Performance Evaluation and Competitive Benchmarking - Research Paper Example

Performance Evaluation and Competitive Benchmarking Restaurant Gary Danko The Restaurant Gary Danko was inaugurated in 1999 by Gary Danko. This restaurant had obtained several prestigious awards. Some of these were; the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, and the James Beard Award for Best Chef in California. In the year 2012, Gary Danko was nominated as a finalist for the Outstanding Chef award (Trevs Bistro, 2012). Restaurant Gary Danko has the distinction of being one of the best restaurants in San Francisco. It has occupied the top of the list in Yelp and Zagat Guide for the past several years. The popularity of this restaurant is such that patrons have to make reservations two months in advance. The premises are stylish with a surfeit of marble, wood, and striking floristry (FoodNut, 2013). The Zagat’s San Francisco guide has emphatically stated that Gary Danko is a longstanding most popular restaurant. A place among the Top 100 in the Bay Area has been allocated to this restaurant, by The San Francisco Chronicle. The Gary Danko is located in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, and the tourists at this restaurant, seem to outnumber the local residents, marginally. The patron finds a mix of the old and the new at this restaurant. The exquisite china and glassware are new and the flower arrangements are gorgeous. However, the tinted black windows and banquettes clearly depict aging. There is quite a bit of noise at this place, due to the tendency of the patrons to celebrate loudly (Trevs Bistro, 2012). This detracts from the elegance and sense of intimacy, expected of such a high quality restaurant. The renown of this restaurant is attributable to the outstanding qualities of its founder, Gary Danko. This person has rightly been acknowledged as one of the greatest chefs in the US. His dedication to the culinary arts is legendary, and it can be safely asserted that Danko is a true adept of his trade. In addition to his skill, Danko is blessed with dedication, imagination and a spirit of adventure. As a consequence, he never hesitates to try out new dishes. These have proved to be possessed of both elegance and depth, in combination with the capacity to bring to mind the outstanding features and ambience of home cooking (Restaurant Gary Danko, 2014). Danko has successfully combined classical cooking with the best of French, Mediterranean, and regional American cooking. This great chef is not above including the culinary traditions of distant lands into his creations. Thus, several of his dishes incorporate seasonings and cooking techniques of India and other Asian nations. His cooking is characterized by precision and ingenious talent. In combination with his spirit of adventure, this produces cuisine of extraordinary delicacy and balanced tastes. Moreover, Danko invariably employs seasonal and locally grown victuals. To this end, this chef has formed close association with artisan cheese, meat, and produce suppliers. In this exercise, Danko proved to be a pioneer, with the other chefs following in his footsteps. Some of the dishes at this restaurant are unique. This includes the buckwheat blini with smoked salmon, Kendall Farms crème fraîche and Black Sea Osetra caviar. The ingredients used by Danko are solely those that are in season. Thus, in spring, sea scallops with asparagus-pea purée tickles the palate of the diner, whilst in winter, butternut squash purée and caramelized apples are conveyed to the patron. Furthermore, this restaurant is located centrally in one of the trendiest districts of San Francisco (Lopez, 2014). The Gary Danko has a wine list that runs to 69 pages, and the service provided by the staff is excellent. The commingling of the artfully crafted food and service transforms a meal into an event. These endeavors have been recognized and the founder chef Gary Danko has been the proud recipient of several prestigious awards, which have effectively declared him to be one of the best chefs of the US (San Francisco Restaurants, 2014). This restaurant has a dining room that accommodates 65 people, where parties of six people can congregate. Larger parties can opt for a private room. The Gary Danko makes every attempt to provide customers with their special culinary needs. Thus, the services include vegetarian and special dietary menus (Restaurant Gary Danko, 2014). I have selected the Gary Danko Restaurant as the competitor for the Oak Room Restaurant. This is because, both these restaurants are located in San Francisco. Moreover, they provide similar food and beverage services. In general, a hotel provided with a higher ranking in customer ratings will be a better competitor for the other hotels. These ratings depict the final choice of the customer, and the target market and other options exercised by the customer, in that situation. This enables us to evaluate the product or service that had been accorded a higher ranking. Gary Danko Restaurant was established in 1999 whereas the Oak Room Restaurant was started in 1913 as a men’s bar. As such, the Oak Room Restaurant had the competitive advantage of experience and quality, over a longer period, when compared to the Restaurant Gary Danko. In this work, I undertook a customer centric approach, in order to analyze competitive structure. I employed reviews provided by websites, such as Yelp, Trip advisor and Open table. Around 100 reviews were accessed for the Oak Restaurant and the Restaurant Gary Danko. Customer ratings related to quality of food, service, price, and environment were treated as the primary variables for evaluating competitive values. In the Oak Room Restaurant, 75% of the reviewers had visited the hotel for dinner, and 25% had visited it for other purposes, such as breakfast and lunch. On the other hand, the reviewers of the Restaurant Gary Danko, had visited it for dinner. This showed that people were according a higher priority for dinner in the Gary Danko, despite its higher prices. Moreover, in the reviews of Gary Danko, appreciation for food quality was at top of the list, with 37% appreciating it, whereas in the Oak Room Restaurant the appreciation for food was just 29%. This shows that the Gary Danko had menu items with substantial value and quality. Furthermore, I have calculated the element of competition from the perspective of pricing of products. The data collected for these restaurants has disclosed a significant variation in the price structure. For instance, in the Oak Room Restaurant, the price of the Chefs Special 3 Course Dinner was $45 per person. This special dinner contained an appetizer, entrée and dessert, and a glass of wine or non-alcoholic drink (GreatHotelRestaurants, 2014). On the other hand, the Restaurant Gary Danko charged $76 for a three course meal, $94 for a four course one, and $111 for meal of five courses (Urbanspoon, n.d.).This shows that the price variation between the Oak Room Restaurant and the Restaurant Gary Danko is substantial. The latter’s prices are at a higher level, in comparison to that of the Oak Room Restaurant. Regarding appreciation towards price issues, Gary Danko was accorded a -1% rating, whilst the Oak Room Restaurant was accorded -10%. This indicated that the prices charged by these restaurants were not to the liking of their customers. However, the Oak Room Restaurant was considered to be charging more than the Restaurant Gary Danko. With respect to the service option appreciation, the Oak Room Restaurant had been accorded 20%, whereas Gary Danko had obtained 23%. This evidences the better service in the Gary Danko, when compared to the Oak Room Restaurant. Hence, the Oak Room Restaurant has to improve the quality of its services, in order to overcome the challenge posed to it by its competitor. Staff appreciation, in the review, was 12% with regard to the Oak Room Restaurant, whereas the corresponding figure was 18% for the Restaurant Gary Danko. Staff quality is essential for the success of any organization, and the data reveals that the Oak Room Restaurant has to make efforts to enhance the quality of their staff. Otherwise, its competitor, the Gary Danko will benefit from its better quality staff. In addition, entrée level food appreciation was just 3% for the Oak Room Restaurant, whereas it was 5% for the Gary Danko. Thus, appreciation for entry level foods was higher in the Gary Danko, in comparison to the Oak Room Restaurant. Moreover, appreciation for the environment quality was 4% in the Gary Danko, whereas it was 14% for the Oak Room Restaurant. This indicated a higher level of environment quality in the Oak Room Restaurant. As such, the Oak Room Restaurant was in an advantageous position, with regard to its ambience. As such, the overall study of the reviews reveals that the Restaurant Gary Danko is better placed, with better competitive advantages, in comparison to the Oak Room Restaurant. Consequently, the Oak Room Restaurant has to improve the quality of its staff, services and food, in order to successfully compete with the Restaurant Gary Danko. List of References FoodNut. (2013). Restaurant Gary Danko, San Francisco. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.foodnut.com/388/gary-danko-restaurant-review-san-francisco/ GreatHotelRestaurants. (2014, June 17). The Oak Room is golden! (San Francisco, California). Retrieved September 14, 2014, from Monthly Archives: June 2014: http://greathotelrestaurants.com/2014/06/ Lopez, G. (2014). Gary Danko. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.relaischateaux.com/en/search-book/hotel-restaurant/danko#.VDJj7Bbl525 Restaurant Gary Danko. (2014). Gary Danko Chef & Principal. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.garydanko.com/site/bio.html Restaurant Gary Danko. (2014). Reservations. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.garydanko.com/site/forms/reservations.html San Francisco Restaurants. (2014). Gary Danko. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from https://sanfranciscorestaurants.com/gary-danko/ Trevs Bistro. (2012, March 27). Restaurant Gary Danko, San Francisco. Retrieved from http://trevsbistro.com/2012/03/ Urbanspoon. (n.d.). Gary Danko Menu. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.urbanspoon.com/cities/6-sf-bay-area/restaurants/89820-gary-danko/menu Read More