’s has been brilliant in blazing new ways for customers to effortlessly order delivery, but even it seemed taken aback by a new method that’s been developed for it. A giant in what’s politely called adult entertainment revealed this week that it’s come up with an instant-ordering feature for a vibrator.
The attachment, called the RubGrub, is a button that can be affixed to the, um, device. It connects via Bluetooth to smart phones. Once pie preferences and credit card info are loaded into the system, a user merely has to press the button to place the order.
Right now, the system only interfaces with Domino’s delivery system, but the seller, CamSoda, said it intends to expand the options to other restaurants.
The RubGrub sells a la carte for $20, and is a standard feature of CamSoda’s new high-end love machine, the Nora, which goes for $120.
Domino’s said it had nothing to do with the technological breakthrough. “This is news to us,” it told Fox News. “We have not worked with this company, nor have we authorized them to use our name in conjunction with their ‘toy.’”
2. Another Hail Mary menu move
One of the highly publicized ways that Chipotle tried to revive its fortunes was by adding queso. In predicting why the Mexican cheese sauce would be a game changer, the burrito chain stressed that the product was the menu addition most frequently requested by customers.
Parallels abound in Fiesta Restaurant Group’s revelation this week of a major change in the menu of its troubled Pollo Tropical brand. “Our loyal and lapsed users were asking for one new menu item more than any other in all of our operating markets, a boneless fried chicken option,” chain President Danny Meisenheimer told investors this week.
The chain’s response: the rollout of citrus-marinated Crispy Pollo Bites.
As Chipotle did during the introduction of queso, Pollo Tropical is stressing that its new product is unique because of its naturalness. “Crispy Pollo Bites don't come from a conveyor belt, a machine or a plant,” said Meisenheimer. “They are not widgets. Like our fire-grilled chicken, they come from the kitchens of our 146 Pollo Tropical restaurants and are prepared fresh each and every day, and only after they've been marinated for 24 hours.”
So how did queso move the needle for Chipotle? The initial version of the product was not well-received, so the chain revamped the recipe. The product is now included in about 10% of orders, giving average checks about a 2% upswing. It’s not been a silver bullet, but a definite aid to business.
Pollo Tropical is already planning to offer its crispy chicken in a variety of other products, including sandwiches.
3. Tim Hortons and franchisees find another reason to fight
Problems like a security breach can sometimes pull a restaurant franchisor and its franchisees together, since they’re in the soup together. But that’s not the case at Tim Hortons, where franchisees have reportedly responded to a contamination of the chain’s POS system with more threats of taking concept owner Restaurant Brands International to court.
One of several enraged franchisee groups has given RBI management an ultimatum, according to a letter intercepted by the Canadian business media conglomerate Business News Network (BNN). The communication, addressed to RBI CEO Daniel Schwartz, is demanding that the franchisor reimburse franchisees for lost sales, spoiled food and wasted labor expenditures stemming from the spread of virus through the chain’s computer system. The contamination reportedly shut down the POS terminals of an undetermined number of units (the official count is 100; BNN sources say as many as 1,000 had to dim their lights).
It didn’t help that the shutdowns came amid Timmy’s popular annual Roll up the Rim promotion, whereby customers peel up the lip of their coffee cup to see if they’ve won a Honda Civic or another prize. Without a POS, stores couldn’t ride the traffic boom. Plus, some cups were distributed without any printed message on their rims. Customers stuck with those lemons had no shot at a prize.
Hortons franchisees have been at odds with RBI almost from the moment the company was formed by Burger King’s purchase of the Canadian giant. The operators’ group that fired off the letter to Schwartz, the Great White North Franchisee Association, has kept its lawyers armed with legal threats. Recently, RBI turned around and sued two U.S. franchisees who have been active in the protests against the franchisor’s actions.
4. The meat of the matter
Cattle ranchers are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help consumers differentiate between a true beef burger and what’s a plant-based version that merely looks, feels and tastes like beef. The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association has petitioned the agency to set labeling standards that would affect what restaurants can say on their menus about items such as the Impossible Burger or Veggie Grill’s signature product. The language would have to clearly differentiate between something from a cow and something that was once a plant.
“In light of the new market for synthetic products, new regulations should be adopted limiting the ‘beef’ and ‘meat’ labels to animals born raised, harvested, and processed in the traditional way,” the petition reads.
The ranchers’ group wants the same standards applied to meats that are grown in a lab rather than taken from a naturally grown animal.
5. Bragging about size
Once, chains couldn’t boast enough about their snazzy new phone apps. The new source of pride and bragging rights, judging from the recent round of big brands’ quarterly earnings reports, is the size of a concept’s loyalty program.
The numbers are impressive, though sometimes surprising. Bloomin’ Brands, for instance, noted that its Dine Rewards program now has 5.5 million members. That’s across all four of its brands—Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Fleming's—or just shy of 1,500 restaurants.
Red Robin, with 566 restaurants, could boast to investors that its Red Robin Royalty program now has 7.4 million participants. That’s right up there with Dunkin’ Donuts’ DD Perks club, with 8 million members.
Still, the granddaddy of them all is Starbucks’ affinity plan, which claims an astounding 14 million members. It remains to be seen if it will hold onto that crown when McDonald’s rolls out its program, as it vowed in 2016 to do.