Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

How about these

Fresh Break - symbolic of your fare - fresh and made for a coffee or lunch break, and symbolic of your fresh start and break from your franchise

The Break Room - showing a tie to the offices in your building

Your Place or Mine - clever way of covering both the eat-in and catering part of your offering.

Souper Salad and Sandwiches play on the "soup or salad" question in restaurants and adding the sandwich

For the Health of It - Stressing the healthy choices

Healthy Fare - Healthy

le Souper Sain French for "healthy dining"

Hopefully, this will spark some ideas.

Wayde

What about connecting the name to the name of the building, or the road that it is on, or the neighborhood or city?

How about: Lettuce & Ladles, or I like Funk-a-deli

Some really good ideas! I'm impressed.
I'm also having to paint the entire cafe and decided to paint it with a Tropical theme -- lots of banana leaves, exotic flowers, monkeys, etc. More clipart/fantasy type of painting than realistic. The office building I'm in is located on the 3rd hole of a Country Club Golf Course (they have a huge club house/restaurant there) which all of my windows look out on the 3rd hole as well as all the tropical plants -- that's the reason for the tropical plant paintings inside. With the Tropical theme, what do you think of "Monkeys Cafe & Catering"? I could use the Monkey theme on numerous items or something involving a "banana' name or theme. This needs more 'points' attached -- it's a tough one.

I think I might want to go for something more 'fun' than what I originally thought with the 'healthy' theme -- mainly because I have to paint the cafe and I'm using the tropical them. I want a name that sets us apart from the literally 120+ other food options all within a one to two mile radius of the Cafe. Besides "Monkeys Cafe & Catering" I also was thinking about "Froggy's Cafe & Catering" -- does that catch anyone's attention out there???? I also thought of Toucan's, but think that might be too difficult for people to remember and we also have another cafe named Toujay's down the street. Thank you all for such great feedback and ideas -- it's really appreciated!!!

I personally don't like Monkey's or Froggy's. Either on sounds like either a bar or a children's playplace versus a cafe. When you mentioned "healthy" and "fresh," I thought you actually had an idea what your customers come in for - that they predominantly want healthy and fresh lunches and coffee break stuff. I also thought your place was more urban - an office stop. Now I'm totally confused. Who comes in there and why? What are they looking for from you? Your "brand" (this is the name, the colors and decor, the food and beverage offering, uniforms worn by the "help," logo, tag line) have to all fit together and aim at your customers' needs, not just some cutesy random thoughts you get when you look out the window or based on the color of paint available at the hardware store. You can't do this by coming up with an idea and then drawing in customers attracted to that. You want to know what customers want first and then build the brand around that. So who comes in (young, old, businessmen, golfers, etc) and why - because it's fresh, healthy, fast, convenient? Do they have breakfast, lunch, coffee, a snack, a beverage? The answers to these questions isn't "Yes." You need to know which are predominant. Your customers aren't "everybody." There's an average person who comes in. Who are they and what do they purchase? Once you know this, you can determine your brand. If you don't kniow this, you may have to ask customers to get real data, not gut feelings.

Wayde

The office building I'm in is less than half full due to the bad economy; therefore, there are only about 240 people in the building. We draw in about 1/3 of them and the rest bring in their lunches or go out for 'fast food' like McDonalds, Subway, etc. (I see their bags and soda cups). We need over 240 transactions a day just to break even; therefore, I also cater in lunch 4 days a week at a company down the street. In addition, we do deliveries and that's primarily why I'm trying to come up with a memorable name -- way too many cafes and restaurants in our vicinity with similar names. We get a lot of deliveries because of our fresh chicken breast and oven-roasted turkey. We also occassionally get in some golfers. The people in the building won't care what our name is, they just come for the food so it's really the outside customers that I need to draw in. I also am not allowed by the landlord (they own lots of buildings and have the same rules for everyone) to put any type of signage out front of our building; therefore, unless you know there's a cafe in the building or you order delivery, we're not in view to the public. I know exactly what we serve daily becaues I spreadsheet everything. We serve breakfast (home fries, bacon, sausage, eggs, croissants, bagels, muffins) and lunch (wraps, panini's, sandwiches, soups, salads and I make a hot entree item for around 50 people every day. We also have Smoothies. We don't have a grill or overhead vent; therefore, everything is done on a sandwich/panini press and/or in the Convection Oven or Steamer.
I tried out some of the Healthy-type of names on our customers and the feedback was 'boring' and too generic which is why I'm now thinking another direction. I'm also thinking about having a contest to name it, but that can always backfire when someone's suggestion is the chosen choice. What our customers want is really good food and lots of quantity for their money -- I have so much competition and good competition right down the street.

Yes, "Healthy Eats Bistro and Catering" is much less than exciting. Sounds like an attempt at an upscale place in Mayberry where Barney would take Thelma Lou on a Friday night after the picture show. I can see why they would tell you that. A contest is a bad idea unless there are marketing firms in your building. Most people don't have a clue as to how to name a business.

But, I have to tell you: Your name isn't going to be the savior. In fact, it's probably a very small part of why you'll have customers. For example, you could call it, "Free Food Always" and if all you served for free was stale bread and water, you might have a few "first-timers" come in because of the name but they wouldn't be back and word would get around and you'd be out of business. So you have a lot of competition. Big deal. So does everyone - including your competition. They have customers and are in business. It's not location either because the competitors are in roughly the same location. - right down the street And not everyone is looking for quantity at cheap prices. That's not a universal statement. Look at places like Ruth's Chris. A dinner there is about $50 per person minimum. You can get steak and the all-you-can-eat buffet at Ponderosa for about $12. Yet, people go to Ruth's and will not go to Ponderosa. If that were the case, the place that has the lowest cost and the most food would have all the customers all the time and the rest of you would be out of business. People will come to your place or order delivery if you do something better than your competitors. What is it you do better than your competitors? Is it the kind of food, quality of food, service? What makes you different/special? If you can't come up with anything, give it up now because you're not going to make it in the business. Also, if your core competency is not in alignment with what your customers want, you're through. Why is it you have repeat customers today? Even if they say they come back because they get tired of McDonald's everyday, that's a reason - your core competency is you serve unique foods. Perhaps they come back because it is convenient. Your core competency is location, for some. Once you understand your core competency, then you can figure out how to leverage that to meet your customers' needs better than the competitors do. This allows you to have a price above your competitors and still have plenty of business. When you know this, then you can decide how to brand and market yourself so that you can reach out to those customers and let them know you satisfy their needs better. Then you pick a name to represent that core competency.

Wayde

They come because we have good food -- freshly baked chicken breasts made every morning; oven-roasted turkey breast made every day. Our portions are generous and our prices are good ($4.99 for a wrap and $5.59 to $5.99 for a sandwich). Our customers also told us they want more Mexican, so will be adding some of those items.
I'm listening to what everyone is saying and it's sounding more like a Savory Fare Bistro & Catering name may be more in line with what we're trying to do. I don't have much time to rename the store -- I have pretty much just this week. I just need something that is memorable for our deliveries.