Why Street Food is Comedy and Restaurants are Movies

Why Street Food is Comedy and Restaurants are Movies (once you see this everything changes)

Street Food is comedy.
Restaurants are movies.

Street food, like comedy, is fast and brutal and honest feedback.
Street food, like comedy, fast and brutal and honest feedback.

They like your joke or they don’t.
They like your burger or they don’t

If they don’t like your joke. They won’t laugh laugh.
If they don’t like your burger. They won’t eat it.

Street food, like comedy, there is nothing to hide behind.
The street food vendor is out there in a tent all alone.

The comedian is out there on stage all alone.
In comedy there are no special effects.

Just the comedian on the stage, lain bare and naked.
In Street food there are no special effects.

Just the street food vendor, lain bare and naked.

Restaurants are like movies.

Restaurants, like movies, are longer experiences - you’re there for 2 hours, sometimes.
Restaurants, like movies, have more to play with - they can use special effects.

CGI is a special effect in movies.
Music is a special effect in restaurants.

Costumes is a special effect in movies.
Service is a special effect in restaurants.

Setting is a special effect in movies.
Setting is special effect a restaurants.

Setting is a special effect for restaurants

Imagine you’re given a plate of spaghetti vongole by Gordon Ramsay in two settings.

setting one 
Ibiza, sand rolling through you’re feet, sun-splashing your neck.

setting two
a snotty-grubby-gritty paraphernalia-plastered huffy-honkin’ University dorm in Sheffield.

Which one tastes better?

Yup, setting is a special effect that improves the taste of food.

Setting is a special effect for movies

Imagine they recorded the big fight thingy at the end of Lord of The Rings in a multi-story carpark in Slough.

Frodo Baggins riding a a donkey up a multi-story carpark with a frozen Frube as a sword.

Doesn’t quite have the same ring does it?

Service and ambience in Restaurants is like the Music in a Movie.

Service and ambience adds colour and texture and tapestry to a restaurant experience.

Music adds colour and texture and tapestry to a movie.

Imagine Saturday Night Fever without “Stayin’ Alive” by the BeeGees?
Imagine Lion King without Hakuna Matata or Can You Feel The Love Tonight or Circle Of Life?

Imagine Toy Story without “You got a Friend in Me”?
Imagine the famous scene in Reservoir Dogs with Michael Madson without “Stuck In The Middle with You?”

Watch this full volume. Next watch without volume.

You tell me, does it work?

Service and ambience in Restaurants is like the Music in a Movie

** Quickly, let’s just pause for a mo

Just think of your favourite restaurant.

Now, Imagine your favourite restaurant without the service and ambience.
Doesn’t work.
Does it?

Yup, Service and ambience in Restaurants is like the Music in a Movie

The issue for challenger food and drink brands?

Food and drink founders want to be the Steven Spielberg.

They want play with special effects.
Play with set design.
Play with themselves (whoops… offside)

But, Stephen Spielberg without a story is pointless.

As George Lucas says: ”A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing”

For food and drink founders

Your product is your story.
Your branding is your special effects.

This is why I’m a believer in street food markets for challenger brands or new restaurant concepts.

Street food markets are like comedy - it’s where you get fast feedback. Where you can iterate. Tweak. Iterate. Chop. Change. Move. Shake. It’s where you craft your story.

Innocent started at a street food market in Parsons Green.

HONEST Burger started out of a tent in Brighton.

Black Bear Burger started in Broadway Market.

The Devonshire spent ages the Mission Kitchen Test Kitchen.

Green & Blacks spent ages with a group of young Mum’s in Brighton testing the story.

Charlie Bigham sampled like crazy in West London,

Story before Special Effects.
Story before Special Effects.
Story before Special Effects.

North Star… take your brand to the next level

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Struggling to get your mitts on bloody expensive data?

Struggling to get get your pitches to really speak “buyer” language?

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Still Hungry? Course you are…

Please feel free to gorge on the most downloaded podcast episodes of all time (these are CERTY: BANGERS)

1. Rory Sutherland: Why Challenger Brands Must Never Follow Logic to Truly Disrupt Categories 

2. Waitrose CEO: How Challenger Food & Drink Brands Can Win and Build Profitable Partnerships with Waitrose - James Baile

3. Spencer Matthews: How Spencer Matthews Built Unshakeable Resilience and Raised + £10m to Launch Clean Co. in Sainsbury's, Tesco and the U.S.A. 

4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

5. Tyrells Tycoon: How William Chase built and sold Tyrells for £50 million and sold Chase Distillery to DIAGEO 

Or read our most read articles of all time

1. Quick quick - we must escape the Middle

2. You moron you let the disease infect your mind

3. do you like bad sex?

4. raving in Ibiza taught me six brand building lessons