A Tale of Two Outlets: How to tell which place is growing and which is stagnating in an instant

One of the newer features of SharpGrid Outlet Census is the Growth trend indicator. With its help, any user can pinpoint the fastest growing outlets on the market (called “Champions”) or determine which regions or outlet categories are more dynamic than others. If you want to learn more about this concept, there is a whole article explaining it in detail. 

Chasing the Champions: Why are on-trade growth Champions so rare and so important?

But today, we will adopt a field person perspective and see the Growth trend indicator “in action”. Outlets look very often quite similar from the outside and it is hard to tell their potential even from looking at free-to-use data sources like Google. The first impression is often misleading and you need an advanced BI tool like Outlet Census to really determine whether the place is worth your time and effort or not.

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Not everything that shines is gold

Let’s take a look at two outlets that seem very similar at first sight: Restaurant La Veranda and Restaurant Na Kopci (“On the Hill”). One of them is a rapidly growing Champion while the other is a much less dynamic Steady outlet.

This is the La Veranda restaurant. 

It is located in one of the busiest parts of Prague city center, has a perfect rating of 4.6 (praised for atmosphere, service and food) and offers a very extensive wine list. It’s one of the “fancy” and easy-to-reach restaurants of Prague where you’d expect a lot of traffic from both tourists and local consumers.

This is Na kopci restaurant.

It is located in the hills on the outskirts of Prague (a short hike is required to reach it), far from any tourist attractions or high-traffic areas inside a quiet residential area consisting mostly of houses rather than apartment blocks. Not a lot of people live in these parts, not much traffic from tourists or passers-by. Rating is very similar - 4.73.

On a first glance, it looks like La Veranda must be the Champion, right? A typical tourist outlet in a very busy area, screaming from afar: You will have a good time here. Whereas the Na kopci restaurant looks like a small and lazy place frequented by a bunch of locals.

‍But it’s the other way around. And it doesn’t stop at the Growth rank.

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The devil is in the detail (or indicator)

‍La Veranda is actually a Steady outlet with very slow engagement growth, low potential for beer and medium for spirits. We can only guess if the high prices, limited menu or fierce competition (although it has a Top Local market rank) are causing this issue.

On the other hand, Na kopci restaurant is on fire. Champion in Growth with medium beer potential and high spirits potential, this place has actually been awarded the Michelin’s Bib Gourmand award (best value for money) for 7 years in a row (2015-2021) and it shows. The prices are half that of La Veranda, but with a much wider offer and discounted daily menus as well. 

This way, Na kopci is able to attract a much wider audience - both locals looking for a cheap but quality meal and tourists or foodies seeking extraordinary culinary experiences. 

But you wouldn’t be able to tell this just by looking at them or after a quick assessment like we did a few paragraphs back. You’d have to research both places, find out about the Bib Gourmand prizes, compare menus etc. And to determine the Growth trend, you’d have to manually assess thousands of reviews. With the Outlet Census or SharpGrid platform, all you need to do is filter outlets by growth.

This is the true value of the SharpGrid products. Saving you time and money, steering you towards places with best possible ROI and separating weed from chaff in a few clicks. If you’re interested in the SharpGrid Platform with integrated Outlet Census, contact us and we’ll gladly show you all its tricks.

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SharpGrid is a data & tech company reinventing market research in the on-trade channel. The on-trade channel consists of POSs (points of sale) like restaurants or bars where food & beverage is bought and consumed, and is often also called HoReCa, on-premise, food service, out-of-home, gastro or immediate consumption (IC) channel, hospitality or on-licence.