During the 1990-early 2000s, I spent time working with the Disney Imagineers and Park Strategists at Disney — designing experiences, brands and their integrated strategies in Orlando and Anaheim. During that time, we also worked with Steve and Elaine Wynn on Bellagio and their teams and properties.
What that range of experience taught me is that a restaurant visionary will need to have a clear visioning about the offer — what drives you, your leadership, your teams; what are your key offers answering the question as to why a person would like to be there — this place that you are making?
Everything comes back to intention, which drives attention and attraction. There is the offer of a gift and there is a recipient of that gift. And a price might be paid for that exchange. What’s your intention? And what is your gift?
We think of journeys, labyrinths and pathways — which is a sequencing, a spiral of brand experience design: GIRVIN’s red thread of connective analyses — that is, if you’re thinking about creating a restaurant or any type of brand experience offering, think deep first. Go soul. Go spirit. Then plan and build.
Working for years on the propositions of food experience — from luxury dining to kiosk service, fast casual to white tablecloth, we have a legacy of searching for the engagement tools for guests, building in a certain set of experiential devices in analyzing the success of brand storytelling and experiencer relationships in dining design.
What kind of restaurant could you be?
You could start simple, faster, more accelerated service: fast casual, as noted below —this journeying and watch-fullness sets the foundation for consideration of your ideal.
If you’re creating a restaurant, you’ll need to clarify and respond to this question: are you building a proposition of something quick and accessible, or a more complex table service? Let’s start with one, the notion of a speedier brand storytelling. There’s a distinction, between the conceptions of fast casual [FCR] and QSR — quick serve restaurants. And the processing purports formulae to dollars spent, interior character and brand environment.
Go fast: foundational rules of the dining experience strategy — QSR, fast casual, or upscale potential environments
The basic rules of the road apply across the field of experience planning
• Food will be, and always shall be: everything. Without great food, the restaurant will be building an audience of unstable relationships. The community won’t be connected.
• Sequences of action. The real procession — far out to close-in, walk-in: being served, leaving happy — this is fundamental, but oftentimes ignored. How does that work — how would you manage the journey of *experientiality?
The Strategy of *Experientiality —
Holistic Experience Design for Restaurants
Tim Girvin originally wrote the core of this at ShakeShack, NYC, Madison Park.
by Tim Girvin