Whack-a Moola: Why Pop-Ups Are Everywhere

Consumers are bored.

And lazy. They like it when brands come to them.

Enter the fascinating engagement experience known as a pop-up restaurant.

Just as the name implies, pop-up restaurants arrive out of nowhere, typically in an unusual location or venue, for a limited time.

Operation costs are comparatively low. But, at the same time, the return can be extremely rewarding in that, if executed well, a pop-up creates a valuable testing ground for you and an irresistible intrigue for all these bored people walking around.

1. A Pop-Up Can Expand Your Restaurant Brand into a Targeted Market

Especially now, with inflation’s impact on consumer dining decisions, in can be incumbent upon operators to expand their base.

A pop-up is a great way to do this strategically because it enables a restauranteur to explore and validate the potential for expansion and growth without nearly the investment risk.

The strategy could be about targeting a specific geographic, similar to what major ghost kitchen developers or third-party delivery providers do. Or it could be about targeting a specific demographic (say, a college campus area to attract a younger generation) or psychographic that aligns with a brand offering (like a farmers’ market that matches a restaurant’s seasonal, made-from-scratch genre).

2. Pop-Up Kitchens Can Dabble and Innovate

Likewise, a pop-up operation also affords the opportunity to invent and trial wild new menu ideas.

It projects that invaluable menu-innovation image so critical to restaurant brands in this age. But it also creates a real-time, real-world, focus-group experience that can shorten the window of development and answer the questions about adding new items to the permanent mix.

3. Pop-Ups Are Great for Generating Buzz

The limited-time, possibly even spontaneous, appearance (the latter of which can really amp up the intrigue) sets the table for an organic, newsworthy event that can go viral.

The key is to incorporate a promotion component into the overall plan ahead of the actual pop-up.

The possibilities are wide open and can include anything from traditional media like radio or, heck, even thoughtfully distributed flyers.

But, especially given restaurant consumers’ insatiable appetite for more tech-enabled touchpoints, pop-ups are really a recipe for digital tactics.

Social media, website announcements and any other digital connections, such as an online community news feed in the target area, are all absolutely fundamental to generating the buzz that can connect a restaurant with a whole new market segment.

4. Pop-Up Events Feed Business Back to Your Stationary Restaurant

Sometimes a pop-up can be so successful that it returns for an encore. And sometimes that encore can evolve into a new brick-and-mortar location.

Obviously, that’s great. But success is just as compelling when the pop-up achieves its primary goal, which is to expand brand reach and engagement that ultimately drives new business to the original restaurant location.

And, again, at that point, the impression has already been made, turning patrons into the equivalent of what business minds call “warm leads.”