Eoghan McCabe:
This success is enviable by anyone’s standards; its forecast turnover for 2008 was £36m. But its dilemma with respect to its growth targets is not. A niche by definition is restricted. It’s a slice of a market and you grow by getting deeper into that slice. And just like the returns from a slice of pie diminish if you eat it from the edge inwards, the end of a niche market is hard to capitalise on: some people in the sushi market are price sensitive, some don’t like the music YO! Sushi play, some live in hard-to-reach rural areas, and so on.
So what are you to do when you’ve got your eyes on the 100 restaurant prize? Faced with the plateau that is the shape of growth in an exhausted niche market, the temptation is to go where many good brands have gone before and diversify. And ruin your brand. Sure, offering “more than sushi” potentially opens the door to less-ambitious diners like me, but what of the sushi fans? What a sushi fan wants is a sushi joint, not “sushi plus other”. And what someone like me really wants is a steak joint, a Thai restaurant, a tapas bar, not “sushi plus other”.
Keep focused, find a niche, and take care of the dedicated customers. Do this—rather than pander to a larger but less interested group—and you’ll have success.