Vegan restaurants are beginning to become a large operation in the United States, but it can be a difficult endeavor if you are not located in the heart of San Francisco, New York or Seattle. A group of entrepreneurs came to us with an idea of placing a vegan pizzeria in the middle of a rural town in Texas. To create a franchise is difficult, but this may be the biggest challenge to date.
The challenge for Verve Pie is that the client wants a vegan style restaurant in Cibolo, Texas which is heavy mining & oaring town with a strong atmosphere of meat eaters in the city. Our mission is to find out how to connect with the vegan culture that is growing in the surrounding areas without losing the native population that is currently living and dining there on a nightly basis.
Create a vegan style restaurant that does not push the identity of vegan-ism as a cultural necessity instead of an alternative to the food you may be eating on a daily basis. Our goal is help turn meat-eaters into having one vegan meal a week based on the quality of the food and not the need to be vegan to save the world. We have to promote this idea as a subculture, but attempting to do this as our main source of marketing would crush the business before it begins.
Median household income is $92,000 which is $32,000 higher than that of the United States.
Median age is a young population of 32 years old.
Homeownership rate is at 80%
Highest industries are mining, and oaring.
Although a rural town most people in the county have corporate jobs in surrounding cities.
63% of the competition are Mexican restaurants with simple meals at a reasonable price point.
All competition have some sort of bar that is part of the restaurant and intended for families.
50% have the ability to have live music during the week and weekend as an attraction for guests.
There are zero solely vegan or vegetarian restaurants in the city. All have at least one menu item that qualifies as vegetarian.
Social Media Coordinator
To have the option of vegan food available high on Google searches.
Have a great place to go for lunch with her friends in a location that is in between New Braunfels and San Antonio areas.
Have a place that is clean, open and tailors to a more sophisticated crowd.
Have real cocktails with your meal not just beer and simple drinks.
Lots of images to make her decisions easy to make before arriving.
Easy to find when looking in her area and surrounding areas.
Wants to still eat clean with food that is well sourced and has a history of where it is being purchased from.
Wants to feel excited to go to the restaurant
32 years old
$58,000/year
Cibolo/San Antonio/New Braunfels
Social Media Coordinator
Newly married
Bohemian style fashion that typically is purchased at boutique shopping centers.
Our customers loves to live in the city, but the cost is too expensive. She went to college in the area and is starting out her new career with most of her friends working either in San Antonio, New Braunfels or Austin. She wants to have a place she can feel casually fancy to go with her group of friends to have fun drinks and quality comfort food in her town that will have her friends in the city impressed.
Now that we understand the user in more depth we can start thinking about the problems they might be trying to solve. Taking the insights and needs from the empathy map, we can start digging deeper to better understand. We create point of view statements & how might we questions that will help drive the brainstorming process.
Our customers want recommendations to new food locations that they will like.
People tend to be doing other things while eating at a restaurant.
To be able to find accurate recommendations for their next outing.
People want to find restaurants that are appropriate for their current situation.
Amanda needs to be able to find accurate recommendations because she wants food she will like.
Amanda needs to find appropriate outings because she will need to impress her friends.
How might we create more recommendations to encourage our audience to try new food?
How might we impress Amanda’s friend group once they arrive to the venue?
Now we create the best experience and work with the best ideas and opinions. In this stage we role through every possible idea with no interruptions in order to give the room a sense of inspiration and excitement.
Focusing on the prioritized solutions, I created a site map to help define the overall structure of the content on Verve Pies’ website in a way that would be logically and easily accessible to its users. We need to focus on how our customer will love to take photos to post about the venue and be easily integrated into the website. We need to have limited bodies of text and fantastic imagery to excite people to stop by.
After understanding the problem, creating the user we can now begin to design the brand how that user will perceive it.
One of the most important things to consider about branding is that it’s usually the first thing people see when they come across your business. Very much like when you first meet a person. The first impression is what often shapes their identity. Even subtle details on a subconscious level can make the difference in whether you feel a connection to that brand or person, or not.
Hence, every touchpoint that connects you with potential clients should voice your brand. The more they know and experience about who you are, the more trust and connection they’ll feel for what you offer. No matter if you offer a product or a service.
As the branding process is taking place we start to develop out the bare bones of the website with simple frameworks to understand the user flow of the product. Creating prototypes gives the client a true understanding of the product.
Once the prototype and branding has been completed it is time to let the product out into the environment. This is where we launch the brand for everyone to view and use. We always stay with our clients after this stage because branding is about always improving throughout the life of your company.
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