Hooters Adds 196 Virtual Locations to Drive New Sales - PYMNTS.com

With Hooters’ latest launch, the edifice concatenation is taking its customers astatine their connection erstwhile they accidental they travel for the food. The brand, which has much than 400 restaurants crossed the state and abroad, announced Monday (Oct. 31) that it is adding a virtual brand, Chase Elliott’s Chicken Tenders, successful concern with personage racecar operator Chase Elliott.

The virtual concatenation is launching successful 196 locations crossed the United States’ astir fashionable aggregators — DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub. In summation to the eponymous tenders, the marque besides sells boneless wings and assorted different fried foods.

“Virtual concepts person been an important portion of our off-premises maturation strategy since 2019,” Marc Butler, elder vice president, strategical planning/off-premise astatine Hooters of America, said successful a statement. “Hooters is precise good known for our large wings, but consciousness is little for different paper segments specified arsenic tenders, burgers and seafood. Incorporating Chase into this virtual conception volition assistance america make greater consciousness [and] pull a caller audience.”

The quality comes arsenic large restaurants question to boost their gross with the summation of virtual restaurants, driving much income from their existing kitchens and instrumentality and boosting their margins.

For instance, Chili’s Grill & Bar genitor institution Brinker International has rolled retired its It’s Just Wings concept, and Dickey’s Barbecue Pit has done the aforesaid with Wing Boss. Chuck E. Cheese, meanwhile, has its Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings brand.

These brands were each made imaginable by the wide adoption of integer ordering seen successful the past fewer years. In fact, astir fractional of each consumers crossed fiscal lifestyles present acquisition nutrient online, according to information from the August variation of PYMNTS’ monthly ConnectedEconomy™ study, “Paycheck-To-Paycheck Consumers Digitally Disengage.”

The report, which drew from a June survey of a census-balanced sheet of 2,760 U.S. consumers, recovered that 46% of consumers who bash not unrecorded paycheck to paycheck, 55% of those who bash truthful comfortably, and 57% of those who bash truthful with trouble had engaged with restaurants online astatine slightest erstwhile successful the erstwhile 30 days.

Get the study: The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: Paycheck-To-Paycheck Consumers Digitally Disengage

Additionally, erstwhile brands tailor their virtual offerings to antithetic timings than their emblematic menus, they person the accidental to usage these brands to thrust income astatine off-peak hours, amended utilizing their existing labour without straining capacity.

For instance, Alex Canter, CEO of virtual edifice company Nextbite, noted to PYMNTS’ Karen Webster successful a June interview that the institution has taken this attack with fashionable casual eating concatenation IHOP.

“With IHOP, for example, they’re 24/7 astatine the bulk of their locations, but they’re truly busier successful the mornings than they are astatine night,” Canter said. “So, we’ve designed 2 concepts for them: a grilled food conception and a quesadilla marque that is performing exceptionally good from 9 p.m. to 5 successful the morning.”

With the Hooters example, customers mightiness typically travel to the edifice astatine mealtime, but they whitethorn bid mozzarella sticks precocious astatine night. Yet according to the Jacksonville, Florida, determination of Chase Elliott’s Chicken Tenders, the marque accepts orders from 11am to 11:29pm, which is astir identical to the restaurant’s hours.

These hours suggest that it is presently not the brand’s volition to cater to wholly caller timings, but highest times whitethorn nevertheless beryllium antithetic for the virtual marque than the brick-and-mortar restaurant.