The glory hours of pizzerias, poke and even Argentine empanadas have stagnated, however, the burgermania live a hectic boom. Contests to choose the best hamburger in the country sprout like mushrooms in the fall and youtubers-influencers tasters deserve even a chapter of Ful Pantomime. In the midst of all the frenzy, a new generation of cool restaurants bursts forth, more than extolling the benefits of their hamburgers, they exude a lifestyle that seeks to fall in love with its customer.
While you sink your teeth into a Sinaloa or a Rodeo in williamsburg (they have a venue in Rivas-Vaciamadrid and another in X-Madrid in Alcorcón), you can enjoy exclusive recordings with some of the breakdance promises. The youngest is 7 years old. There is also Martín Perea AKA Martin, 18 years old, a resident of Rivas, current U21 Spanish champion and with many ballots to end up being an Olympian in 2024. “I have promised him that if he wins BC One, the most important breakdancing competition, I will sponsor him so that he has a salary and can live off it,” says Juan Pedro Gallardo Jot, Williamsburg principal. While that happens, he already has in mind to accommodate other young breaking promises from other provinces on his televisions.
Feeding Olympic dreams from the neighborhood
Next to me, two high school boys watch with wide eyes the dances that appear on the monitor. They do not care if the meat of their hamburger comes from cows raised in natural environments, with a diet based on cereals and fodder and from farms that ensure 100% animal welfare. Nor is it particularly surprising that it is cooked on the grill in an oak charcoal oven and that each bite is really juicy. What captures them is that urban vibe, healthy, so full of energy and so close at the same time.
With extremely young, multi-tattooed waiters, but without the gesture of stress -or weariness- that we can find in other restaurants. Jota equates it to a first date. “Either there is magic or there is nothing to do. If I have the best burger in the world, but it doesn’t tell you anything, in the end the experience is not complete. You don’t have a fit with me and the same thing you don’t come back. Our goal is to make you feel part of Will’s”; Wow if they succeed: on weekends getting a table in their premises is epic.
Of dips with the boss
the letter of The Fitzgerald It is not a letter to use. It is a booklet printed on quality paper where the brothers Mario and Carlos Gelabert, the two founding partners, tell you about their trips through California, the opening parties, their names and what some of the staff members like or how well They spent the summer at Fitz Camp, a kind of camp for bosses and employees with gymkhanas, water games and lots of parties held in Benajéber (Valencia). They even sell their own collection of t-shirts. Before ordering your burger at the counter, you can’t help but feel a little envious of that environment. Camp Rock of the company
That’s the key: they not only sell hamburgers, but also a very enjoyable lifestyle. It was not for nothing that his publicity campaign upon landing in Madrid was ‘Welcome to the Movement’ (welcome to the movement). They even went ahead of Netflix to hire a space on Gran Vía where they displayed a giant banner with that motto (by the way, 50% of the company belongs to the Tastia Group, owners of Muerde La Pasta, among others). “I would lie to you if I told you that this idea was clear from the beginning. It was an evolution, but when we already had three stores open, we saw clearly that in Fitz we are like a big family. We are all very young people, with a way of being very kick aheadwanting to grow, get out of their comfort zone and achieve things in life ”, he points out.
Raised in a family of hoteliers, he knows that part of the harshness of the sector comes from bars where they spend hours without getting paid and bosses who treat their team with disdain. “Your people are your greatest resource: beyond good meat or good bread, you need a team that is not just motivated, but comfortable with what they do”, declares the eldest of the Gelaberts as a declaration of intent. For display, they upload photos of their employees with a short biography of each one. “Many work to pay for their degree or driver’s license. They are bullies. It is what we are looking for, not a guy who is lying on the sofa watching Pasapalabra ”, he concludes.
Make the conventional exceptional
Let’s not freak out: as much as you want to spin it, a hamburger is a piece of minced meat between two halves of a bun. You can put sauces, guacamole, bacon, tomato, lettuce, beans, pulled pork… even all kinds of nameless dirty things. Because, as that replicant in Blade Runner would say, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen donut burger aberrations and I live to tell about it.
In fact, it even moves me when I look at a letter and the proposals are normal. Quality, but more of the same. That is where the problem begins: to this day, most of the hamburger restaurants have passed a level: they are no longer fast food with regular meats and chichinabo rolls, there is quality meat, homemade sauces, curried recipes and brioches that do not remain soft. So it’s time to scratch your wits to seduce diners.
Eloy Rodríguez, director of Agencia Gastro, a company specializing in marketing applied to restaurants, is clear that “without quality you will not have customers”. “But when quality becomes a commodity -that is, in something that your competition may also have-, the differentiation comes from the brand promise, the storytelling and the differential experience instagrammable”. From here, the sky is the limit. If the client wants cane, you can do a staging as brutal as that of Pork You.
This Castelldefels restaurant defines itself as having a ‘rogue, radical and street personality’. The staging seems to have been taken from the VIP area of a wild joint photographed by Terry Richardson. Burgers, wings and ribs almost, almost, adults only. “The client wanted something very daring. The wink was towards a fun and very explicit Pornhub culture, related to a young and transgressive target that is fed up with soft communication, good spirits…”, explains Guille García, copywriter Y storyteller Gastro Agency and father of the brutal campaign behind Pork You.
These creatives recognize that on many occasions we choose a restaurant because of the menu, because of its quality or because it is fashionable. “But in the end, in our decisions we always seek to feel part of something. We want to perceive that that brand or that restaurant is designed exactly for someone like me, who shares my carnality or my irreverence. This achieves very relevant results in the hospitality industry”, says García.
let’s tell stories
This is the mother of the lamb: the storytelling, have something to tell. Some make them up. brooklyn town sells hamburgers in supermarkets ready to reheat in 90 seconds, but presents them as the perfect option for gamers. In Jota’s case, his restaurants are nothing more than the staging of the dream of a neighborhood boy with problems at home that he found in the street dance, his colleagues and, later, at work, an escape route. Which, by the way, he became a manager for several years at Fitzgerald, before thanking them for everything he learned and opening his own business. No bad feelings on either side (confirmed in interviews with both). Is it a story worth telling or not?
When there is none, there is no other option than to invent it. It begins with an interior design that does not repeat that of others, with a social media strategy that engages and with an image that, in the words of the gastronomic photographer jose jump, “create an atmosphere”. “You have to play with light, with color and transmit something that reflects your essence. If you sign up for fashion or copy what others do, you are not selling your story. It may work for you today, but if tomorrow that is over, what story are you going to tell?
Maybe that’s why at Fitzgerald they don’t even want to hear about marketing agencies. “The stories are ours and we tell them from within,” they point out. The thing about giving the turra with the homemade recipe for the hamburger and the churruscado point of the bacon is another story and must be told another time (the phrase is not mine, but Michael Ende’s in The endless story).
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