Ambience: Coming Soon to a Fast Food Restaurant Near You
You're young. You love food. You want a restaurant career--but where to start? Getting a foot in the door is the hard part of any job, since you don't want to lock yourself into a low-wage, no future position.
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You’re young. You love food. You want a restaurant career—but where to start? Getting a foot in the door is the hard part of any job, since you don’t want to lock yourself into a low-wage, no future position. Undoubtedly, you’ve heard that fast food restaurant jobs are just that. But the time has come to take a second look at those fast food chains bent on refurbishing their images and their menus as well.
The McDonalds Effect
If you think that a McDonalds by any other name is still a McDonalds, think again. Located in the now ill-fated New Orleans, the Arches Bistro has been an experiment in “gourmet casual” by this pioneering fast food chain. Forget Big Mac, at the Arches, you can order the grilled chicken panini with roasted red peppers, sautéed spinach, provolone cheese and shallot dill sauce, should you choose. Upscale baby boomers and sophisticated working young adults, not families, are the target consumers for the new chandeliered, leather-couched Cajun bistro. Work here and you’ll talk about your restaurant career, not your fast food restaurant job.
An Upscale Red Lobster?
If a starter career in a seafood restaurant appeals to you more, consider the new and improved Red Lobster. With a multi-year business plan, a new décor designed to evoke the atmosphere of a Maine fishing village, and an “Ignite the Craving” ad campaign, Red Lobster is reinventing itself. Now that other fast food and franchise chains are featuring seafood on their menus, Red Lobster revisions itself as the “significantly better seafood restaurant,” according to owners the Darden Restaurant chain. Sign on with today’s Red Lobster and you won’t have a job, you’ll start a restaurant career.
Ambience may not be everything, but working in an upscale atmosphere that you’re proud of combats the stereotype of settling for a dead end fast food restaurant job.
Sources:
“Red Lobster retools as ‘better seafood’ eatery,” by Kate MacArthur. Advertising Age 76.34 (Aug. 22, 205).
“You want ambiance with that?” USA Today. Oct 30, 2003.
Posted on August 30, 2006 at 10:22 AM
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