GOLDEN Colo.
Home-meal replacement is not dead, says Lane Cardwell, the new chief executive of Boston Market Corp., the Golden, Colo.-based chain that led the HMR wave of the '90s only to stumble into bankruptcy at the end of the decade. Sold to McDonald’s Corp. in 2000, Boston Market had seven relatively quiet years with the fast-food giant. Then McDonald’s changed its strategy to focus on its core business and began selling off its secondary brands, including Donatos Pizza, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Boston Market. Private-equity firm Sun Capital Partners picked up Boston Market in 2007, shuttered about 100 underperforming stores, and in May put Cardwell in charge of revitalizing the now 530-unit brand. Twenty of Cardwell’s 30 years in the industry were spent in Dallas with Bennigan's former parent S&A Restaurant Corp. and Brinker International Inc., where his last executive assignment was as chief executive of Eatzi’s Market and Bakery, another HMR concept. Cardwell retired in 1999 and has spent the past 10 years serving on several restaurant company boards, including P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Taco Bueno and Famous Dave’s of America.
Why did you come out of retirement to take this job?
Ididn’t come because of what (Boston Market) is, I came because of what I think now it can be. It was only financial difficulties that kept it from happening. One thing this company has never done is break its covenant between the managers in the stores and the customer experience. There have been a lot of broken promises to shareholders and owners and all that stuff. But the guest has never suffered.
What can Boston Market become?
I’m still a new employee here so I’ll answer that as a customer. What I would like to be able to do is walk into the same place I’ve been walking into for 17 years, two to three times a month and now have other options, maybe not different food but other options.
What kind of options?
One of the things we learned at Eatzi’s was that hot food is bought by people who want to eat it right away. If you bought it chilled, like what you might do at a Whole Foods, you can take it home, put it in the refrigerator and eat it later. We learned there are two different customers -- sometimes it was the same customer but with two different needs. So we had multiple reasons for you to buy the same food.
So would you add new cold entrees or meat choices?
It can be the same food, bought the same way and priced the same, but it doubles your ability to say now or later? It gives you more control.
How viable is the home meal replacement concept today?
Even back when it was all the rage, people used to say home meal replacement is takeout with a press agent. What I explain to people is, it’s the meal you would make at home if you knew how to or had the time to.
But there seems to be more competition today from casual-dining restaurants with their takeout program and from grocery stores that have really improved their meal offerings.
For casual dining, it’s still expensive and it’s still slow. It’s a one-hour solution to a 15- or 20-minute problem. As for grocery stores, the fact that they are not convenient is our biggest advantage. You can pull in the parking lot of a Boston Market and be out in five minutes. You can pull into the parking lot of a Whole Foods and if you’re lucky, be in the store in five minutes. Then you have to walk back into the store pretty far and then navigate through the cash register.
When Boston Market started, you also didn’t have competition from fast-casual chains such as Chipotle Mexican Grill.
You can’t thumb your nose at Chipotle, they are one of the best and they have a service model that is similar to a Boston Market model where you walk up to the counter and we customize what you want, and it’s handed to you. I always use Chipotle as an example of a company that proves you can grow your sales if you improve your quality. It’s not about adding to the menu, it’s about making what is on the menu better every single year. What happens is, amazingly, sales grow and you develop a bond with customers.
How long, as a new CEO, do you gather information before you start enacting changes?
Anew person’s greatest value, whether a CEO or department head, is in the first six months. You have six months in which to see it new and challenge the way things are done, to question why things can’t be different. Then after six months, you become one of them. While I am still new, I can capitalize on it and get people to tell me what worked, what didn’t work. Why are we doing it the way we are doing it? What’s changed around us and what can we be? What do we need to be?
Contact Dina Berta at [email protected].
