Nation's Restaurant News: Checkers Captures Market Share With Fast Service

After two years of flat growth, restaurants saw more traffic on weekdays in 2015 - up 3 percent from the previous year with quick service the only segment with traffic growth. Nation's Restaurant News recently reported that according to The NPD Group, total traffic to restaurants on weekends actually dipped by 3 percent in 2015.

The report showed that QSR's driving factors were price (driving 25 percent of consumer visits), food variety and quality (13 percent) and "treating myself" (11 percent). Tampa-based franchise Checkers and Rally's has been able to capture incredible market share through improving upon their speed of service.

"Our demographic, they're hourly workers," Russell Harms, operating partner of Quick Service Capital Partners, a Checkers franchisee, told NRN. "They're pressed for time."

Harms and the QSCP team was one of the first franchise groups in the system to roll out the brand's "Peak 150" initiative to enhance speed of service. Under "Peak 150", the brand's goal is to deliver a quality experience and deliver food to customers in under 150 seconds utilizing technologies like drive-thru timers, investing in staff, and evaluating and updating equipment. "It's proven to be a good traffic and business driver," Harms said.

Additionally, Harms found that speed of service could be improved with better employee efficiency during peak hours, so he created a "lockdown" procedure where staff are fixed in their stations during those times. The efforts have led to sales increases of as much as double digits at QSCP's seven locations across Florida.