This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation's Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches and Alicia Kelso talk marketing.
First, Chipotle introduced a new Student Loan Retirement Match Plan and financial planning support for new applicants specifically aimed at Gen Z. This is when Chipotle is hiring more workers for its March to May busy season. Chipotle announced it plans to hire 19,000 employees this year, an increase from a few years ago. More than 73% of Chipotle's employees are Gen Z, and these benefits are aimed at the generation with the highest student loan debt and increasingly high credit card debt.
In other news, Applebee's has made another big move in marketing. This time it's a product called Date Night Pass. For $200, cardholders are eligible for 52 dates from February 1st to January 31st, 2025, and includes up to $30 in dine-in or take-out food and non-alcoholic beverage purchases . This was worth approximately $1,500, and the cards sold out in less than a minute. Some customers are now calling for a boycott of Applebee's and posting that the card is a “scam.” Is this good or bad publicity for the brand?
Now we move on to the star of this episode, America's Favorite Chains. Earlier this week, NRN announced its latest collaboration with Technomic, which ranks America's favorite chains based on consumer sentiment data provided by Technomic and its Ignite Consumer platform. We present our favorites by service style, menu category, and decade, and also provide a top 10 list. Some brands may surprise you, others may not, but our editors are here to dig deeper into the list.
This week's guest is Bonchon's new CEO, Suzie Tsai.
Check out popular chains in America here >>
Watch our LinkedIn Live explaining the data behind the report >>
