The next big trend - flex-casual

The phrase has been coined by Randy Murphy to describe the model for his popular Asian concept Mama Fu’s. It is intended to show the crossover between fast casual restaurants and casual dining—catering for busy, budget-conscious diners in particular.

Customers at Mama Fu’s get fast casual service at lunch and full service during dinner. Murphy said: “I realised that our revenue split was about 55/45 lunch to dinner, and considering our customer base was weighted toward families in the evenings and weekends, I decided to start doing full service at night to increase ticket average and provide a more relaxing and enhanced service experience.” The move has reversed his split—to 45/55 lunch to dinner.

Murphy thinks flex-casual is the way forward. “In general, customers desire a differing service model depending on day-part—in-and-out quick during lunch—and a more relaxed dining experience for dinner. Flex-casual satisfies that without dramatically increasing operating complexity.”

For the full story, see Is flex-casual the new fast casual?