February 3, 2025 at 12:55 pm

How Restaurants Are Using Grocery Stores As Amazing Revenue Streams To Encourage Brand Recognition

by Trisha Leigh

Source: Shutterstock

If you’re a foodie, or just someone who appreciates a unique and delicious dining experience now and again, you know that nothing can take the place of a relaxing night out to eat.

Or at least, that used to be the case.

When people were forced to stay home during the pandemic, restaurants responded in a unique way – they started packaging the items we loved the best, making it doable to create similar recipes at home.

Now, there might be no way to turn back the clock – not that they would want to.

Rest assured, popular restaurants have been bottling and packaging favorites for decades, and the profits are good. Two big examples are Raos, the tiny Eat Harlem restaurant that started bottling red sauces in 1992, and Ken’s Steakhouse, a Framingham, MA icon, has offered a variety of their house-made salad dressings in the 50s.

With the rising costs of going out to eat – both tangible and less so – selling packaged goods might be the way these smaller restaurants survive in the future.

Bari Musacchio, a co-founder of Rubirosa at home, a new part of the Soho Italian Restaurant’s family, muses on what is to come with Food & Wine.

“We have one location in a historic building creating a “charming” footprinting on Mulberry Street, but that also limits the amount of guests we can host per night.”

Getting into consumer packaged goods (CPG) was a no-brainer, as they knew customers were always asking about recipes, pizza kids, quarts of sauce, and the like.

Also, it saves them rent.

In 2021, Major Food Group’ Carbone – an exclusive restaurant favored by celebrities with only four US locations (NYC, Dallas, Miami, and Vegas) – launched six red sauces that the rest of us little people can now enjoy.

They’ve sold 2 million jars in three years, whie their restaurants seat a total of 500 guests a night.

Brands like Momofuku and Tacombi realize that there’s virtually no downside to making the leap either, which Tacombi founder Dario Wolos pointed out.

“When you look at the data, there’s a huge amount of Mexican food consumed in American homes.”

So, they now have tortillas, chips, frozen burritos, salsa, and even beer available in 2200 retailers across the country. Not only are sales good, but if and when their physical restaurants show up in those locations, they will already have established brand recognition.

Musacchio does admit that there can be a bit of a learning curve when dipping your toe in another revenue stream for the first time.

“It’s a totally different business model. We are constantly faced with challenges daily from packaging to logistics to selling products via different means. Luckily, the restaurant industry does prepare you for any challenge so this “grit” paired with our hospitality foundation has allowed us to apply this hospitality-style approach in our sales, marketing, and customer service aspects.”

Brands do have to be careful about potentially tarnishing their restaurant’s reputation, if the product put into mass production doesn’t live up to the one people are used to getting in real life.

No one wants to get excited to find something you love at Target, only to find out you’ve forked over your cash that is nothing like the original.

That said, with more and more people staying home (for multiple reasons), restaurants are finding ways to earn money.

In some cases, more than ever before.

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