Restaurants cater to a drinking clientele

In a highly competitive restaurant market such as Providence, finding ways to stand out from the crowd and keep business alive can be the difference between sinking or swimming – and many eateries are using cocktail hour to stay afloat.
Some, such as McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant in the Providence Biltmore Hotel are offering bargain-priced food menus at their bars and novel drinks to go along with them.
Creating a separate bar menu – and a bar that people want to go to aside from the rest of the restaurant – can boost revenue significantly, according to David Henkes, senior principal and executive director of Technomic, a Chicago-based company that provides data and consulting services to the food service industry.
“It is difficult to generate revenue growth in a restaurant, so creating a separate bar area with a separate, smaller menu that appeals to a different crowd than the rest of the business works well,” said Henkes. “Bars are big profit drivers, and places that have difficulty differentiating themselves in the restaurant itself can attract different people – the late-night crowd or people who just want a quick drink and an appetizer.”
Many restaurants use the bar as a “holding area” where customers sip cocktails while waiting for the buzzer to light up and tell them their table is ready, but some businesses have been successful in creating bars that people go to with no intention of moving on to the restaurant tables for dinner, Henkes said.
A Technomic report based on 1,600 consumer responses in December showed increased across-the-board consumption of alcoholic beverages when dining out. Among those who do go out to eat, roughly two-thirds indicated that they are drinking more of their preferred alcoholic beverage simply because they enjoy it more than they used to.
The report shows consumers under 40 years old are driving incremental growth in on-premise adult beverage sales, and these consumers are also open to trying new and unique adult beverages on the menus, such as the $8 Prickly Pear Mojito at Citron or the $8.50 Electric Eel drink at Big Fish.
Riding the wave of this trend, Raphael’s Bar Risto at 1 Union Station in Providence has a separate bar area and menu with lower-priced, appetizer-type items including gourmet sandwiches, seafood and pizzas.
Nearby Citron, at 5 Memorial Blvd., does the same thing, offering sandwiches, appetizers and desserts on a bar menu separate from the rest of the restaurant. Big Fish, at 370 Richmond St., also has a separate bar area and advertises it on its Web site as “the perfect spot to meet friends after work or watch the big game on the big-screen plasma TV.”
Most times, this approach comes from local, privately owned restaurants like the ones mentioned, though some chains such as T.G.I. Friday’s have been successful in making their bar areas places to sit, eat and hang out, Henkes said.
It is working for McCormick & Schmick’s in Providence – a chain that uses local seafood on its menus.
The restaurant, whose co-owner William McCormick grew up in Providence, runs $1.95 bar food specials throughout the entire chain that differ depending on the region.
In Providence, Executive Chef Tony Hernandez has created bar menus that include a half-pound cheeseburger or Cajun burger, Baja fish tacos, spinach and artichoke dip, oyster shooters, steamed mussels, bruschetta and, of course, Buffalo wings.
The special menu is available from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. daily and from 10:30 p.m. to midnight. There is a two-drink minimum for the bargain prices – but soft drinks qualify.
“We get people all ages, people going to concerts – in a rush or people who end up closing the bar. It’s a fun environment, great cocktails,” said Fred Pahl, the general manager.
The seafood chain developed a new cocktail program about eight months ago, researching and recreating about 50 concoctions to make time at its bar a bit more interesting.
“The concept is, all of our drinks are handmade – we have broken up the menu in sections: into pre-Prohibition, Prohibition and current-day. It’s really fun, and it showcases how we make everything fresh,” said Pahl. “When you get a margarita from us, everything is hand-squeezed. There are no sugary mixes used.”
The cocktail menu also gives guests a lesson in the origins of each drink, like the “Immortal French 75,” which is said to be named after the French gun used by American National Guardsman during the First World War. It is made with hand-squeezed lemon juice, gin and sugar, topped with sparkling wine. •

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