βurgerβusiness

For most chains “barbell marketing” means balancing low- and high-price menu items. Red Robin Gourmet Burgers walks that line, too, but it also has another balancing act to master: The chain is in the midst of a rebranding effort intended to attract more adults but it also needs to maintain its traditional appeal to families [...]

Just as McDonald’s rolls out its new Quarter Pounder varieties that replace the discontinued Angus Third Pounder line, rival CKE Restaurants is reminding burger lovers that its Angus burgers aren’t leaving. Even better, CKE is offering $1 to salve McDonald’s customers’ broken hearts. CKE took out a full-page ad in USA Today and posted messages [...]

“Burger Week” promotions have become marketing staples for a lot of burger joints. Sometimes they’re part of citywide celebrations; often they’re independent, as is the case with the weeklong burger promo upcoming at The Oinkster in Los Angeles. Their  event—the third annual—is so well put together that it merits attention as a case study from [...]

Diners are acutely price-conscious now but their dining preferences may be less strongly determined by promotional or price offers than some operators appear to believe. The NPD Group’s new report, “Defining Value Today: How Consumers Choose to Eat Out,” finds that loyalty keeps many diners returning to their favorite spot no matter what. The study [...]

If it’s May 1 it’s the beginning of National Burger Month, a holiday I view much as I imagine most Irish pubs think of St. Patrick’s Day. It’s always burger month at BurgerBusiness.com. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few good burger ideas floating among the festivities. Independent burger bars’ ideas will be covered [...]

When the recession kneecapped the restaurant industry in 2008, chains resorted to heavy dealing to stay afloat. But researcher NPD Group says some deals’ appeal appears to be wearing out. Last year, 23% of restaurant visits involved a deal, a 3% decrease from 2011 and the first time dealing has declined since 2008 (when dealing [...]

1) Where there’s an advantage to be had, take it. There’s no evidence that Burger King served horsemeat to consumers, but the chain did withdraw and dump product from one of its meat suppliers, which has been implicated in the supermarket scandal, British magazine Marketing reported. Right on the heels of BK’s announcement that it [...]

Last August, McDonald’s introduced the Chicken Box in Germany, offering a customizable, mix-and-match pack of Chicken McNuggets, Chicken McBites and Chicken Sticks. This site has since predicted that boxed multi-person meals with burgers would finally come to the U.S. in 2013, and we didn’t have to wait long to see it. Just in time for [...]

Denny’s is the latest restaurant to relearn the “3 Bs”: Burgers bring business. The family-dining chain says it will make the Build Your Own Burger option a permanent offer as part of a new core menu coming in January 2013. The BYO platform for both burgers and milk shakes was a limited-time promotion that began [...]

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers is rethinking its full-service restaurant model top to bottom—from name to service style to menu—as it also expands its fast-casual concept, Red Robin Burger Works. Red Robin reported its Q3 results today, which include a 3.4% increase in total revenues and a 1.1% increase in same-store sales for company units. More [...]

[Wisconsin? Well, maybe later. BK has brought back the California Whopper but just in 4 West Coast states. Read details here. It's trying out the King Deals discount program in San Diego. Read here.] Burger King is heading north for the winter. The chain that created the Carolina BBQ Whopper and Texas BBQ Whopper for [...]

Officially, May is National Burger Month, but only because someone we can’t name has so designated it declared so by White Castle in 1992. October, however, has made itself an equally important month for burgers because it’s a great way to celebrate Oktoberfest. Not surprisingly, most of the month’s burger creations are riffs (with varying [...]

The multiculturalism of McDonald’s introduction of McNoodles in Austria is just one example of the chain’s accelerated effort to bring global flavors and excitement to its menus across euro-crisis-depressed Europe. In July, McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson told analysts, “Europe’s Informal Eating Out industry is contracted as austerity measures continue to impact consumer purchasing power and [...]

The inaugural Burger Week Montreal ended at midnight, September 7, when the final votes were tallied. Appropriately, the winner was a burger-specialty restaurant, Burger Bar Crescent, which received 534 votes for its Hangover Burger, a 6-oz. beef patty topped with caramelized onions, bacon, American cheese, truffle oil, fried egg and a mini poutine (fries, cheese [...]

Three years ago, Denny’s gave a name to the trend to improved burger quality when it added its line of “burger-joint inspired” Better Burgers. Now it’s giving the customization craze its due by introducing limited-time “Build Your Own” programs for both burgers and milk shakes. The promotion gives diners their choice of beef, grilled chicken [...]