25A What's Next?

Existing Market
After this venture is already established, I would like to look into selling merchandise in the restaurant. Many of my prospect customers seem to also work out so I'd like to sell items such as water bottles, T-shirts, and card holders that stick to the back of your phone. My interviewees found this to be a good idea but two of them suggested I look into delivery as well. They said it sounds like my food will be much higher quality and people would like to get it delivered as well as get away with charging more money despite that the whole point is to keep it cheap. Another interviewee suggested I look into partnering with Bitesquad which wouldn't be a bad idea but would defeat the purpose of me offering delivery so I would have to choose one or the other. Another thing they brought up was what I offered for beverages since this is a healthy restaurant. This is something I hadn't considered but it would probably be in my best interest to offer drinks with less sugar than sodas. Finally, they asked me to consider creating a rewards program that will encourage both new and existing customers to give me their business.
It makes sense to look into delivery if the restaurant is popular enough. I would have to create a cost analysis to determine whether or not I should partner with Bitesquad or hire delivery drivers but either way I think this is a good concept to go after. I also think I should offer online ordering as well and customers can either come in to pick up their orders or go through the drive-thru.

Instead of traditional beverages like soda, it makes sense to offer healthier type beverages such as Gatorade, Vitamin Water, juices and teas. I think most of my customers will prefer to drink these rather than sodas since they are primarily focused on their health. I would also like to offer products to compliment workouts so I do plan on offering products like water bottles and shirts since my interviewees found this to be a good idea. I would also like to incorporate a rewards program that would allow customers to get free stuff after a certain amount of points.

New Market
A new market I would like to look into marketing towards is vegetarians/vegans. I think this is a growing target audience and it would be wise to tailor some foods for them. I think it would be easy to create value for vegetarians/vegans because many places don't have options for them and it's not difficult to make a few substitutions or even create new items for those who don't eat animals or products made from them. There is potential to even make the restaurant 100% vegetarian since I am an advocate for saving animals but I could lose customers if I do this due to there not being enough protein and/or having some people that just love meat.
Both of my interviewees thought this was a great idea, especially since there's not many restaurants that have a lot of options for them, even more so in fast food. One of them suggested I have three separate menus, a normal one, vegetarian one, and vegan one.The other one gave me some of her favorite foods to eat and suggested told me she would be happy to help with recipes if I needed it. They both told me that I should put a lot of effort into advertising so that local vegans/vegetarians will know that the offer is available.
I think this new market is a good idea to pursue but not as attractive as my primary market. I found it surprising how many alternatives there are for vegetarians. Grocery stores are offering more alternatives like veggie burgers and nuggets that people can just throw in the oven. Burger King just introduced the impossible burger which has become popular with the vegetarian crowd. In this case, I would have more competition than I thought.
My assumption that it wold be a popular industry to get into still holds to be true. Vegetarians are always look for new and better options to replace meats. I don't think having three separate menus is the right way to go, but rather identify every item on one menu and whether they are vegan, vegetarian, or neither. I think having a wide variety of vegetarian/vegan will create more consumer traffic within the business. Overall, I think this is a wise direction to take the business but it's not as big as I thought it would be.