FAYETTEVILLE -- Over more than a decade in business, the owners of Slim Chickens refined their product and honed their customer service.
But as the Arkansas-based restaurant chain pushed its format onto the national stage, one thing was lacking -- the right atmosphere.
So Greg Smart, the company's chief marketing officer, started looking for a solution and found it in a born and bred Arkansas designer named Dan Faires.
Slim Chickens decided to improve the atmosphere at its locations about two years ago. Smart said the company's product and service were where the founders wanted it to be but the overall customer experience needed to be refined and polished.
"If one of these elements fail, you're perceived value tanks," Smart said.
After a friend of a friend introduced the two, Smart said it was clear Faires was the guy to help the company crystallize its vision for improved decor and atmosphere. Faires, 31, graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in biology but after school he shifted his sights to design and construction.
He was a contestant in the Season 5 of HGTV's program Design Star where he was selected as a fan favorite and also hosts several video series on HGTV.com. Faires owns a design and contracting company in New York and has his own furniture line.
"There's not doubt about the product. They call it 'Life changing chicken,'" said Faires of Slim Chickens. "The style of the stores needs to be life-changing as well."
Faires toured the company's older stores and found the look wasn't properly conveying its desired "Delta blues" theme. He said a common design mistake is to show a customer a picture of a destination to evoke the proper feeling rather than actually establishing the mood of a specific locale through design elements. When in France for example, you don't see posters of the Eiffel Tower everywhere, he said.
"You want to take them there," Faires said of the feeling he wants to instill in customers. "When you walk in, you should feel it."
Faires first tried his magic on the company's location in Rogers near Pinnacle Promenade last year and then further improved the look for the outfit's Fayetteville location on Wedington Drive that opened in June. The decor in that spot will be the template replicated in Slim Chickens' future sites, both company-owned and franchise operations.
Slim Chickens has 14 restaurants, nine company-owned and five franchise units in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Smart said the chain has more than 50 franchise commitments in multiple markets. Earlier in the year, the company said it has a goal to establish 600 stores in the United States over the next 10 years.
Slim Chickens competes in the fast-casual segment, where restaurants provide an enhanced dining experience compared with fast-food operations. While fast-casual restaurants don't have a wait staff, servers generally take patrons their food. Part of the package is a comfortable atmosphere, usually including music, big-screen TVs and catchy graphics.
According to information provided by Chicago-based Technomic Inc., a research and consulting firm focusing on food and food service, limited-service chains among the top 500 U.S. restaurant chains grew sales by 3.8 percent to $193.3 billion in 2013. Limited service chains include fast food and fast-casual concepts.
Fast-casual restaurants comprised 14 percent of those limited-service sales, accounting for about $27 billion for 2013, up by 11 percent from 2012. Revenue at the top 10 fast casual chicken chains, which include Zaxby's, Wingstop and Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, saw sales of nearly $3.6 billion and growth of 12 percent in 2013 compared with the year before. When looking at the total industry, beyond the top 500 chains, fast-casual sales totaled about $35 billion in 2013.
Slim Chickens' new design features pine siding on the walls reminiscent of a Delta farmhouse, all sourced from Arkansas. The wooden booth and group seating tables are thick and sizable, all custom made by James & James of Springdale, adding depth, warmth and texture to the space. The metal chairs were designed by Faires and convey a homey, kitchen table feel.
The color palette is subdued with neutral tones, and artwork is minimal and focused on the brand. Lighting fixtures are throwbacks to the past, they hang pendent style from the ceiling roof with some designed to look like egg baskets. The border fencing on the store's patio looks like chicken wire but it's actually a type of retention fencing used in road construction.
Large windows and tall ceilings allow for natural light to flood the place, giving it an open and airy feel. Booths are used but only along the perimeter wall, allowing for a large open area with tables of different sizes, heights and types.
"It creates community," Faires said of the open design.
According to a white paper by Colleen Rothman, consumer research manager with Technomic, ambience is a critical but intangible element of the restaurant experience, made up of component parts including music, interior design, layout and lighting.
Concrete factors such as food quality, taste and flavor; order accuracy; and friendly service were highly important to customers according to the survey with atmosphere rated slightly below these other considerations. Still, a strong majority of consumers across all restaurant types said a welcoming, comfortable ambience and pleasant atmosphere affects their decision to patronize a particular location.
Jim Keet, chief executive of Alabama-based fast-casual chain Taziki's, which has locations in Arkansas, said food quality, excellent customer service and decor or ambience act like a three-legged stool: Without any one aspect, a restaurant can't make it.
He said often customers can't articulate what they like about the overall experience in a restaurant and while reactions to aspects such as lighting, mood, and music are often hard to gauge and articulate, that doesn't mean they're not vital to overall success. Keet said Taziki's spends considerable time and effort on its decor and is constantly tweaking its overall look and atmosphere.
"It's a critical component," he said.
Jon Otis, interior design professor at Pratt Institute in New York, said in recent years restaurants across the nation have become more aware of the impact design has on customers.
While restaurants for years focused on getting customers in and out, they've now learned if customers linger, they spend more money and develop more brand loyalty, he said.
"People want to go to a place that feels good," Otis said. "It's a total experience."
Part of the experience is telling a story with the decor.
Subtle touches, textures and use of light convey mood and place to customers, often on a subconscious level. If done properly, the decor and ambiance make the customer part of the story the restaurant wants to convey.
"That keeps people coming back," Otis said.
According to the Technomic report, when measuring the relationship between ambience and guest satisfaction, more than 98 percent of customers who rated a restaurant very good on music selection, welcoming and comfortable atmosphere, overall atmosphere and ambience or decor, also gave the eatery a good or excellent rating overall. Less than half of customers who rated a restaurant's atmosphere or overall ambience bad or very bad gave the restaurant a favorable rating.
When looking at the limited-service segment, fast-casual restaurants make up the majority which are ranked in the top 10 by those surveyed. The fast-casual eateries that were associated the most with good ambience included sandwich places McAlister's Deli and Firehouse Subs and burger joints Smashbuger and Fuddruckers.
Slim Chickens' Smart said the customer feedback for the Wedington store's look has been off the charts, adding that mothers with young children seem to like the open format in particular.
He noted there were practical factors that influenced the decor and ambience at the Wedington location. As a template for future restaurants, its components had to be repeatable without becoming a major expense to the company or a franchisee, and most importantly, it had to work operationally.
The setup in the front counter allows food service without crowding those working the register and the table and booth set-up gives those bringing food to the table quicker and more efficient access.
"It provides a better guest experience and that's the thing that matters," Smart said.
SundayMonday Business on 09/14/2014