Shop Talk

Best deals for restaurant meals

When it comes to getting the most bang for a buck at sit-down restaurants, Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel, Golden Corral, Applebee’s and Chili’s get top marks, according to 5,000 diners recently polled online by BrandIndex.

Brands with the worst perceived value were Ground Round, Benihana, Bahama Breeze, Landry’s Seafood House and Hooter’s.

Sit-down restaurants have been discounting heavily as consumers cook more meals at home and “trade down” to lower-priced fast-food chains to save money amid a long recession that has sent U.S. unemployment to a 26-year high.

BrandIndex is owned by market research company YouGov.

Here is the full list of results:

(A score can range from 100 to -100 and is compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.)

CASUAL DINING — VALUE SCORES (July 10, 2009)

Disappearing restaurant deals?

Whether it is “value menus,”  Applebee’s two dinners for $20 deal or Ruth’s Chris Steak House’s “Summer Classic” three-course meal for $39.95, restaurant operators long have been depending on specials to woo customers during a long recession that has driven unemployment to a 26-year high.

Now, one high-profile restaurant executive says he has seen some rivals’ deep discounts disappear over the last few weeks.

“We see a little bit of pull back from some of the more significant offers,” said Clarence Otis, chief executive of Olive Garden and Red Lobster parent Darden International Inc.

Darden has specials of its own. For example, the company’s Red Lobster chain plans to repeat its “Lobsterfest” promotion during the the pre-Easter season of Lent,  when many Catholics eat fish on Fridays. Still, Otis said his company is careful to make sure its discounts reap financial rewards.

“We don’t know that a lot of folks who did discounting got much for it,” in terms of driving diners into restaurants, he said.

Have you seen your favorite discount disappear?

(Photo\Reuters)

Check Out Line: Discounts, the choice of a new generation

Check out the “Downturn Generation.”    That’s what data tracking firm Information Resources Inc is calling a “new generation of Americans (that) is adopting practices similar to Depression-era shoppers, implemented both to weather the recession and to keep a close eye on spending long after the recession ends.”   Basically, we want everything on sale.  And that means lots and lots off the original price.  The New York Times today pointed out how retailers are pushing deep discounts of 50 percent or more to attract shoppers.

According to IRI’s study, more than 69 percent of consumers surveyed say they are more likely to look through retailer ads for deals and nearly 82 percent are more likely to look for sale prices once in the store.   Also, it’s not just one store they are looking at.  Fifty-nine percent visit multiple stores for the lowest prices, and 42 percent of those shoppers will continue to do so into the future.   Just under two-thirds (65 percent) say price is becoming more important than convenience in brand purchases.   Oh, and along with this new frugality comes another benefit: sharing is in and for some people it could stay.

Thirty percent are making bulk purchases with others not in their households to secure low unit prices, and 35 percent of those shoppers intend to continue doing so.  At the same time, more than 34 percent are collecting, sharing and trading coupons with others, with 40 percent of those shoppers planning to continue this behavior.   Also in the basket:   Price fixing takes a hit (Wall Street Journal)   Office Depot posts loss   Fortune Brands to cut payout, affirms ’09 outlook   Under Armour posts stronger than expected profit   Coke Enterprises profit, outlook tops view   DineEquity posts higher profit   David Beckham designs (WWD)

(Reuters photo)

LeapFrog CEO’s mea culpa

Since U.S. President Barack Obama has begun owning up to his mistakes, the top dogs at some U.S. companies are giving mea culpas a try.

Take LeapFrog Enterprises’ Chief Executive Jeff Katz, for example.

In an interview with Reuters, Katz admitted that the toymaker had not been fast enough or deep enough with its discounts in the fourth quarter, which included the holiday sales season. The result? LeapFrog posted a 24-percent drop in quarterly sales and a wider loss for the period.

“That was really a miscall that we didn’t appreciate,” Katz said, adding that the company should have recognized early on, close to October, that consumers would only buy items that were heavily discounted.

Katz said the extremely frugal nature of shoppers had blown a hole through the theory that parents will hesitate to cut back on toys for children, and that the toy sector was resilient to economic downturns such as the current one.

“The great wisdom of the toy industry has certainly failed me this year,” said Katz.

Parents were also starting to recycle toys by handing down certain ones from older children to younger ones, he said.