“Elevating the guest experience” is the second piece of Red Robin’s five-pronged plan. It forks in two places—staffing at hospitality levels, as Hart calls it, and food quality enhancements and breadth of menu. The hospitality model changes represent a return to an industry standard staffing approach for Red Robin and one the company used “for many years to generate great success,” Hart said. Executives refer to it internally as “hospitality here.”
Essentially, it’s a chapter before the 2018 flip, where the brand had 572 units compared to today’s 511 (down 16 year-over-year). Red Robin added back bussers, hosts, bartenders, and expo roles that were previously eliminated or reduced. Now, akin to the company’s past, there’s a more traditional view where servers have fewer tables and don’t rely as heavily on server assistance. Hart said Red Robin made “significant progress” in Q1 and is more than 50 percent complete with these additions. It expects to be substantially finished by the end of Q2.
The first pillar of that North Star agenda concerns operations and getting front-line operators involved in decision making. At the start of Q2, Hart said, Red Robin launched a market partner program for all multi-unit operators. This changed the compensation structure to reward leaders based on the profits of the restaurants they oversee (closer to how Hart’s old shop, Texas Roadhouse, historically runs its company). “By making this change, these leaders are incentivized and rewarded for driving and delivering results,” Hart said.
Learnings from the rollout will incorporate into a future single-unit operator program, which Red Robin expects to launch at the start of 2024. Hart didn’t delve deeper into what that might look like, but it’s a broad strategy rooted in a similar, focus-centric vein; Chick-fil-A and others have taken the road hoping to ensure operators dial in on operations at the store level, versus placing growth ahead of execution.
The food and menu updates mentioned earlier start with messaging, Hart said. “On the side of every one of our restaurants hangs a sign proclaiming ‘Gourmet Burgers.’ [And] the bar has been raised over the years on what it means to deliver a truly gourmet burger, and we are upping the ante,” he said.
Red Robin’s first step will be to upgrade its cooking platform from a legacy conveyor belt-driven system to a flat-top grill. This switch alone delivers customers a 20 percent larger, juicer, and more flavorful burger, Hart explained. Red Robin tested the flat-top grills in Q1 and began a system-wide rollout in April. They’re already installed in nearly 300 locations with full coverage expected in Q2.
In addition to improving the quality of burgers, Hart said, employees expressed a “greater sense of pride for their work.” Execution has been easier, too.
“Finally,” he continued, “we expect the flat-top grills will significantly reduce repair and maintenance costs, clean costs, as compared to our legacy system.”
Red Robin in February tapped Brian Sullivan as VP of culinary and beverage innovation. He spent 34 years at California Pizza Kitchen (another of Hart’s CEO posts).
Following the installation of the flat-tops, Red Robin plans to phase in upgrades to buns, bacon, mayonnaise, wine, tomatoes, and other produce, among additional changes. It will also adjust preparation to deliver more caramelized onions and salted mushrooms. Visually, Red Robin will move away from its traditional presentation of wrapping burgers in wax paper, “which fit at the time the brand was developed,” Hart said. Now, with an upgraded patty and better ingredients, Red Robin wants to introduce plateware that allows “each burger to stand tall on its own,” he said, “next to the plentiful serving of our bottomless fries and other sides.”