Welcome to the inaugural issue of Restaurant Development + Design — the first publication to speak to those professionals that buy, recommend or specify products and services contributing to the building or renovating of chain restaurants.
Last March the Zoomba Group had the opportunity to attend RestaurantPoint for the first time. In addition to Connecting Point's effective and efficient management of the event, what struck us most about RestaurantPoint was the very open exchange of ideas and experiences among peers. Many of the individuals in attendence represented chain restaurants that typically compete toe to toe for customer loyalty. While at RestaurantPoint, though, these people placed their competitive drive on hold in order to seek the perspectives of other seasoned restaurant development and design professionals and to share their own thoughts and experiences.
That got us thinking about what drove this phenomenon. And after careful consultation with many chain restaurant executives the answer became clear. Although their concepts and go-to-market strategies may differ, so many restaurant chains face similar challenges when it comes to building new locations or remodeling existing ones. And while experts in their own field, construction and development professionals typically work in organizations that are all about menus, marketing and operations. That means the opportunities for restaurant development and construction professionals to learn from and talk with their peers tend to be few and far between.
It became apparent from the many chain restaurant executives that we spoke with that there is strong interest in a platform that allows them to share their experiential knowledge with their peers so the community can benefit from one another's opinions, perspectives and lessons learned, while developing lasting solutions to their challenges.
As a result, we at Zoomba Group are proud to present this new user-driven resource for the chain restaurant development and construction community. The content in RD+D was suggested by restaurant development and construction professionals for restaurant development and construction professionals.
In the future, RD+D will continue to facilitate a conversation and exchange of ideas among restaurant development executives at the corporate and franchisee levels, design consultants, construction providers and other integral players in the building and renovation process. In doing so, RD+D will provide a platform that allows professionals from these seemingly disparate backgrounds to come together to share best practices, innovations and more that are applicable when developing solutions they can use in the building, maintenance and repairing of various chain restaurants.
We hope that you enjoy this inaugural issue and that you will share your thoughts and ideas for future issues with us by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by calling us at (800) 630-4168.