There are 2 main types of restaurants with multiple locations. Some locations are all owned by the same owner, and then some restaurants are franchises where all of the locations are individually owned. This article pertains mostly to restaurants where the same owner owns all of the locations, but I do have just a few comments for franchise owners that want to start a challenge at their own particular restaurant that is not at other locations.

Have the same challenge with the same rules at all locations – Keep the challenge uniform at all locations, and don’t allow there to be a different set of rules at each location. Don’t allow 45 minutes at one location for the time limit and then 1 hour at the other location. Don’t only award shirts at one location and not the others. If the challenge details are different at each location, then the restaurant with the best set of rules and prizes will get the most attempts and all of the other restaurants will suffer. Having one uniform food challenge is a lot more powerful and it also gets rid of possible questions and arguments that may come up due to very unnecessary confusion and misunderstandings. Your restaurant will look a lot more professional and will operate smoothly.

Have the challenge at all of your locations – Your challenge will give you much more marketing power if you have the challenge at every location. If you only have the challenge at 1 location, you can only promote that restaurant and you have to leave out all of the others, which makes no sense as a business strategy. The only time it may be ok to only have the challenge at one or just a few locations is if your other locations are all in completely different cities and markets. You also keep your customers on the same page and less confused, making them more likely to want to attempt your challenge. It’s inconvenient to have to call all eight of your restaurants in the area to find out which location has the challenge. If you don’t want to make the effort to have the same challenge at all locations in the area, you are probably better off not having a food challenge at all.

For individual franchise owners – First of all, thank you for being interested in having a food challenge at your restaurant. The number 1 thing for you to do is to find out if your restaurant franchise rules even allow you to have a challenge at your particular location. You don’t want to go through the effort of starting a challenge just to receive a phone call from the parent restaurant owners telling you to end the challenge. If you are allowed to have a food challenge, by all means get one started!! The rules for you are basically the same as they are for any other restaurant owner. You just need to do one thing on all of your promotional materials. Make sure to list that the challenge is only available at your location(s) and that it is not available anywhere else. People will then know that they can’t go to the other franchise restaurant 15 minutes away. They know that your restaurant has the challenge and that your restaurant is the one they need to visit. Seeing an advertisement like that may just get people to visit your restaurant over the others just because you seem like you care more since you spent the extra time and started a challenge. Good luck getting things started and let us know how we can help you!!

As you can see, things are pretty much the same for restaurants with multiple locations as they are for individual restaurants. Restaurants with multiple locations just need to remember to maintain uniformity so that the restaurants can be marketed as one unit rather than requiring multiple less-powerful campaigns. Restaurants with different challenges requiring different campaigns at each location are just as silly as one restaurant having two totally different challenges that require two separate campaigns. Maintain uniformity and your challenge has a higher chance of creating successful opportunities for your restaurant as a whole.

To go back and view other Considering A Challenge articles, click here.