Synergy Expands Capabilities with the Addition of Bruce MacDiarmid to the Team

Synergy Restaurant Consultants is expanding their reach into new high-growth strategic opportunities through a valued partnership with noted industry veteran, Bruce MacDiarmid. “We are thrilled to have Bruce part of our team as we share a common vision of helping and inspiring others to succeed.” Bruce embraces our culture and mission that “ultimate success in the restaurant business derives from a consistent focus on enhancing the overall guest experience.” Innovation and operating efficiency are the keys to delivering that long-term success. Having Bruce on the Synergy team allows us to leverage his unique range of industry experience thereby offering our clients the insights gained through a successful career leading and operating multi-unit concepts in multiple restaurant segments.

MacDiarmid began his career in restaurant operations eventually taking on executive roles in training, operations and marketing. His record of accomplishments includes; award-winning brand building, the creation of scalable restaurant concepts, financial turnarounds, menu development, technology implementations, restaurant design, marketing, human resources and labor optimization. His financial expertise and leadership skills most recently were highlighted in the Pacific Northwest as President and CEO of Shari’s Restaurants where he was instrumental in reinvigorating the brand and guest experience. He received a bachelors degree in Business/Marketing from California Polytechnic State University and attended graduate school at San Diego State University. He has served on multiple boards including chairmanship roles.

“Success in the restaurant industry is all about moving quickly to stay with the trends, and being nimble enough to engage customers continually,” says MacDiarmid. “One of the greatest challenges today, regardless of the dining segment is continuing to add value to the guest experience in an environment of constantly escalating labor cost pressure,” adds MacDiarmid, explaining that delivering that value requires an unwavering focus on the customer.

There remains significant upside to the restaurant operators who step up their game and take advantage of all the new opportunities with an eye on innovation and efficiency.

MacDiarmid looks forward to helping Synergy clients improve their operations, execution and financial performance “I am excited to join the team of professionals at Synergy. A team led by founding partners Dean Small and Danny Bendas who have demonstrated a 30-year track record of helping clients with their revitalization and growth challenges. The fact that the company was founded and is currently lead by two graduates of the Culinary Institute of America speaks volumes to their passion and commitment to the restaurant industry.”

About Synergy
As a premier restaurant consulting firm, Synergy Restaurant Consultants is a team of restaurant management professionals that develops innovative ideas and creates sustainable brands to drive top-line sales. Our restaurant consulting team specializes in both launching new restaurant startups and jump-starting struggling or financially distressed brands. Since 1988, Synergy has been a strategic resource to more than 250 national and independent restaurant companies within every dining segment. The company is based in Newport Beach, California.

Snacks—it’s not just bagged chips or veggies and dip. According to Technomic’s 2018 Snacking Occasion Consumer Trend Report, 39 percent of consumers changed their idea of snacks in the last two years. Moreover, the Millennial and Gen Z cohort are increasingly replacing meals with snacks.

As restaurants struggle to find new revenue streams to combat higher labor and operating expense a great way to drive top-line sales and frequency is to be known as a place to find great, innovative and affordable snacks.

Case in point: Yard House has a dedicated snack menu with unique items such as shiitake garlic noodles, hot and spicy edamame, and buffalo cauliflower. If you’ve tuned into your favorite show recently, you may have noticed Taco Bell’s commercial for “Nacho Fries” made to look like a real dramatic movie trailer. This Nacho Fries snack menu offering has prompted two new spin-off test items — Rattlesnake Fries and Reaper Ranch Fries. Still not convinced that snacking is a fast-growing trend? Check out Jack in the Box—they serve up “Munchie Mash-Ups” on the Late Night menu. These include different styles of hash with fun names like Wakey Bakey Hash, Jack’d Jalapeno Hash, and H’angry Chicken Hash all priced at three dollars each.

It’s not just bars or fast-food chains that can serve up snacks—casual and even fine dining eateries can offer affordable, small plates or “bites.” A happy hour menu with discounted snacks is a simple way to offer value to consumers as well. Cafes, juice bars, bakeries, and delis also have ample opportunity to sell snacks—think prepared foods (single-portioned fruit, cheese, and nuts for example) that customers can grab and go.

It’s clear that snacking is a trend not to be dismissed. Make sure your menu is catering to this new demand, and you’ll be sure to drive more traffic and increase sales.

Last week, we shared about how the “better-for-you” restaurant category is gaining a lot of traction in the industry. We explored different superfoods—nutrient-packed, healthy foods—like blueberries, salmon, and edamame. Other common superfoods include tomatoes, dark chocolate, almonds, quinoa, kale, and lentils. Superfoods provide several health benefits including an abundance of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and polyphenols.

If you’re looking to offer healthy dishes, superfoods are pivotal ingredients! Below we explore simple ways for you to incorporate superfoods into your menu.

Salad: Kale remains to be a popular and healthy green leafy vegetable of choice! A simple kale cobb salad (add hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, chicken breast, avocado) dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette is a healthy, nutrient-dense menu option.

Soups: Skip the heavy cream and go healthy and light. Wholegrain quinoa is delicious in soups. Mix in some hearty beef or chicken broth, lentils, veggies like broccoli (another superfood), and tomatoes for a delicious and hearty garden vegetable soup.

Pasta: Pumpkin doesn’t have to be just in pies and lattes! A pumpkin-filled ravioli with spinach pesto sauce is a great way to fulfill that craving for savory goodness. Pumpkins contain cancer-fighting alpha and beta-carotene while spinach is a great source of vitamins and iron.

Dessert: We all know how deliciously perfect chocolate and berries go together. Incorporating dark chocolate adds a wonderful decadent superfood full of antioxidants. Consider serving a dark chocolate mousse topped with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. If you want to get a little more exotic, serve the mousse with fresh goji and acai berries. For a breakfast spin, create a Greek yogurt parfait with berries and chia seeds, which are high in omega-3 fatty acids.

Drinks: Sweet iced tea can be very sugary! Try a sugar-free, refreshing iced green tea infused with fresh ginger root (ginger is known to help with relieving nausea, aiding in digestion, and reducing heart disease risk). A no-sugar-added watermelon drink is a tasty and refreshing beverage to add to your menu during the summer season.

There are so many options you can consider when working with superfoods. Next week, we will explore this further as we check out some awesome healthy restaurant menu items.

Photo: Janine on Flickr CC by 2.0

Soft-serve, double-scooped on a cone or rolled—how do you like your ice cream? Yes, we said “rolled.” Rolled ice cream is just what it sounds like and it’s becoming very popular here in the U.S. and other countries. Invented in Thailand, this style of ice cream is as much a treat for the taste buds as it is to the eyes (it’s the perfect Instagram shot)!

Also known as stir-fried ice cream, rolled ice cream is created by pouring milk-based liquid on a freezing flat metal pan where it is mixed, stirred, flattened and then rolled using metal spatulas. The result is a unique shape, much like a biscuit roll. Several ice cream rolls are then placed into a paper cup and adorned with your choice of toppings like fruit, whipped cream, syrup, nuts and candy. And it’s quickly made to serve!

Check out this video to see how it’s made in Thailand:

October is known for cool weather, autumn leaves, and yes, pumpkin-spiced everything! But did you know that the month of October is National Seafood Month? As restaurant managers, it may be easy to overlook seafood as a star ingredient while beef or chicken take center stage on the menu. However, seafood serves as a great protein choice for a variety of consumers, perhaps due to its taste or ability to meet certain dietary restrictions. Beyond that, sustainable seafood is also a hot restaurant trend for 2017. A recent survey conducted by Cargill found that 88 percent of Americans are willing to pay more for seafood that is certified sustainably and responsibly sourced.

A growing number of chefs and restaurants, even those in the fast-food sector like McDonald’s, recognize the importance of providing sustainable seafood. What exactly is sustainably-raised seafood? Any seafood that is caught or farmed in ways which support the well-being of the species, oceans and coastal communities is considered “sustainable.” For a guide on buying sustainable fish and shellfish, visit firstchoice.com.

If you’ve decided to take the plunge and begin offering sustainable seafood at your restaurant, you may want to consider how to highlight these ingredients on your menu. Consider the following dishes as menu inspiration:

–    Fish and chips with a unique house–made sauce like the one at Nobu 57 in New York City

–     Crab cakes with a spicy, Southern-style remoulade sauce

–     Manhattan clam chowder served in a bread bowl

–     Grilled or fried shrimp po’boy sandwiches

For more information on sustainable seafood and National Seafood Month, check out NOAA fisheries site here.

There are just some foods that always stay at the top of our “comfort food” list. Yes, we’re talking about cheese–it can be warm, it can be cold, sweet or savory, yet always delicious in all forms. It is quite hard to find those who dislike this versatile, delicious ingredient.

While comfort dishes like mac’ and cheese, grilled cheese and pizza often come to mind when thinking of crave-worthy meals where cheese is prominent, we wanted to share the spotlight with others that may not be so well known. So cheese-lovers, without further ado, try out the cheesy and scrumptious dishes below:

1. Beer cheese- is this the next ultimate bar snack? If you haven’t heard of it, beer cheese does sound a bit peculiar (or extremely delicious?). Actually, there are two kinds—beer cheese dip and beer cheese spread. Right now we’re loving beer cheese dip. A dip that’s made of cheese, beer, mustard and your choice of seasonings. Pretzels, chips, bread—all fair game for dipping! Get the recipe.

2. Queso flameado- “flamed cheese” is the translation for this awesome dish (aka “queso fundido” and “choriqueso”). It’s cheese. It’s chorizo. It’s flambéed (or broiled). And it’s absolutely delightful! Get the recipe.

3. Korean corn cheese – simple but so tasty. Often found at Korean restaurants (think fried chicken, or BBQ joints), corn cheese is a side dish concocted of cheese (like mozzarella), corn kernels, mayonnaise, seasonings and herbs, baked to bubbly perfection. Get the recipe.

4. Paneer pasanda- This Indian dish consists of paneer (fresh cheese) slices in savory and smooth, aromatic tomato, onion and cashew paste curry gravy.  Get the recipe.

It’s a well-known fact that people eat with their eyes before they get to taste with their mouths. Well-done photography and descriptive menus can really push a customer to choose one dish over another. But what will drive them to keep coming back for more?

You might say service, the quality of the food, and the experience at the restaurant overall. For those things, you’re not wrong, however one thing many restaurants forget to consider when trying to get customers in the door over and over again is how the menu speaks to their customers.

Today’s consumers want something that gives them the feeling that they are eating something unique. For example, no one is going out to eat things that they can cook themselves. They’re going for the fusion foods that millennials helped to create that straddle two or more types of cuisine to create something revolutionary. The result are dishes that consumers gravitate toward because they seem different but aren’t so bizarrely unfamiliar that they’re game on trying them.

Another thing that consumers look for these days are options for eating healthy. Restaurants that offer healthier dishes, or even a small selection of them, are much more likely to get a bigger market share from this group. Farm-to-table concept restaurants also do well in this category simply because fresh is healthier and they tend to customize their offerings better than say a chain restaurant would.

Finally, as more and more people switch to vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free diets, many restaurants are responding to this by creating special dishes for these diners. No one wants to go out for a lame plate of vegetables so it’s crucial to find something that looks and tastes worth the price. It should also be described in an appealing way to entice these consumers to order it.

The rest of course is up to your chef and the team behind the scenes. Creating an idea is one thing but bringing it to life is another. If your head chef can execute brilliantly on these new dishes, there is no doubt that these consumers will return again and again because you spoke to their dietary concerns by reflecting it on your menu.

Take a good look at your menu. If your offerings are all fried or have no option to go meatless or gluten-free, you might be repelling customers from your establishment. There’s no need to go overly poetic on menu descriptions either, particularly if you have a casual eatery, but making things sound more exciting than say “bread, cheese and meat served with fries” will make a major difference in customer perception. And as we know, perception is reality.

If you would like to schedule an informal call to discuss your menu and was to become more innovative give us a call.

Millennials. By now, you know they’re the most populist demographic in the United States. And as a foodservice operator, you know you want to figure out how to get them to become a loyal consumer at your restaurant. Maybe you feel you’ve got a grip on this segment, but are you ready for the next generation?

Generation Z is defined as the group that was born before the Millennials – roughly those currently aged 5 to 20 years old. You may be thinking how could there be much of a difference between the two groups and you may be surprised to hear that there are many distinctions (and they actually view themselves different from Millennials).

Here are a few important points to keep in mind regarding the attributes of Gen Z:

– The older ones are just entering college

– They are more cautious with spending their money

– They expect a large variety when it comes to menu offerings

– They are reliant on technology

– They are seeking fresh and healthy options

Healthy seems to always be “in.” Synergy has been creating healthy menu offerings for decades. We have innovative ideas to lower food cost and have new items that are plant-based to attract new customers and drive frequency. Please contact us to learn more.

Menus are like sharks—they need to keep moving or die. And among all of the moving parts that make up a restaurant, one of the most important is the need to constantly evolve and keep menus fresh and on-trend to drive frequency.

This is especially true of older, well-established brands. Concepts like IHOP, TGI Friday’s and Burger King are beloved features of the dining-out landscape, with iconic signature dishes they could never take off the menu (Pancakes! Potato skins! The Whopper!). All menus need to be updated and kept current, but for legacy brands in particular it is imperative that brand continuity be balanced with new signature items that attract new customers and bring back regulars to try something else.

Look at IHOP’s new Bakery Favorites, an LTO (limited time offering) that features such over-the-top fancies as Red Velvet crepes and pancakes, sprinkle-topped Cupcake Pancakes, and decadent Cinnamon Swirl Brioche French Toast. These new specialties are smart-smart-smart: Pancakes and French toast are familiar products to IHOP’s core customer base—we’re not talking about something unknown or unintimidating here, after all—but they’re also on trend and just a little daring, with that sophisticated touch of using brioche for the toast.

TGI Friday’s latest initiative is lunch, with a new menu sporting such specialties as a Truffle Stacked Burger, Mediterranean Mahi Mahi Naan’Wich, and a slew of nonalcoholic signature drinks (Cherry Limeade Slush, anyone?), which are high-profit rather than high-proof. An “On The Double” express-lunch pairing allows customers to choose from mozzarella sticks, house salad, Caesar salad or soup, along with selected lunch-sized entrées, priced at $6.99 to $8.99. Quite different for a chain that launched as a Happy Hour oriented casual pub.

And what about Burger King, which has recently been promoting hot dogs, chicken nuggets and now new Chicken Fries Rings? “Take a Break from Boredom” says the company, and these items are certainly pushing the envelope without causing Burger King to turn its back on the burger that brought it to the party. The Grilled Dogs became permanent within a year. And now it would seem that BK is also in the chicken business. The Chicken Fries platform has been successful in every iteration (Buffalo, jalapeno, Fiery) since it was first introduced, in 2005, and the core product has also become part of the permanent menu. The new Rings may sound crazy (whatever happened to the consumer’s growing appetite for real, unprocessed foods?), but there’s no denying that they’re perfect for kids and fun for adults as well, especially the ones behind the wheel.

Dunkin’ Donuts is another legacy brand that is not afraid of reinventing itself through the menu. The company’s recent test of Chicken and Waffles is only the latest salvo in the donut chain’s battle to stay relevant against other QSRs that are crowding in on breakfast, like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. For years Dunkin’ has also been pushing hard into the lunch and snack sectors, with sandwiches like Texas Toast Grilled Cheese and Snack ‘N Go wraps, also rejuvenating Coolattas and smoothies.

And then there’s Cheesecake Factory, going on 40 years in business with a menu that’s still constantly evolving—Skinnylicious, Super Foods, trendy new items like Avocado Toast, Blood Orange Mojitos, and a pizza topped with bacon, dates and blue cheese.

There are important lessons to be learned from all of these brands, whether yours is also a legacy or is brand new to the marketplace. Menus are living, breathing, evolving entities—because so are guests and their tastes.

Burger King Grilled Dogs photo credit: theimpulsivebuy license CC by SA 2.0

With St. Patrick’s Day and the affiliated weekend right around the corner, bars, restaurants and their patrons might ponder up images of green beer and Irish Car Bombs.

The bad news? Green beer will likely stain your bar top (and eventually the bartender’s hands). Irish Car Bombs’ dual shot and pint glass requirements can back up your dishwashing.

The good news? Restaurants and bars don’t have to go overly cheesy to participate in a bit of fun and relevance, though different approaches will work for different concepts. Here’s some (Irish) food for thought, thanks to Synergy’s own Brad “Paco” Miller:

•  Use Guinness to upgrade caramelized onions or Bailey’s to snazz up a chocolate frosting.

• Leave green mints when presenting guests with their check. “Higher end concepts might give each lady a simple green flower,” Miller notes.

•  Incorporate corned beef anything. “I like the idea of miniature corned beef sliders,”  though Miller reminds concepts that this might not work everywhere.

•  Don’t forget great service: “Especially for busy bars, people almost expect slow, miserable service this weekend. Staff your bar appropriately and leave people pleasantly surprised.”

Turn up the Celtic tunes, and as always, for help with virtually any facet of foodservice operations, contact Synergy.