Suzanne Drolet is the manager of a McDonald’s restaurant in a city with a lot of senior citizens. These senior citizens have become regular customers at the restaurant. They come in for the senior citizen breakfast special and stay till late afternoon, with coffee refills being free. So, even though they stay there from breakfast to lunch, they only order the breakfast special and get refills of coffee. Suzanne likes them, they are all very friendly and clean customers. The restaurant isn’t facing any crowding issues either as there is more than enough room for them and the other customers. However, Suzanne is worried about the future of the restaurant.
Problems:
In my opinion, Suzanne is right to be worried about the future of the restaurant. First and foremost, her fears that the restaurant might be labelled as an ‘old people’s’ restaurant by the younger generation is correct. If they younger generation starts to percieve the restaurant as a place for old people, they will stop dining at it and look for substitutes.
Secondly, although the senior citizens are nice and friendly to the customers that come and go, the ambiance of the place is severly misleading for the younger generation. If the place has an old person home feel to it, then less and less people will go there. Simply because the restaurant itself is positioning itself as a place for older people to hang out.
Thirdly, the restaurant will lose a great amount of its sales in the future if the seniors keep doing what they are currently doing. This is simply because they don’t order food the same way ordinary customers do. They come in for the breakfast special and get free refills of coffee. Furthermore, if the group of seniors that come in keeps growing in number, it might lead to a crowding issue. The restaurant might sooner or later run out of space to accommodate everyone. People might start to avoid the restaurant because of that.
In addition, the employee and customer