Whether you are building a fast food restaurant using an existing corporate plan or template, or are creating an independent restaurant from scratch, you will require the services of a professional design consultant.
A design consultant will be able to customize your design plans to your exact needs and ensure it conforms to the local codes and regulations.
Topics: Design, C-Store and Quick-Service, Commercial and Retail
So, you’re looking for the perfect location for your hot new fast food restaurant. There are a lot of great commercial realtors out there.
The good ones can provide you with invaluable advice on choosing a location with high traffic flow –maybe a corner lot with access to passing traffic on two main streets. They can likely recommend a vibrant neighbourhood that matches your customer demographic. They may be able to help you weigh the pros and cons of leasing versus financing, and hopefully, they are master negotiators who can help you get an incredible price. However, a realtor’s expertise only goes so far.
Topics: Design, C-Store and Quick-Service, Commercial and Retail
Image: Philip Bird LRPS CPAGB / Shutterstock.com
A 2014 report on Canadian Quick Service Restaurants revealed that 75% of Quick service Restaurants (QSR) offered drive-thru service.* Seventy-five percent! If you’ll pardon the pun, it’s all driven by the needs of a society that is constantly on the go— rushing to work, children’s soccer practices and birthday parties, or to family and social gatherings.
As a result, the ability to offer convenient drive-thru service is becoming a make-or-break proposition for QSRs. Which is why it’s crucial that the restaurant site is professionally designed by a firm with expertise and experience in this area.
You may also want to check out our previous blog post on Layout Planning Matters: 4 Key Design Practices for Quick Serve Restaurants.
Topics: C-Store and Quick-Service
When a customer enters your restaurant or tries to navigate your parking lot, they generally don’t pay much attention to whether the layout is well thought out. But if it is poorly planned, they will notice in a hurry. That is because awkward, inconvenient, and unsafe restaurant design adversely affects your ability to offer great service, and dissatisfied customers can be quick to take their business somewhere else.
Topics: C-Store and Quick-Service
In a recent post, Beyond the Microwave: Hot Food Options for Your C-Store, we gave you a taste of some options for providing hot food offerings in your C-Store. This week, we’d like to address equipment and design requirements around food safety.
Topics: Current Trends, Innovation, C-Store and Quick-Service, Gas and Petroleum Stations, Commercial and Retail
Look around and it’s clear to see. Appetites have evolved! Expectations have changed. As a result, new equipment options and food trends are displacing the once mighty microwave in C-stores.
CTM asked our independent C-store Consultant, Mark Walsh, about different equipment options available to help you take your food offering to the next level.
Topics: Current Trends, C-Store and Quick-Service, Commercial and Retail
As part of that conversation, he suggested the next key question an owner must ask after deciding to proceed with a hot food offering is whether or not is should be a branded (national franchise) or non-branded product.
Topics: Current Trends, C-Store and Quick-Service, Commercial and Retail
To help shed light on the key points you need to consider, we solicited the insights of an independent consultant and C-Store specialist, Mark Walsh. Mark addresses both questions in this two-part interview.
Topics: Current Trends, C-Store and Quick-Service, Commercial and Retail
Until recently, the gas station washroom served a strictly utilitarian role. They were simple, plain, nothing flashy. Yet, with neglect, many had developed a reputation for being grungy – something to avoid except in the case of extreme emergency (particularly among female customers).
Topics: Current Trends, Design, C-Store and Quick-Service, Gas and Petroleum Stations
The Academy Award winning movie The Imitation Game brilliantly tells the story how a team of the world’s top mathematicians (led by Alan Turing) solved the riddle of the “unbreakable” German codes using the first computers. This breakthrough was instrumental in helping the Allies achieve victory in WWII.
Sometimes, navigating the maze of codes and regulations required to build your store or gas bar can seem just as daunting. Fortunately, CTM has assembled our own team of experts to help customers resolve these complex challenges.
Topics: C-Store and Quick-Service, Gas and Petroleum Stations
