Reforming space and improving customers' experience are part of restaurant chains' efforts to attract more customers. (Source: baodautu.vn) Patricia Marques, GeneralManager of Starbucks Vietnam, told Dau tu (Vietnam Investment Review) that facingpandemic-caused difficulties for more than two years, consumers are still tightening the string of their purse. Therefore, Starbucks has shut down some stores in primelocations but also opened new ones.
The coffeehouse chain is nowrunning 78 stores in six provinces and cities and working to adapt to the newnormal, she said, expressing her belief in the recovery of Vietnam’s economyand that everything will return to the pre-pandemic status.
As F&B is one of thethree hardest-hit sectors in the pandemic, as soon as Vietnam began easingsocial distancing to enter the new normal last October, Starbucks has been rampingup efforts.
It closed the store at RexHotel, which had one of the best locations in Ho Chi Minh City, in 2021 afteryears of lower-than-expected performance. Meanwhile, the store at VivoCity inthe city’s District 7 has had its design changed to become more attractive tofamilies with young children who spend their weekends and holidays at thisshopping mall.
Besides, online selling hashelped Starbucks retain its market share, and revenue from this activity isstill growing, even when restaurants have reopened. The number of orders placedonline has soared even 20- or 50-fold.
Like Starbucks, Golden Gate isalso accelerating recovery steps.
Hoang Quoc Khanh, anexecutive at Golden Gate, said this restaurant chain will focus on diversifyingrevenue sources, optimising costs, and enhancing operational efficiency.
Despite the pandemic’sadverse impacts on the entire restaurant sector in Vietnam last year and theshutdown of its restaurants for one-third of the year, Golden Gate stillrecorded 3.32 trillion VND (144.5 million USD) in revenue, equivalent to 73percent of the figure in 2020. Its revenue has rebounded, especially since thefourth quarter of 2021 when restaurants began reopening.
Last year, it opened 44 newrestaurants while closing and converting 37 others. The firm ran over 400restaurants as of late February 2022 and plans another 600 in the next fewyears.
Most of its chains have also upgradedtheir space since late 2020.
In the time ahead, GoldenGate will focus on hotpot and BBQ restaurants, serve more dishes imbued withthe Japanese culture at Japanese-style restaurants, expand presence at shoppingmalls and big cities other than Hanoi and HCM City, and step up investment indigital transformation in the next three years to improve customers’experience./.
VNA
