Punch Bowl Social “gets” how to keep millennials interested. Retail florists can adapt some of their tactics to their own business model.
If you go to a Punch Bowl Social restaurant, one person might stand out amidst the local food, microbrews, craft cocktails, 1980s arcade games, bowling, karaoke, Ping-Pong, foosball and pool tables, along with the antlers on the wall and vintage fox-hunting prints.
That person would be Richard Thompson — the founder and owner and a self-described grumpy, 45-year-old family man, who doesn’t drink, but who has found a way to convince millennials to spend millions at his eight Punch Bowl Social locations.
“All I see are the cigarette butts in the parking lot,” Thompson recently told Inc. magazine. “I notice when booths aren’t perfectly aligned with light fixtures, if the music levels aren’t right for the time of day, whether the hostess ran over to open the door, if the servers are smiling.”
Unlike other concept restaurants (think Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood), which long ago lost whatever edgy factor they once had, Punch Bowl Socials seem to hit a sweet, trendy spot with millennials, who are expected to spend more than $200 billion annually starting in 2017. Last year, Nation’s Restaurant News named Punch Bowl one of the top 10 national breakout brands of the year. The chain’s 2016 revenue is on track to exceed $49 million.
The lengthy Inc. profile includes some “secrets” to the company’s success that have application far beyond the restaurant business:
Get Customers to Stay Longer. Thompson takes a “kitchen-sink approach” to setting up each Punch Bowl. In practice that means customers have different activities to spend time and money on. They also have highly attentive servers — three employees per group — who “shadow them” throughout the evening and attend to all requests. Florist Approach: The set-up taps into a concept retail expert and consultant Jim Dion discussed in September at the Society of American Florist’s annual convention: slow shopping. The goal, Dion explained, is to give customers a reason to linger longer, whether it’s a shuffleboard tournament at Punch Bowl or a series of eye-popping vignettes in your showroom.
Embrace (A Little) Confusion. Are Punch Bowls restaurants? Social Clubs? Chuck E. Cheese for millennials? Bowling alleys? Thompson’s short answer: Who cares? “It’s not always easy to discern what we are right away,” he told Inc. “We’re a social environment.” Different areas of each Punch Bowl are also set up to transform throughout the week, depending on the customer base. A diner-themed area, for instance, is a weekday “lunch hangout for local professionals, while weekend afternoons are popular for tween parties and with families.” Florist Approach: This idea speaks to another trend Dion noted at SAF Maui 2016: category convergence. Boutiques are adding library areas, national clothing retailers are adding celebrity-headed cafes and wine bars, often in a concerted effort to give customers who shop at brick-and-mortars an experience they can’t get online.
Check out Dion’s full presentation and learn more about how his insights can apply to the industry here.
