Restaurant Survey Results Show Possiblities

A few weeks ago, we announced a new restaurant survey. While we are still sifting through all the data, I wanted to look at some of our preliminary findings. The purpose of the survey was to better understand what our citizens desired as far as restaurant selection in Elizabethton. While the results of the survey were not too surprising, there was a few interesting variations that stuck out. This week, I want to talk about some of those and why certain restaurants just won’t come to Elizabethton.

One of the first questions we ask was for survey takers to rank how likely they would be to visit different types of restaurants. Two categories stood out. The most popular choice was casual dining with a close second in fast casual dining. Casual dining would include restaurants that are sit down, often have a higher quality food, and typically pay after service is provided. This would be like Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesdays, or Lonestar Steakhouse. Fast casual is also typically sit down but can have a drive-thru, usually higher quality food than fast food, but similar to fast food, you pay before service is provided. Think of restaurants like Barberitos, Captain D’s, and Panera Bread. Significantly lower, but in third place was fast food restaurants.

Another question we asked was in the past 6 months how often had the survey taker attended various restaurants. We then listed a series of restaurants with varying time periods. We came up with this list based on restaurants that we believe would be most likely to come to Elizabethton. Additionally, before a restaurant chooses a location, they need to ensure that people will come. One way of doing this is seeing how frequently people in a specific area ate at the restaurant in the past 6 months. We’re primarily focused on people who ate at these restaurants at least 1 to 2 times per month on average.

The top restaurant was Dunkin’ Donuts, followed by Golden Corral, and in third place Jimmy John’s. What this means is that we can use this data along with our restaurant trade area data to attempt to recruit these restaurants to Elizabethton. What this DOES NOT mean is that they will come! Typically, by the time we reach out to a restaurant or retailer it takes 1.5 to 3 years before they actually start construction, but that’s only if we can find an appropriate site with what they want and if the demographic requirements (income, population, age specifications, etc.) are what they need.

Lastly and surprisingly was the fill-in-the-blank statement, “In Elizabethton we need more restaurants with [blank].” The top one was family-friendly atmospheres, second was healthier choices, and third was fine dining experiences. What was surprising about this to me was that I always believed most of our restaurants already had family-friendly atmospheres, but apparently this is something we need to recruit more of.

It is important to understand that not every restaurant we like will come to Elizabethton no matter how many people want it. Our goal is to better identify what types of restaurants and food you desire and find the best match of restaurant that WILL come to Elizabethton to fulfill that desire. Let’s talk about it!