Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Age

Income level

ZIP or postal code

Do you eat salad?

How often do you eat salad?

How far would you travel to buy and eat salad?

What kind of salad items do you like to eat?

What kind of salad items do you NOT like to eat?

How much do you expect to pay for a salad? (include a range of prince points).

Are there places in your area that already offer salad bars (supermarkets, for example)? "Healthy eating" means vastly different things to different people. And be very careful about surveys to give you information - people often say they like the idea of something, but fail to actually do it (losing weight, for example). Also - you may be selling salad bar items, but unless the restaurant's entirely a to-go experience, then the environment of the salad bar will be as important (will people want to sit and eat at your restaurant) as the menu.

Are you trying to get an honest reading on the appeal of a salad-bar restaurant, or are you trying to justify your opinion/wish/hope that others will find this an appealing idea? It makes a big difference in deciding how to proceed with your research.

Assuming you want an honest reading, you might want to create a short concept statement for, say, 3 or 4 different kinds of restaurants -- including the salad bar. Then ask people in your target audience to rank the concepts from favorite/most-likely-to-frequent to least-favorite/least-likely-to-frequent. Just be sure the concepts are more descriptive and not too sales-oriented. Once a person has committed to a rank-order, you can ask "why" questions.

For a true answer this will be much better than a monadic test.