Time was, the unspoken rule for running a McDonald's restaurant was don't make anybody too comfortable.
Bring in the customers, then move them out. Hard benches and Spartan décor helped keep the place from developing into a leisurely hangout.
Now, that's exactly the kind of hangout McDonald's wants to cultivate.
The burger giant increasingly competes for customers with coffee giant Starbucks, Panera and even Dunkin' Donuts.
So along with more upscale coffee and salads, McDonald's is investing about $1 billion nationwide in a broad revamp.
Several locations in the Tampa Bay area are among those first to test a more modern and sleek design built to accommodate families, business meetings and students with homework. Group tables, cozy lounge areas and free Wi-Fi for everyone.
Last week, a group of Wall Street investment analysts traveled to Seffner for a private tour of a McDonald's that had been knocked down and rebuilt into a model that could be replicated across thousands of new McDonald's locations.
"We're still a food and beverage company," said Blake Casper, chairman of Caspers Company, which operates 50 McDonald's stores in Tampa.
McDonald's has evolved a long way from the days as a walk-up burger joint, he said. Now more customers are wireless workers on the go, time-pressed families and students – and stores need to serve them all.
"We've learned a lot from the other places where our customers are going," Casper said.
Individual McDonald's franchise owners have some flexibility with design, but more locations will move to a more modern design:
•An area with long, bench-seating for groups to sit together.
•Groups of low chairs with coffee tables for conversations.
•More stylish lighting.
•Flat-screen TVs showing a mix of ads for McDonald's and TV shows.
•Soundproofing between the dining area and kid's play areas.
•Dark tile flooring and modern glass dividers between eating areas.
Jimmy Williams Sr. has been coming to this Seffner restaurant nearly every breakfast for decades, he said. "I just walk up and they already know what I want," he said. "I like the look. It's more modern, updated. Now if they would just start making grits."
Last year, 16 restaurants in the greater Tampa Bay area underwent a redesign, and 35 are on track for redevelopment this year – five or more as complete tear-downs and rebuilds.
McDonald's has reason to watch chains like Panera. The so-called fast casual restaurant segment continues to outpace the industry as a whole, with the top 100 chains growing 6 percent to nearly $18.9 billion in sales, according to market tracker Technomic.
McDonald's this month posted better-than-expected 6-percent rise in sales at existing restaurants, partly as the company increased menu prices to offset higher commodity costs.
The most important part of this process may seem obvious, but too many restaurant companies overlook it, said Clark Wolf, a New York-based restaurant consultant.
"They are paying attention, putting their focus on the restaurants, not just looking at the bottom line," Wolf said. "They're going into the locations, seeing what works, what doesn't and what needs to be fixed, and 100 percent of the time, the result of that is improvement."
Restaurants like McDonald's have a long tradition of using Tampa as a test-bed for new ideas, Wolf said, as this market has a large segment that responds well to industrialized food making.
Full article here
