Ive been getting SmashBurger lately..hella good
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OPERATIONS
Smashburger’s ‘quiet turnaround’
CEO tells how ‘crazy’ promotions and new products lured traffic back to the burger chain
Jonathan Maze | Oct 20, 2017
Smashburger CEO Tom Ryan sat in one of his company’s restaurants in suburban St. Paul, Minn., and started an hour-long conversation about the state of the restaurant industry, and the chain he founded, by being brutally honest.
The political environment, he said, has hurt dinner occasions as more people have stayed home, glued to CNN. The weak retail environment has likewise kept people at home. Meanwhile, the biggest restaurant chains are going full guns in response. All this, he said, has hurt smaller chains like his.
“We’ve had to do some crazy things to drive traffic,” Ryan said.
Indeed, it has.
Smashburger has developed new burgers, focused on value, shifted workers around, began advertising on television and other media, and has employed new technology, all in an effort to get customers through the door. It is also renegotiating some leases and changing the way it expands the business.
Ryan said that he believes these efforts have worked, helping to improve sales through increased traffic this summer.
“It’s a quiet turnaround,” he said.
A McDonald’s Corp. veteran, Ryan co-founded Smashburger with former Quiznos owner Rick Schaden in 2007. The chain grew rapidly, even through the Great Recession, as part of a generation of so-called “better burger” chains that burst onto the restaurant scene.
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