A Quick Casual Dining Experience At Pei Wei

Pei Wei, a quick casual concept featured in Asian diner created after its sister concept P.F. Chang’s, in a short period of time has created even greater surprise than its predecessor. Food experts may criticize the authenticity of its food provided compared with P.F. Chang’s, but they compromise on the sheer volume of sales. Same-store sales rose by 3.4 percent in the last quarter of 2004, quite a bit faster than the 2-percent sales growth at units of the most-recognized P.F. Chang’s brand. While pondering on its big success, we hereby explore some tricks of the trade of Pei Wei. 1. New Concept to Serve Niche Market: “One of the bigger reasons we opened Pei Wei is that we didn’t want P.F. Chang’s to be all things to all people,” explains Rick Federico, chairman and chief executive P.F. Chang’s, whose forte is Chinese food. Since the company already had a successful dinner house chain that was based on Chinese food, it needed a new concept in order to capitalize on a demand for a wider variety of Asian flavors.The increase in P.F. Chang carry-out traffic that management had noticed made it sensible to open a concept with faster, more flexible service. “We saw a hole in the (quick casual) market,” recalls Rick Federico, “So we decided to fill in.” “We didn’t want a mini-P.F. Chang’s, a P.F. Chang’s Express’ or anything like that,” Federico explains, “We think the bistro.” The result is a nimble, relatively easy-to-manage restaurant with about 35 to 40 employees and average annual sales of around $2.2 million per location. Food cost in the third quarter of 2004 was 28.9 percent of sales, and labor was 33.4 percent. 2. Convenience-focused: Accurate Market Position Pei Wei’s $8-to$9 check average allows the brand to operate in more economically diverse markets than its Chinese older sister has, Federico says. Corporate management has found that for every one P.F. Chang’ China Bistro outlet-between three and five Pei Weis can open in the same market. Some analysis firm has expressed concern that Pei Wei units that open close to P.F. Chang’s branches could result in Pei Wei’s cannibalizing the flagship bistro concept’s sales. But the fact is that the overall returns for the company as a whole far outpaces cannibalization, especially when one considers that guests use the restaurants so differently. “The only way the two concepts might cannibalize each other is in fulfilling customers’ desires for some-thing Asian,” says Federico. Elaborating on how guests use the two concepts, Federico says a P.F. Chang’s meal is more of a planned event. “At Pei Wei it tends to more focused on convenience,” he says. It satisfies the needs of people who just picked up their kids from the soccer field and don’t have time to cook or who want a quick dinner before a movie. 3. Fast Service Guests enter a Pei Wei, order and pay at the counter, get a number and sit down. Their food is brought to them and their tables are bused. On average the experience takes about 30 minutes. Two main reasons may be accountable for this high-speed. Managers of Pei Wei actually find that, when the servers are removed from the guest experience, it already speeds up the process,” he says. Besides, at both restaurants the food already is sliced, marinated and ready for preparation. Pei Wei does have fewer menu items, however. 4. Takeout-Oriented Sales A full 40 percent of the food is ordered to go, however, and since Pei Wei opened it s first unit in 2000, management has added a fourth cash register that’s dedicated exclusively to takeout service. Alcohol accounts for only about 3 percent of the sales, “so we don’t have to deal with all the issues surrounding the bar,” explains the managers. Also, Pei Wei doesn’t have much late-night dinner business, meaning that the restaurants can close earlier. Because of that the average unit manager works just 50 to 55 hours a week. “The ability for a manager to close down by 10:30, 11, at night is good for quality of life,” the managers say. 5. Center-Kitchen for Simpler Operations: Pei Wei’s building design, with the kitchen located at the center of the restaurant, with open windows to allow see-through to the kitchen from the dining floor, facilitates smoother operations because a manager can simultaneously oversee the front and back of the house. 6. Talents Training Getting cooks with training in cooking with woks is a challenge, yet Pei Wei deals with it skillfully. They find the right personalities-people that have that food sense about them and also good hand-eye coordination.” Trainees start by handling cold woks with rice in them to get a feel for them, to learn how to flip and turn items. Then they start cooking the simpler items, such as noodle dishes and fried rice. Cooks with experience at restaurants that have high volume sauté business try to develop the new comers’ eye-hand coordination and teach them in what sequence the aromatics go into the woks, what elements we’re looking for in the explosion of flavor. They have to learn to control fire, not have the fire control them. To teach them that skill, as the cooks get better, their trainers-of whom there is one for every two trainees-turn up the heat under the woks. The culinary staff at new units is trained for about a week before the restaurant opens. In markets where the company already has other unites, the staff for the new restaurant is hired in advance and trained in the outlets that already are up and running. “To me, to be trained to know how to cook, to know all the dishes, takes proba?bly two weeks just to know what they’re doing. But I would say it takes three to six months before they’re actually comfortable,” one manager of Pei Wei says. “To get a really proficient wok cook-it takes six months to a year to really get him up to the speed we want.” http://www.peiwei.com