Dear Vice President Matt Murrell,
I would like to start by thanking you for all the hard work you and your family have put in to building a business around such a delicious and wonderful burger. I can honestly say that Five Guys is top of my list for best burgers and when the mood for a good meal strikes me I seek out the nearest franchise. And while your burger may not be the best I have ever had, I definitely rank it high on my list and it is most assuredly the best chain burger. I will go out on a limb and say that I enjoy your burger more than the iconic In-N-Out Burger restaurant; both for its taste and for the fact that unlike In-N-Out, your stores accept American Express credit cards.
Another one of the reasons I really appreciate the Five Guys' burger is that I can get it with fresh jalapeños. Not the pickled ones, but fresh. I even go so far as to ask you to grill my jalapeños which brings a nice smoky char to them and perks up the burger without the vinegar taste. My meal of choice from you is the cheeseburger with grilled jalapeños and barbecue sauce only with a side of peanuts and a cherry Coke. In fact, I just had that meal only a few hours ago.
Consequently the reason I am writing to you is that I had some interesting thoughts while I was chowing down on my dinner tonight. I happened to get to the restaurant at a time when I was the only customer there. As always I ordered my meal, paid, got my peanuts and drink and sat down to crack into as many shells as I could before the burger was delivered. While eating several more people came in to have the same experience and I starting making some associations to the type of customer that you serve. I remember remarking in a few cities that I have traveled to in the past that some of the patrons are unpleasant to look at due to their physical compositions. (I want to be careful here and note that I am not mocking, degrading, or being rude; I simply want to point out an observation that I think may hold some value to you and your company.) I personally do not find it pleasant to watch obese people eat, especially such high calorie foods. As a person who shades to the quite corpulent side myself, I can relate to the unattractive and unappealing scenes that someone like me sets when waddling through a restaurant and scarfing down large quantities of food.
While eating I starting feeling really bad about myself. I starting to feel guilty for coming in to your restaurant and ordering the big instead of the small burger. I doubted whether I should have went with the high calorie soda instead of the diet. Watching the other customers elicited feelings of shame and guilt which I doubt are the feelings you want your customers to have. The worst part is that while examining my feelings I began to remember I have felt that same way before when eating at your restaurant and that it has affected my decision to patronize your establishment in the past. I remember thinking how disgusting some of the guests had been and that I did not want to enter that particular establishment again, (or at least not as often).
And that got me thinking, I cannot be the only person to have these feelings and maybe there is an opportunity here.
Recently I read a study about mayonnaise bottles. Some company had tested two new squeeze bottles on supermarket shelves. One squeeze bottle had convex sides and the other concave. They both held the same amount of mayonnaise and the only difference was the shapes. The company found that the concave bottles were selling better and upon further testing discovered that subconsciously people associated the bottles with body shape and they felt better about themselves buying an unhealthy product if the bottle appeared slimmer; concave, instead of the plumper convex ones. It may be the case that I am alone on this one but I think I would feel better about dining with Five Guys if I was not reminded of my bad choices when looking at the other guests. As the vice president in charge of store development I think you are in a unique position to address this issue. If people feel better about their decisions to eat with you they will be more likely to come back more often and spend more money.
People need a distraction. I think this is best achieved through physical alteration of the premises. Currently, the only action in the Five Guys restaurant is the patrons. If people had something else to look at; for example a television, they could forget about their weight or the calories and simply enjoy their meal. However that might not be the atmosphere your company is trying to establish. Last year I went to visit the much hyped Heart Attack Grill in Arizona were they celebrate obesity. However people there do not have time to dwell on themselves as they offer sexy female servers dressed as naughty nurses, tilted mirrors behind the counter so you can peek up their skirts, mandatory scrubs for the guests that serve to equalize everybody's appearance, TVs with music videos, constant attention, and interesting artistic pieces almost to the point of sensory overload. It was quite the experience. But even though I probably ate worse there than I ever would at Five Guys, I never once felt self-conscious. Alternatively your layout is simple, clean, and certainly less stimulating. There is something to be said for a churn and burn atmosphere. Playing up-tempo music such as you do gets people to conduct their activities faster; and without distractions like TVs people will complete their visit faster clearing room for more guests, increasing throughput and ultimately revenue. As a former restaurant manager I can appreciate increased turnover.
So if visual stimulus is not the right suggestion I would like to suggest concealment. I recently visited a Smash Burger and noted that their store layout is different in that they have booths, large plants, and physical barriers to divide people. Even the registers where somewhat segregated from the customers. Retrospectively this might be a brilliant move that as a customer I would feel less guilty ordering a large meal because I would not feel as through the sitting guests were watching and judging me. Think about other franchises: McDonald's, Wendy's, or Johnny Rockets; they all use dividers. And I do not think that is by accident. The only chain I can think of with an open floor-plan is Subway, but their stores are quite small and they have successfully marketed their product as healthy and a good decision so patrons can feel better about eating there; subconsciously or not.
Therefore I feel that making alterations to the physical layout of a typical Five Guys establishment will help increase sales by making your customers feel more comfortable patronizing your business. By either adding visual distractions or obscuring sight-lines I believe people will enjoy their experience more and would be more inclined to return and spend more money. I understand that as a franchise company this idea will be difficult to implement or even test but I encourage you to at least consider it. Remember we come to Five Guys for the burgers, not the atmosphere.
Thank you for your consideration,
The Impudent Iconoclast
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