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The “Testaurant” is the latest trend allowing hospitality operators to step out of their comfort zone and innovate new ideas by hosting a pop-up style restaurant. The concept enables restaurants to keep their offering exciting and fresh by receiving immediate feedback from guests, before rolling out new dishes across their menus.
What better way to successfully expand your offering than to test out new dishes on your guests, without pressure, knowing you can chop and change at any time?
wagamama’s noodle lab
In October last year, wagamama launched its noodle lab, which sees menu changes every month, giving chefs the chance to fully embrace their creativity, producing unique dishes such as katsu curry ice cream. The noodle lab is currently open at its Soho site where lucky locals get a say in potential permanent dishes for the chain.
Wahaca’s Test Kitchen
Mexican chain, Wahaca, has also jumped on this concept, using it as an opportunity to shake things up for their brand in November last year with the opening of its Test Kitchen at its Shoreditch site. Both chains measure the success of their latest ideas using real-time feedback, producing a digital tablet to present the guest’s bill where they can answer a few simple questions about what they liked and disliked in their dish.
Trend or Long-Term Investment?
The Testaurant is a fantastic way to measure what your guests want when it comes to tasty dishes and new flavours, but what about the rest of the guest experience?
As well as benefitting operators with insight into the minds of guests, from our experience, we know that guests themselves receive a great deal of satisfaction from helping venues improve their guest experience. The concept can sit well along-side mystery visits in which operators can hone in on exactly what guests like and dislike in their new dishes, as well as gain valuable insight into the rest of their guest’s journey.
Perhaps the Testaurant is an initiative all operators should be pursuing in the future.
