A vendor's first year in a food hall environment
When we built our first food hall, which was the first in the Southeast, every day was filled with surprises both for us and the vendor-partners as we were learning a lot of the lessons at the same time.
When we built the second, we were amazed by how similar the opening cycle was. Despite the fact that our first and second food halls were in very different communities, city environments, surrounding demographics, and with a completely different set of entrepreneurs, a remarkable amount of the experience was virtually mirrored. It was our second opening (and we had significantly prepared), however our vendor-partners were doing it all for the first time and their first time experience was remarkably similar.
Overtime, we realized that the experience of opening a food hall is more about the psychology of new experiences. Our ability to give better experiences was rooted in our ability to communicate those outcomes in advance. At any rate, as we made it through openings three and four, we realized that not only were the experiences of the vendor-partners more similar than different, there were also defined stages of the opening experience. Further, the first year experience always has the same stages, which are contextually triggered by slight shifts in sales volumes.
By the time we opened the 7th food hall, we had gotten very good at anticipating the movement through these stages which allowed us to preempt frustrations with thoughtful planning and action. An ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure in a food hall environment, where brash attitudes can result in public relations kerfuffles.
So, without further ado, the experiential stages of opening food halls that vendors will experience are:
Excitement - “We are about to open!”
Euphoria - “We are open and people care!”
Exhaustion - “We are open and this is a lot of work”
Overwhelm - “Things keep breaking. How we will make this work?”
Panic - “The sales are suddenly leveling off, and I feel like am still always working. Is this worth it?”
Peace - “I can get through this and, wow, my perspective certainly has evolved”
Progress - “My staff is holding it down and I am making money. I am going to take a month off.”
In reality, the above stages are largely the same for any retail concept with a newer manager (our internally operated concepts go through the same stages). The complication around food halls is that you have multiple personalities going through the above stages at the same time so “the room” has its own collective morale. We think of this as planets orbiting a single sun. Every now and then, the planets will line up and this has powerful effects on the gravity that everyone experiences together.
These days we talk openly about and plan for these stages, since experience is a cornerstone of empathy. We plan personal and group outreach around when we can tell that these stages are transitioning. We communicate clearly with our entrepreneurs to let them know about these stages and what it will feel like (before it happens). We tell them when the room is about to experience the transitions. By the time it happens, everyone reacts as if they were prepared. This has produced a better experience for all.
The above seven stages happen in roughly a year, in our experience. Stages 1-3 are quick; they are typically done by the end of the first week of the food hall opening (!). Stage 4 usually starts in the second week after opening and ends around the beginning of the third month. The shift into stage five is seen when sales growth levels off as the opening crowds settle into routine crowds. Panic sets in for months three through five and it affects different people differently. The more experienced press immediately into optimization of work processes and team building (but with an underlying nervousness), where the newer entrepreneurs show stress through brooding, paralysis, or impatience. This is actually the biggest opportunity for food hall developers and operators to be impactful and build long-term relationships with their vendor-partners. Just be careful to not let the occasionally sharp remark throw you off. The best way to do this that we have found is to to reconnect individually as people and practice old-fashioned empathy. The vendor-partner has just experienced a series of new experiences (even for skilled operators) and your relationship with them is now an ongoing business relationship, which is fundamentally different than when you met (in most cases).
Stage six begins when the sales start to move back up, even if it’s only slightly (usually around month six). The light at the end of the tunnel is there and the vendor-partner has probably reduced cost and found a team that is gelling. You know you’re in stage seven when you see a new car in the parking lot or instagram pictures of them on a beach in Jamaica (typically month ten).
There are other complicating factors that we haven’t addressed. For example, the customer isn’t buying the product, the menu isn’t clear, or the customer service is gruff. Or, seasonality. This results in a subroutine that one has to get through as an extension of stages four and five. This happens fairly frequently and that practiced empathy comes in handy when a vendor-partner needs to make adjustments. We train our managers to admit faults and service failures honestly and quickly to set a healthy example of problem acknowledgment and resolution.
In another article we’ll talk about MEP and what to expect in the first year on that front.
—-
Politan Group specializes in operating food halls, bars, and bars within food halls. We also provide remote accounting, HR, and administration for food halls. Finally, we sell software that organizes much of the routine processes. If you are thinking of building a food hall or need help with an aspect of a food hall you already own, reach out to us. Politan is the most-awarded food hall operator in the industry.