A View From The Top

Dat Dog CEO explains brand's 3 stages of menu development

Editor's note: A View From the Top is a series featuring first-person accounts from some of the fast casual industry's most innovative leaders. If you are interested in being featured, send email to editor@FastCasual.co

Provided

January 14, 2020

By Paul Tuennerman, Dat Dog, CEO

Brands are constantly looking for unique ways to keep their crewmembers engaged with their work, but more importantly, more connected with the brand, so they understand how their work contributes to the overall success and direction of the company. At Dat Dog, we have developed a program that not only engages our crewmembers with the brand, but also provides them the opportunity to learn more about the inner workings of the company and acquire skills that can help them in the future wherever their career path may take them.

When I began my tenure with Dat Dog, I was at an in-restaurant training for our team, learning the day-to-day operations when a crewmember struck up a conversation with me about the food we served. This crewmember had a strong passion for food and had plenty of ideas about how our menu might evolve to serve our customer base better. Through this conversation, we developed the idea of creating a team of crewmembers from all levels within our restaurants and tasked them with creating our limited-time offerings as well as testing potential changes and additions to our menu. The goal was not only to provide crewmembers an opportunity to collaborate to create new food, but more importantly, to build company culture and provide them with sets of skills and knowledge that can help them better understand our brand.

The cycle for our culinary innovation team happens three times a year.

Stage 1
The first stage consists of a brainstorming period where crewmembers bounce ideas off each other. They are tasked with coming up with five to seven concepts to present to our selection committee. Getting our crewmembers involved in this manner provides them with a sense of ownership for the direction that our brand is heading. Our restaurant team also tend to better represent our core customer demographic, so they can provide insight into the mind of our consumers better than someone who may not interact with our customers on a daily basis.

Stage 2
The second stage is analytical. This stage is where the crewmembers learn skills about supply chain, marketing, finance, and restaurant operations. They must work together to view the business holistically, not just as one new product on the menu. They learn the mechanics of the industry as well as the economics behind what it takes to operate a successful restaurant. But perhaps the real driving force behind their desire to learn about the inner workings of the business is to see if their theories about pricing strategies and the impact on product mix and margins were correct. At this point, the employees have a vested interest in each product, which is why when the next stage of the cycle comes around, they are so excited to showcase all of their hard work.

Stage 3
The next stage is the presentation phase. During this period, the crewmembers prepare a deck for each of their submissions for the selection committee. At this point, senior management from the restaurant support office become involved. This presentation contains details about each item's recipe, cost analysis, operational impact, and ideas for how to market and position the item. The committee will then rank each item, and the top three will appear on our menu in the coming months. After the decision has been made, the crewmembers start operational testing, working with the training and marketing teams on the development of work station aids, point of sales, and other necessary items like product shots.

This process helps the crewmembers bond over their creation and they, once again, have a chance to work with and train their peers while simultaneously helping drive the direction of the brand.

The goal of this program is to engage our crewmembers and provide them with the opportunity to grow their passion for our brand. We want our crewmembers to come to work every day knowing that if they have an idea that they think can make the brand better, they have a voice.

The culinary innovation team instills a sense of pride and ownership in our crew. The program teaches lessons in collaboration but also hard skills that crewmembers can use in future roles. It provides them with opportunities to not only help the company, but add things to their resume that they may not have learned without participating in a culinary innovation team.

Restaurant crewmembers are the face of the brand, which is why it is incredibly important to provide them with a voice in which direction your company goes. Get them involved with your brand on a deep level, provide them with opportunities to showcase their ideas, and they will reward you with outstanding ideas and new strategies.

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