Victoria Station
Strengths
Concept uniqueness- Concept based restaurants' rely on décor and novelty themes, which are appealing enough to the customers to draw in business. For example: Hard Rock Café, Applebee's, Rolling Rock Café, or Outback Steakhouse. The Victoria Station utilized the English depot paraphernalia to support the theme; gas lights, a red English telephone booth, and a London taxi.
Quality control- The beef was cut to specifications, used controlled- portion fillets/top sirloin butts, and a computerized checking system to verify that unapproved vendors would be brought to management's attention should any items be purchased off of the approved purveyor list. Appearance, food preparation and service, beverage, atmosphere, equipment, safety, and inventory control were set in detail with complete job descriptions for all managers.
Financial control ?detailed reports and daily inventories.
No advertising or paid promotion- they were successful in the beginning with just relying on word of mouth.
Promotions- one of the more profitable promo was the rib promotion.
Weaknesses
Over expansion- Victoria Station went against it's own policy bases on building in areas with population of 1million or more. Even with expansion with the hopes of creating more volume, Victoria Station was still unable to cover the fixed-cost percentages. They had roughly 100 restaurants in more than 50 markets. ()
Inflexible concept design- The boxcar, compared to traditional restaurants created high occupancy costs due to its expensive building and the m ...