Building A Successful Restaurant Brand

In regards to restaurant branding, there are always two sides to any great marketing campaign: the scientific and the creative. As was the case with the Egg Harbor Café, restaurant brand-building projects usually require more creativity. Building a successful restaurant brand involves an attention to detail and a level of sophistication to enhance a restaurant’s competitive edge in the marketplace. 

A brand is how customers define your restaurant. Whether crafted by intention or accident, if you sell food to customers, you have a restaurant brand.

When HotOperator developed the Egg Harbor menu, as with any menu design, we used the following guidelines in the process of sculpting the restaurant brand.

Re-invention

Egg Harbor didn’t invent the breakfast restaurant. They’re not even the first group to build a successful chain around the idea. What they were able to do is bring a new idea to an old branding concept. They offer country-style potatoes, lightly toasted English muffins, and fluffy omelets in a style that is all their own. Make sure your restaurant brand fits your concept while genuinely creating a new way to eat something customers already know they love.

Romance

When we went looking for a look and voice for Egg Harbor's restaurant brand, we couldn’t help thinking about the place by the same name, Egg Harbor, Wisconsin. Egg Harbor is a picturesque little village on the bay side of the Door County peninsula in northeastern Wisconsin. The buildings are all old-fashioned and painted like gingerbread, nestled along the sparkling waters of Green Bay. Luckily, this is an artist community that has a number of excellent painters whose works we were able to use as inspiration for the Egg Harbor Menu design.

Classic

When we develop a look and voice for a brand like Egg Harbor, we strive for a timeless quality. We shied away from trendy elements that might go stale too quickly. This is demonstrated in the illustration style with crosshatching and the natural colors which are based on nature rather than colors which might shift in popularity.

Consistency of Character

Once you establish your restaurant brand's voice and look, it needs to remain in character. The imagery and poetry should be a natural extension of the root of the brand. In this way, the consistency of the style of the menu design allows you to build on your customers’ trust. As long as the each step you take is in character, a brand can evolve and expand over time.

Budweiser, for example, can grow into a wide variety of styles of beer. Beer is in the nature of the brand, so products like Bud Light® make sense. What the brand cannot do is develop into a line of dairy products. Customers have already established trust in Budweiser to make beer but this trust does not extend to milk.

There are three words I offer to every restaurant operator I work with: "Is This Us?" Before you make any change to your restaurant brand, ask this question and when in doubt, go without.

Courage

Anne Tucker said, “All art requires courage.” Art requires courage upon its presentation. The artist must have courage only upon signing his name. How many of us have written deeply emotional letters only to lock them away in the bottom desk drawer? Most of us have courage enough to write these letters, few have courage enough to send them. Similarly, every restaurant has courage enough to build a brand, but those who have courage enough to stand by them, are the few who will meet eternal success. With a well-positioned restaurant brand, an establishment can withstand downturns in the economy, a bad host, and even a few slips in product consistency. For Egg Harbor, this means a menu design that has lasted nearly a decade and is still as fresh today as when it was first printed.