Week 5 Post 1

Set 2:  The Websites of Chili's and Teri Cafe:  A Target Market Comparison

Both of these websites advertise restaurants.  The obvious difference that stands out right away is that Chili's is a large chain restaurant with locations all over the U.S. (and world) and Teri Cafe is a local San Diego restaurant with 2 locations.  The Chili's website is much larger than Teri Cafe's website.  In addition to promoting its food, Chili's is also promoting itself as a great place to work.  You can buy gift cards on Chili's website and you can order your food for pick up from Chili's website.  Teri Cafe has a much smaller website that gives the menus, specials and noodle information.

The most obvious difference in the target markets of these two restaurants is that Teri Cafe's target market live (or are visiting) the San Diego area.  Chili's target market is much larger since there is a Chili's in nearly every larger metropolitan area.  Both restaurants target customers who will be looking to spend up to $20 for an entree, however, both restaurants have entrees in the $7.50-$15.00 range.

The Chili's target market like large restaurants with a wide variety of menu options.  Their target market will also be looking to have alcohol available.  In the Our Story tab, Chili's explains that they want to be the place where you could hang out with friends and have burgers and a beer.  However, this is the only reference to alcohol on their website, so I don't think they are looking to be known as a place to drink.  From the Teri Cafe website, I infer that the target market will be looking for a smaller, more intimate restaurant.  The Teri Cafe target market will be interested in Japanese style food, be it noodle dishes, noodle soup, sushi rolls or rice.  Both restaurants seem to be targeting to families, but Teri Cafe does not offer the traditional American kid foods of chicken tenders, pizza, mac n'cheese, quesadilla etc.

From the overall looks and tones of the websites, Chili's looks like a much busier and noisy restaurant.  The Teri Cafe's website is so dark and subdued that it seems to imply that the restaurant is dark, quiet and more intimate.

I believe there could be a cross-over in the two types of customers.  For example, I would be interested in going to either of these restaurants.  It would just depend on what I was looking to eat that day, what type of atmosphere I wanted, and who was going with me.  If I was going to dinner with my family and we wanted to have a nice enjoyable time together, we would probably choose Teri Cafe.  In this instance, we would be looking to have some noodles or sushi rolls.  These are both foods that we find comforting.  On the other hand, if my son's soccer team was looking to go to dinner after the tournament game, we would choose Chili's.  Chili's can seat large groups and the variety of the menu would serve the large group.