Success Story

Alibi Roadhouse Grows Top (and Bottom) Line by Successfully adding Delivery and Social-Media Marketing.

Alibi Roadhouse owner Dan Johnson figured that if patrons couldn't make it to his restaurant, he'd bring his restaurant to them.

Among the major moves that Johnson and his team had made was implementing delivery of their products using UberEATS.

"One problem I had experienced was slow growth in sales," Johnson recalls. "Reaching university students that live in the area who can't afford the time to come in for a sit-down meal was one possible solution to this problem."

"I have been in business since 1988," Johnson says. "Our initial space was 2,800 square feet. Business was growing, so I expanded that space twice over our 30 years in business, bringing our capacity to 200 seats inside and 45 on the patio." However, for the last few years, sales had slowed down to a couple of percentage points, "and it was time to evaluate where I could improve."

RestaurantOwner.com has helped a lot, Johnson explains, by providing a wide variety of topics that have been relevant to improving his business. "One article addressed the question, should I expand to another location? From this article I learned that if my business is not running at 100% of its potential, it is best to improve the current business before expanding, which is why I decided to address capturing some of the delivery market."

In deciding to take this step, Johnson was hoping that by providing a delivery service his food could reach new clientele, with the potential of drawing new customers into the restaurant. "By using UberEATS as our delivery service, our sales immediately increased. The younger generation is very in tune with using Uber for ridesharing, so it is an easy transition to use UberEATS to deliver food to their door".

UberEATS also provided the social-media marketing and hardware for the partnership. The downside is their fees are pricey: close to 30% of sales.

Currently, Alibi Roadhouse's delivery sales are 15% of food sales. "We started from zero in September of 2017," says Johnson. "There has been a progressive growth since. My idea was to fill in the slower times with deliveries. On the busier night or dinner rushes we can turn off UberEATS, which we do Friday and Saturday nights. This way we don't affect our dine-in crowd with poor service. I have found that labor costs have not been affected in a negative way since the orders are coming in during our off-peak times. This helps keep the kitchen staff hopping for most of their shifts."

Johnson has tried over the years to use his own staff for delivery but found it wasn't busy enough to justify having his own drivers. "Then we tried other delivery services and found them to be unreliable. With the newer web-based technology, we thought we could try again. I found the global recognition of Uber appealing. They are new to our city, and as such, they have had some growing pains."

Dealing with snow storms, not enough drivers and drivers not having insulated delivery bags are some of the issues, he adds. "However, I have found their website and software to be well designed and operating well."

Johnson carefully selects which items from his menu he wants on his website. "We did include everything but the soup, as it doesn't travel well. Although the 30% fee is steep, I considered that since we only do deliveries on our down times and they do all the marketing and processing, there is a profit to be made."