CEO Clarence Otis, "We're very analytic"
包括 多品牌的 Darden 集團，2011 年共有 1,894 間餐廳。Fast Company 的報導中，描述其成功的一些方法。
在品牌經營上，瞭解顧客的需求，並且營造出配合該品牌主題的用餐環境。以 Olive Garden 為例
Over the past year, Darden's 22-member customer-insight team invited 16 million customers across its six chains to answer guest-satisfaction questionnaires.
The Olive Garden brand is built around the notion that guests are treated like family, but Pickens knows that isn't likely to happen unless employees feel like family too.
Pickens starts every meeting with Olive Garden senior executives by reading letters from customers and employees -- a woman's description of her celebration at Olive Garden after having survived cancer; ...
Olive Garden executives began tying everything to this mythical Italian family, adopting the tagline, "When you're here, you're family." New locations were designed to suggest Italian farmhouses, with a large family-style table, modeled on one in a Florentine trattoria. Then executives formed a partnership with actual Italians: Olive Garden's Culinary Institute of Tuscany (CIT)."
在產品開發上，朝向更健康的菜單。
Darden is in the process of altering the Red Lobster recipe -- a big risk -- to serve healthier food and improve sluggish sales.
In March, Men's Health dubbed Red Lobster "the best sit-down chain in America." When a magazine devoted to fitness sings the praises of a restaurant that has been known for all-you-can-eat fried shrimp, things are moving in the right direction.
Darden has been experimenting with what COO Madsen calls "stealth health" since it opened the first Seasons 52 in 2003. With 60 wines by the glass, entrées with no more than 475 calories, and desserts so mini they're served in shot glasses, ...
海鮮的供應問題，重視環保和加拿大政府合作孵育龍蝦
Even before scientists predicted in 2006 that world fish stocks could collapse by 2048, Darden had begun removing endangered wild fish, such as Chilean sea bass and orange roughy, from its menus and using its clout as one of the world's largest buyers to push the industry toward sustainability. To promote fish farming and to set standards to minimize its environmental impact, Darden cofounded the Global Aquaculture Alliance, a nonprofit trade association that partners with governments and NGOs.
The North American lobster harvest fluctuates every year, but demand continues to grow. So two years ago, Darden began sponsoring an experiment to boost the population. Scientists working with the government of New Brunswick, in Canada, catch pregnant lobsters and care for their offspring until they're mature enough to burrow into the ocean's sandy bottom, then release the tiny animals into the wild. Then Darden waits and hopes -- for six years or more.
還有集中採購，和數字化的管理
These days, Roger Bing, vice president of seafood purchasing, and his team travel the globe buying seafood -- again without brokers -- in more than 32 countries, often contracting with fish farms for set yield at a set price.
It is studying Wal-Mart to "understand the components of cost" with its vendors and become a better and more informed negotiator, says senior vice president Barry Moullet, whose group purchases $2.4 billion of goods a year from 1,500 suppliers. It's hedging wheat purchases, much the way airlines purchase fuel. An automated ordering system will eventually replenish a restaurant based on electronic-tagged inventory and guest-traffic forecasts.
在顧客的需求預測上，使用自家研發的軟體 Guest Forecasting 以精準預估，可以降低人力和食物成本
Patti Reilly White, 53, chief information officer, leads the 170-person team at Darden that introduces order and predictability to this volatile business.
On a Thursday night in April, Erin Harvell, the culinary manager at the Olive Garden in Wayne, New Jersey, reviews the week's forecasts in a tiny office off the kitchen. They're within 1% to 4% of the actual turnout. The biggest gap -- 630 guests instead of 660 -- was on a rainy night. Guest Forecasting spells out the appropriate staffing and food preparation -- how many fettuccine Alfredo orders to expect, how much sauce to make in the morning. Over the past two years, Darden has reduced unplanned hours by more than 40% and trimmed excess food costs by 10%.
由於大部份的餐廳不接受訂位 (1)，所以分享該地區的餐廳資訊，以便告知排隊的顧客到其他分店用餐
This summer, she's launching another project to share wait times across restaurants so that a hostess can steer customers to nearby Darden establishments that aren't as busy. The next logical step, White says, would be to give customers online access to that information.
在美國，通常是點個人套餐，然後幾乎一起出菜 (2)。在內部流程管理上，採用 Meal Pacing 以達到此目標
In the kitchen, cooks are hustling, directed by a program called Meal Pacing that White's team introduced across the company two years ago. Traditionally, an expediter would try to ensure that meals for a given table were ready at the same time so the shrimp entrée didn't sit at the window getting cold while the 14-ounce steak was still on the grill. Meal Pacing displays the optimal work flow for each party on eight screens in the kitchen and monitors each station's progress, with color-coded warnings when one falls behind. The screens also show if the staff is meeting Darden's one-minute rule: Food should arrive at the table within one minute of being ready.
也使用數字管理食材
Leftover ingredients are refrigerated in day-stamped plastic bags, and anyone using an outdated item is fired on the spot.
在 CEO 的主導下，子集團間相互學習，以達成綜效
Now Otis is pushing a new tactic: no-holds-barred sharing of information between brands.
On a Tuesday morning in April, the presidents of three of the largest restaurant chains in the country slip into an unmarked white van in Orlando, Florida, and embark on an unprecedented mission -- sharing their latest trade secrets.
At the last stop on the morning tour, the presidents of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and LongHorn do what you expect restaurant executives to do: chow down. Over steaks and salads at LongHorn, they talk shop at a back table in the dining room, dissecting things customers don't notice. Red Lobster's faux-wood floor tile, which lasts longer than real wood and is less slippery. Olive Garden's stone exterior, which requires less upkeep than painted wood. LongHorn's layout of food-prep and storage spaces, a small improvement that saves valuable time.
(1) 接受訂位的優點很多，但是文章中卻沒有說明不接受訂位的原因。
(2) 根據台灣的用餐經驗，點個人套餐時，常常發生其中幾個人已經吃完，卻還是有人的餐點還沒有到。點中式合菜，前一道菜已經吃完，下一道菜卻等很久。
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