Rockin’ Baja Coastal Cantina Brings Value to the Table

The casual-dining chain adds lower-priced menu items to boost sales and reduce food costs.

By Maya Norris, Managing Editor -- Chain Leader, 5/16/2008 10:07:00 AM

Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina still has its signature Baja Buckets filled with a plethora of seafood and funky, beach-themed atmosphere. But to survive in a slack economy that has particularly hampered casual dining, the five-unit San-Diego-based chain has undergone some changes to improve profitability as franchisees prepare to open four units in Texas and California by the end of the year. Founder Rick DiRienzo talked to Chain Leader about how he has rebranded the full-service concept to emphasize value in these tough times.

What prompted you to change the name of the concept from Rockin' Baja Lobster to Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina, and why now?

We actually started talking about this a couple of years ago. We had been thinking about the connotation of lobster, and people associate lobster with money, expensive. And after polling a number of our guests and first timers, there were some that told us that they were actually hesitant about coming in because of the word lobster. It just seemed like the right time. The economy is looking for some good bargains, and trying to have a name with lobster in it and then trying to offer good bargains is kind of going against each other.

And so last year we anticipated the economy going down like this. And last year our executive chef and four others hopped into my four-wheel-drive motor home and went down to Baja for a few days exploring probably over 150 different taco stands. And what we did was, we just wanted to find the best and most unique tacos that we could to put in a section of our menu that were going to be fairly inexpensive and that people would just go wow over them. And we found about nine different tacos. And we named them Outrageous Tacos on our menu. They just have been a huge, huge success. Just a huge, huge success. And they're all priced from $9.95 to $13.95, our most expensive taco, which are lobster tacos.

Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina launched a taco section on its menu to offer guests more lower-priced items.

No. We added a grilled mahi mahi. We revamped a couple of our items. We added calamari strips to the menu. That was pretty much it. Basically we took some items off. Our menu was fairly large. We kind of condensed more than added new items except for the tacos.

And you also revamped the salad and salsa bar?

At one time, we had a build-your-own Caesar salad bar and salsas. And it seemed like no matter what we did, people didn't understand that it was just a Caesar salad bar. It wasn't a complete salad bar. So they always complained that we needed more items on there to make it a salad bar. So we've done away with the salad bar. We've added warm tortilla chips and a number of salsas, marinated onions and carrots, etc.

And we've changed our salad now to a Caesar salad. You can get a bottomless bowl of Caesar salad for two for $2.95. We make it in the kitchen now, and it comes out much better with the dressing on it. It's much, much better doing it like this.

How have the new menu items worked out so far?

It has increased our customer count. We fully expected to drop our average ticket price down with all the tacos. But what has happened is people have gone away from our more expensive seafood buckets, which are really popular here, gone into purchasing the tacos. And since they're spending half the amounts on the taco, they're now drinking more. If it makes any sense to you. The guests that would come in and complain because they're paying $25 for the seafood bucket and then you charge me $8.95 for a margarita, they'll have one margarita. But now they pay $12 to $13 for the tacos, and they're having two margaritas, maybe even three margaritas. So it's actually worked out where our guest average check has gone up almost $2 since we made this change [to $27] per person. Really strange. We're really happy about that. We never expected that in a million years.

Has the new menu affected food costs?

Absolutely. Our food costs have dropped from an average of around 36 percent to a theoretical of about 32 percent. Almost four points. It's unbelievable what it's done. Which is really one of the reasons that I did it; I really, really needed to help my franchisees out and get that food cost down for them. Very important to me that we keep that food cost down and the quality up, and everybody's happy.

You attribute the drop in food costs to streamlining the menu?

Absolutely. Every bit of it. From streamlining the menu to taking that Caesar salad off of the salsa bar and we're now charging for it. And then the tacos. They're just outrageous these different tacos that we have and you can't find them anywhere else. And the food cost on them is excellent.

The Baja Buckets, $17.95 to $39.95, are the best-selling items at Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina.

Yes. The big Baja Bucket for two is still our No. 1 seller.

And did you develop a new look or design to go with the new menu?

Actually we are changing our look. We're adding surfboards and that-more to the coastal theme. Really trying to get away from a Mexican theme and going more to a coastal type of a surf hut.

That doesn't require a lot of remodeling?

Yeah. Different murals on the walls. We're planning on getting some movies to run on our videos-beach, surfing movies, etc. stuff like that.

How does the new menu and name change better reflect the brand?

When it was Rockin' Baja Lobster, first thing they thought was lobster. ...So tourists who don't know what it is, they just see that word lobster. And now when you say Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina, you picture a cantina in your mind sitting on the beach somewhere and like, what is this? Let's go check it out. It's just totally different I think. The image that's being put into our guests' mind, especially our first-time guests. It's just really where I want it to be.

You mentioned that average check went up. Were you also aiming for some type of new customer or repeat traffic?

We're trying to build up our local clientele. We have a lot of tourist business in a lot of our locations. It's really important for us to build up the local clientele, which we find is really happening now with these new lower-priced menu items because we were pricey. There's no doubt about it. We were pricey. And for the locals to go out once or twice a month to your restaurant and spend $25 to $26 on just a bucket for one, that's a lot of money. So this gives them an option. If they want a bucket, they can get a seafood bucket. If they just want some seafood tacos, they can spend half the price and get some seafood tacos.

Everything has been such a positive since we started doing this back in September. It really is exciting. It's got me more excited again. After a while you kind of get complacent, and it's really just got me excited again about the whole brand.