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N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 • r e s t a u r a n t d e v e l o p m e n t + d e s i g n • 2 5 Consultant's Take BY MATTHEW MABEL Founded Surrender, Inc. www.surrender.biz Four Strategies for Selecting Your Site C hoosing the right site — one that is optimal for your concept, the right location for your customer base and at the right time for the place — is paramount to your success. Site selection is about more than just the viability of the unit you intend to locate. It dictates the future, value and net worth of your brand. Getting and optimizing your site can make the difference between an acceptable aver- age unit volume(AUV) and an outstand- ing AUV that lets you attract more capital, grow faster and increase your net worth exponentially. Consulting with growing restaurant companies for decades gives me access to a bounty of success stories and war stories on site selection. I have seen many choices that worked perfectly — and some that worked out tragically. One operator had the foresight to align their site with a retailer who is the hub of their community. As that community has grown, their restaurant has experienced continual growth and is the undisputed leader in their segment — even after 30 years. Another operator made a naïve location decision. While we worked together to adjust their concept to the real estate, resulting in a 30 percent revenue increase, they had forever lost the chance to have a home run by matching the frst unit of their concept to their site in a superior way. Every restaurant concept wants to grow. Most would grow faster if fnding sites was easier. The challenge is allow- ing yourself to be selective in a world without a great selection. These four tips can help you make choices that support your mission, continue your successful growth and build wealth. 1. Enlist the locals. In my home market of Dallas, one developer has bragged that all of the restaurants in his center came from out of town. Unfortunately, I know why — no local would touch the space. Traffc patterns and psychologi- cal barriers are best understood by the people who live with them. Make fast local friends and listen to their voice. Get out in the community or make contacts on LinkedIn or your college alumni association. Gather information through the local restaurant associa- tion chapter or my colleagues around the country in consulting. People make the choice to go to your restaurants, cross the threshold and try them for the frst time. People can still help you choose the right site, especially local people. Meet some. Ask questions. 2. Analyze the other guys' sites. While the locals can give you a sense and soft data about potential spaces, making the most informed decision also requires hard data and analytics. Recently, a client and I sat in a frst local unit of a restaurant group based in another part of the country. The interior package looked good and the food tasted great — but the dining room was empty. We knew there was no data to support success at that site. We won- dered how they'd left that step out. If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you have already mapped your sites and created a model using both demographics and psycho- graphics. You know what the character- istics of your best sites are. You have