DeanTeamSandpiper26
Mazrui, founder of Fuddruckers, a nationwide gourmet hamburger…
Mazrui, founder of Fuddruckers, a nationwide gourmet hamburger chain, truly is a restaurant
entrepreneur. Mazurui has experienced the taste of failure on more than one occasion. Yet he
realizes that success in the volatile restaurant business requires trying creative new concepts
that may fail. Failure is common in the restaurant industry; eating and drinking
establishments top the list of businesses with the greatest failure rates.
Much of Mazrui’s success is attributable to his ability to anticipate dining trends and to
develop effective restaurant promotions. He caught on to the salad-bar trend early in his first
restaurant, the Nag’s Head Bar in West Palm Beach. He captured customers’ interest with
another venture after his grand-opening; he padlocked the door and sent keys to select
customers. The gimmick created an informal cadre of salespeople touting the restaurant by
word of mouth. When meat prices pushed up prices 30 percent at his Friends of Edinburgh
Scottish Pub, Mazrui had new menus printed. Nevertheless, he issued the old menus to
regular customers, who continued to pay the old prices as long as they brought their old
menus. The gimmick at his lunch- oriented First National Bar & Grill was for customers to
punch time clocks and pay by the minute.
The gimmicks didn’t always work, and Mazrui’s instincts about diners’ preferences weren’t
always correct. His Pasta Palace, a combination art-deco movie house and pasta restaurant
opened well before art deco or pasta became chic in Florida. It closed quickly thereafter.
Mazrui thought he was catching the wave for lighter fare with his health-oriented Stix Eating
Spa in San Antonio. However, the upscale restaurant appealed to only a very small customer
base, and sales fell well below expectations. “It was the right restaurant in the wrong place,”
he claimed after the restaurant closed.
Even Fuddruckers, which for a time was one of the hottest food chains around, began to slide.
Mazrui overestimated the public’s willingness to pay $5 for a burger. The restaurant failed to
adapt its menu and its prices in time and incurred a huge loss. Mazrui sold Fuddruckers the
next year. His current venture, Mazrui’s Macaroni Grill, is highly successful. Modelled after
his memories of his grandfather’s warm Italian kitchen, the restaurant draws crowds on
traditionally slow nights. Mazrui offers free meals on Monday or Tuesday each month. The
catch: customers never know which Monday or Tuesday!
Mazrui’s newest restaurant idea presents yet another challenge for him: convincing New
Yorkers to indulge their palates with hearty Tex-Mex fare. The competition will be stiff;
there are some twelve thousand competing restaurants in Manhattan, and overhead expenses
are outrageously high. The real test of success or failure will be told on the tables of the
Texas Tortilla Bakery.
Question: Describe FIVE types of risks Mazrui is exposed to as an entrepreneur.
