Café Javas (CJs) a quick-casual restaurant chain in Uganda and Kenya is trailblazing in the innovation space. Gone are the days when a restaurant menu was expected to be constant, almost never changing. Well, CJs is bold in innovation around its menu. Yet, it also doesn’t make menu change decisions blindly. It has integrated its decision-making with the data coming in from its Point-of-sale and is able to derive insights from this data.
Lots of background work go in before a major introduction of new menu items. Café Javas runs innovation circles with its employees all the way from the kitchen staff to the front workers, and even the riders, thus driving a collaborative learning environment. Everyone has something to tell you about the process, about the foods, about the micros. For CJs, quality service must be embedded in everything you do. You must be in position to guarantee quality again and again, every second, every minute. And that informs how the meals are also arranged. If for example you have some food that makes up a meal, but it will take longer to prepare than the others, that’s going to compromise the taste. One also has to think about how the different foods are paired with each other.
From the new menu items, CJs starts to work backwards, understand how that will impact sourcing, procurement, what it will mean in the kitchen. If the menu is changing, it also means your kitchen must change to reflect the new menu. Most people take it for granted that you can make any meal out of a kitchen. Your kitchen must reflect the kinds of meals you’re making. One must think hard about the implications as far as layout as the kitchen changes. Innovation must be thought about in a holistic fashion, it’s systems-based, it affects many other moving pieces. You see even the waiting staff must be educated and trained on the new meals.
How CJs Announces the New Menu?
In stark contrast to new things, CJs prefers to surprise its customers. Of course, prior to the menu change, CJs will start to introduce an item off the new menu as a teaser. In a way, it’s to prepare the customers for the future, it’s to stir their imagination. Usually, that could be the most complicated item on the new menu. It also gives time to see how it plays out operation-wise.
Then voila, CJs goes full blast, with the physical redesign of the menu book, and an update on its digital platform. CJs relies more on word-of-mouth. This loyal base of CJs customers will start taking photos and informing their friends. Whereas other restaurants discourage taking photos of their menus, CJs silently will encourage it. For CJs, the new menu is a secret reveal.
The new menu also becomes a play, as the customers celebrate to see which of their favourite old menu items made it to the new list. Caribbean-jerk chicken is one of those stars that has continued to blast it through every menu change. When you look at the new menu, CJs has a twist to the rice, introducing pilau as a key player.
And hey, the quantities keep getting bigger. For this African market, the quantities really matter, it’s one of the expressions of value. “I want to have a great meal, but I also want something sizeable,” one of the loyal CJs customers told us. There’s something new to find from the food section, the pastry to the drinks.
CJs also imputes psychology and creates the future together with the customer. If you somehow obsess about the customer, see the future ahead, you can bring that future closer. You see this with the all-blown out salad options. People are looking towards more healthy eating, then more stylish drinks. If you go to the drinks, the play with the coffee is high on the list. There’s a growing obsession with coffee. The coffee culture in Uganda is setting off, with growth in domestic consumption. For CJs, it’s how to be a restaurant of choice for families and transcend generational gaps in preferences. The soups are there, the pastries are there, the salads are there.
In the new menu change, decisions are also usually made on packaging. So a menu change cuts across many elements. For CJs, it’s not about touching one point in the system, you must touch other points. CJs in the new menu change has for example rolled out the ‘One Packaging’ aspect, whereby the meal is compressed within this one pack. This is also to help drive their consciousness around plastic and minimize packaging material. But it’s also making it easier for the riders to deliver the food and also for the customers to not have to deal with much plastic. Here’s below the new one packaging aka One Pack.
Building an Enduring Brand
CJs is also going heavy on its brand identity and recognisability. There’s a reinforcement of the CJs icons. When you think of recognisable brands, the CJs logo must be top of mind in Uganda. It’s always there, a new subtle club. In future, we see CJs creating a CJs club. But they are never in rush, they prefer to work on things in the background and let customers plead for them. Then it’s launched just right in time. When the psychological demand is up there. It’s like they are quick but not in a hurry. CJs avoids mistakes that are often committed by people who are in a hurry. They want to have strong fundamentals underlying every innovation. They listen to the market, they rethink the experience, they look at the numbers, they get experts to think through. As a result, CJs has one of the highest innovation success rates. You can be sure that 99% of everything CJs launches is a success. They always want to get it right first time. Because the cost of failure is high. If you launch a new menu and then have to withdraw it within two weeks, you’ve blundered.
For CJs now, the big deal is how to build an enduring brand, a brand that can reinvent itself to meet the ever-changing tastes of the customers. They want to give something that amazes the customer before the customer ever knew this would amaze them. It’s the ethos of ‘care, obsessing about you’, it’s the CJs love language of consideration. Saying, we knew you would want this, so we brought it in advance, you don’t have to worry about asking for this.
Editor’s Notes for Restaurant Owners/Managers:
- Introduce new menu during calm seasons. Avoid festive seasons
- Test and train staff on new menu
- Preview inventory status. Minimize write-offs of old inventory affected by new menu
- Review menu pricing and cost elements for new items
- Don’t kill old menu items aka the star items
- Prepare communication plan for any frustrations arising from customers not finding some of their favourite old items on the new menu
- Data, data, data, make the most of your point of sale and inventory management data