Task 2 Report 2

 Look at the situation below and write the report as requested

You work as an assistant to the manager of a restaurant, The Golden Plate. The restaurant is well-known in your area as a value-for-money establishment providing fairly basic meals at a modest cost.

The restaurant’s trade has declined in recent years as it has faced competition from other, cheaper restaurants and branches of fast-food establishments.

The owner of the restaurant, Mr Didier Fontaine, is giving thought to changing the focus of the establishment. He believes business would be better if The Golden Plate became a better-quality restaurant providing a greater range of high-quality food for the more affluent end of the market.

Mr Fontaine has asked you to carry out some research as to whether this is worth further investigation.

You have carried out some research in your town and will produce a report with recommendations for Mr Fontaine. He has asked you not to produce statistics only, but to try and offer an explanation.

The results of your research are as follows:

From an interview with a business advisor of the local council

“The profile of restaurants in the area is quite interesting. There has been a massive growth in restaurants at the cheaper end of the market, particularly “fast-food” restaurants, but no such growth in the better-quality market. There are some better-quality restaurants out of town but only 2 with a central location like The Golden Plate. Restaurant 42 is probably the best restaurant in the area but it is very expensive and exclusive and Digby’s is fairly small. Both restaurants are always very well booked.”

Interviews with existing customers

Over a period of 2 weeks, I spoke to all customers about repositioning the restaurant in the market. Their responses were as follows:

63% said they would continue to use the restaurant if it went “up-market”

31% said they would not

6% were not sure.

Typical comments were:

“I think cooking tastes have moved on since The Golden Plate opened. It could do with improving the variety and quality of the food.”

“Yes – go up-market, please. There are plenty of cheap restaurants around here, but we are short of good quality restaurants.”

“I might come more if it went up-market. It’s not really the place for special occasions now, is it?”

“Oh no! The Golden Plate is cheap and cheerful. I don’t want to pay more for better food. I can eat elsewhere if I want this.”

Task

Write a report for Mr Fontaine as requested, making appropriate recommendations.

From an interview with the Head Chef

“Actually, many of our staff are very well trained and would love to serve a wider range of better-quality foods. We would have to take on some new staff (or retrain existing staff) because some areas are not covered. For example, we generally use frozen or tinned vegetables so we have little experience in cooking better-quality fresh vegetables. But in general, the staff would welcome this.”

From street interviews with people in the town

Questions were asked of a random section of the population of the town. The response of those who said they ate in restaurants was as follows:

93% had heard of The Golden Plate. Of these, 89% associated it with a down-market image.

Of those who used more expensive restaurants, 93% said it would be a good idea for another top-quality restaurant to open and 85% said they would be likely to visit The Golden Plate.

Typical comments were:

“We’re badly served for good restaurants in town. We have to travel some distance to find most of them.”

“It’s hard to think of The Golden Plate as a top-quality restaurant.”

“Most people would take a lot of convincing that it has improved before they visited it!”