Cultural DIversity in Today's Restaurants!

1. Trends Assignment
Cultural Diversity in Todays
Restaurants
By
Dan Sanderson
Jeremy Salentine
Dylan Evenson
Hospitality Marketing & Sales
UW-Stout Menomonie
November 11, 2012

2. Over View
Section 1: This section is where you introduce and describe the factors that have been shaping and
forming your hospitality trend (historical overview perspective). Provide an overview of its reach and
scope within and outside of business (reach and scope) and specific information to assist your peers in
understanding the potential of the topic (current and potential impacts). This section should be
approximately 1 page.
The United States was created and established by immigrants coming from Europe in the early
seventeen hundreds. Today immigration rates are increasing day in and day out. Majority of restaurants
today target one food ethnicity for their restaurant identity, for example Chinese, Mexican, Indian,
Vietnamese, Hmong, Italian, and American. The catch in this trend is that some restaurants today are
trying to create a menu with different ethnic sections consisting of different dishes to offer from that
culture. By creating establishments like this it eliminates the option of choice in choosing where to eat
referring to ones preferred taste for the night. For example a family wants to go out to dinner. The dad
says to the family, “What do you guys want for dinner tonight?” One of the children says Chinese, the
other says Mexican, and the mother says Italian. This forces the family to compromise and make a
decision where and what type of food they want for dinner. With the development of this trend of
multicultural restaurants this no longer becomes an issue. Now the whole family can be satisfied and no
compromise needs to be made if a restaurant that serves all these types of foods is available. People
today are giving this trend a name for example “Spoon Full Of The City” and “Whole World On a
Plate.” These titles are only fitting because every year Caucasians are becoming the lesser-populated
minority in the United States and more ethnicities are taking the place as the higher populated cultures.
So, to keep up with the demand, restaurants are realizing what is happening and adjusting correctly.
They are including more and more ethnic dishes to suit said cultures, which in return keeps the “used to
be” minorities coming back for more. Also, more restaurants are becoming more profitable in regards to
suiting everyone‟s palette regardless of the ethnicity in a single restaurant setting. In retrospect food
establishments are using this trend to attract multi ethnic groups. For example in Minnesota there is a
restaurant called African Forest Restaurant. They state on their website it is their duty to focus on
servicing Minnesota‟s growing immigrant community‟s demand for an ethnic eating experience. For
lack of better term we are a multi-ethnic cuisine restaurant that responds to Minnesota‟s immigrant
community need for selection and choice. This is a local example which helps the consumers understand
the restaurant markets understanding that they need to deliver the consumer a variety of ethnic foods that
suite multiple desires and preferences all in one place. This benefits a larger customer base such as
families, business gatherings, social events, get togethers, and dates by eliminating compromising and
argumentation in regard of where to eat. “Over all places that identify themselves as ethnic
establishments numbered nearly 78,000 in 1999 and recorded sales of $30.5 billion. Our research results
do not identify any single ethnic style of restaurant as desired, but rather suggest that incorporating
strong multi-ethnic influences in the menu selection will be popular. Again, variety is the underlying
element for this concept.” (http://www.bplans.com/ethnic_food_restaurant_business_plan/market)
Examples
Section 2: In this section, you must provide an account of your chosen trend and its impact in the world
of business. You are required to provide two specific cases of how the technology trend is impacting or
shaping hospitality marketing and your thoughts about their reaction to the trend (case example 1 & 2).
Your thoughts should include how the business addressed the trend and a critical analysis of what they
could have done to be more successful (perceptions of what they did). You will also need to extrapolate

3. from the cases and your understanding potential applications for other industries and provide two,
specific applications in unrelated industries (potential applications outside of hospitality and tourism).
This section should be approximately 1 – 1.5 pages.
There are multiple accounts of this trend appearing across the nation. The areas and destination
these multi ethnic restaurants are appearing in include large cities and living areas with a diverse
population and a variety of ethnicities and cultures. They are also being established close to Airports
and in high traffic tourism areas like casinos, resorts and hotels. These multi ethnic restaurants are
choosing these destinations because they‟re menus, environment and dishes attract guests who have
different taste preferences associated with their cultural association and nationality food preferences.
The most difficult piece to obtain for these restaurants is having the ability and knowledge to properly
cook a variety of ethnic foods. The majority of restaurants in existence focus only on a certain ethnicity
of food. In order to bridge the gap between ethnic food preferences many of these restaurants are
creating dishes explained by them as having “ethnic fusion.” Basically ethnic fusion is the act of
combining two or more ethnic flavors and styles in an individual dish. A common example found across
the board was creating sandwich varieties with a variety of ethnic foods dishes inside.
An example of this restaurant is named the “African Forest Restaurant.” This multi ethnic
cuisine is located in Brooklyn Park Minnesota, a southern suburb of the Twin Cities. There focus is
“servicing Minnesota‟s growing immigrant community‟s demand for an ethnic eating experience.”
They‟re multi ethnic cuisine allows the Twin Cities Immigrant community a selection and choice
suitable to their nationalities and ethnicities. They even have a separate menu available designed
specifically for their customers demographics and preferences. Some of their specialties include a
variety African ethnicity dishes from Eastern Africa to Western Africa. They also serve a variety of
American, Asian, Caribbean and barbecue dishes. Their food services are aimed to satisfy the variety of
nationalities living in the area as well as people who are visiting the twin cities for entertainment and
looking for a meal.
Another example that models the idea of this trend of multi ethnic dining is Zara Restaurant and
Lounge located in Midtown Atlanta. This restaurant is very versatile and designed there business plan to
attract a variety of groups who desire a variety of eating settings. The settings available include a tapas
lounge, cosmopolitan bar as well as a full service dining area. Having a variety of eating environments
assures a suitable setting for guests desiring different types of environments to match the situation they
are looking to meet. Zara restaurant and lounge main objective is to meat the growing demand for a
variety of ethnic eating experiences all under the same roof. They label themselves as, “a
complimentary mingling of international cuisine on a single menu.” Not only does this provides a
desirable opportunity for travelers but also caters to the midtown demographics of Atlanta. In order to
successfully provide an environment and dishes they have a diverse management and chef team to meet
the expectations that guests in search of multi ethnic eateries our interested in.
Both of these examples are adapting there Menus and environments for the growing diverse
demographics associated with their locations. In order to improve sales and capacity on a day to day
basis targeting a growing population of consumer preferences is critical. Tourist Destinations and
Casino‟s also can benefit from multi ethnic dining services. These destinations have a particularly high
number of tourists from all over the world. In order to better suite there desired experiences these
destinations and tourist locations are also providing a larger variety of shows, music and entertainment
to attract the desires of tourists with different preferences.

4. Ultimately in many business environments the overall goal is to provide services and products
that the customer or guest is looking for. Increasing the variety of service and products targets a larger
population of consumers and guests. Targeting a variety of cultural market segments by offering a more
diverse service or experience increases the opportunity for more business and sales. If a given
destination is capable of suiting a group of guests due to their variety of options they eliminate other
destinations due to their ability to suite every ones desires.
http://www.africanforestrestaurant.com/
http://equityshack.com/node/45
Section 3: Within the final section, you will integrate the results of your expert interview in
illustrating/demonstrating the future of the trend and whether it is „business worthy‟. The interview
must be conducted with a hospitality or marketing expert and focus on gaining practitioner insight or
an „on the ground‟ view of the trend (interview results)(interviewee bio as a reference). The focus of
this section will be on buying/selling the trend and its potential impact moving forward. You will
need to discuss and present your expert opinion to include, 1) how this trend may or may not impact
the business landscape (business landscape), 2) how the trend itself will change moving forward
(trend change), and 3) what will be needed to stay ahead of competitors (competitive advantage).
This section should be approximately 2 pages.
For our expert interview, we contacted the owner of restaurant we mentioned earlier in our paper
of the African Forest Restaurant. The owner/manger‟s name is Carl Hughes. Carl is very experienced in
the service industry as he owns 4 restaurants in the great Minneapolis region. Carl graduated with a
MBA from the University of Minnesota‟s Carlton School of Business. He opened the African Forest
Restaurant back in 2008 with the intention of reaching out to Minnesota growing population of
minorities. And I think it‟s safe to say that he was right!
Now in regards to seeing what Carl had to say in answering question number one, Carl‟s
response was adamant to say the say the least. Carl stated that “This is something more restaurants
should be doing. You simply have to adapt to the demographic, and in my case, the demographic of
growing minorities in the metropolitan region.” Now I couldn‟t have said it better myself. It is our
opinion that in order for a business to succeed, they must simply convey to what the consumers want,
not what you think is right. And as more and more minorities continue to grow in the United States, they
are surely bringing their cultural practices with them. And with these practices come food and food
related venues. SO doesn‟t it make sense to appeal to the customer‟s tastes, backgrounds, and wants
when it comes to running a restaurant?
Now when we asked Carl about what he thought of the this cultural trend moving forward, he
simply said “It WILL continue to grow..I can bet you that you will see more and more restaurants do
what I‟m doing now.” And Carl is probably right. If you were a smart restaurant owner in a minority
populated region, you should broaden your food cultures to fit what the minorities interests in food are.
Moreover, when asked about what it will take to stay ahead of this trend in regards to the
changing economic structure and rival restaurants, Carl said “It‟s going to be about who goes most in
depth with their menus..and who is going to be willing to go the extra mile to provide that unique,
perfect sense of other‟s cultures” Once again, we believe Carl is right. The restaurants that are looking to
stay ahead of the competition will definitely have to be as AUTHENTIC as possible. It‟s common sense
really. The more guests you want to attract, the more authentic and in-depth you‟re going to have to be
with their cultures and food related interests.