Saturday, April 18, 2009

Trust



We recently launched a campaign focused on the single most important asset we have at RIGHTSLEEVE - our clients' trust in us.

We wanted to keep it short and sweet by letting the images do the talking.

To all of our trusted clients - thank you. We look forward to many more years of working with you.


Sunday, April 05, 2009

Susur's challenge with Shang - the curse of being in the middle

Prodigal son Susur Lee has returned home to Toronto from April 1-15 to offer Torontonians his 5 course tasting menu imported from his new NYC restaurant, Shang.

We went last night as we were eager to taste Susur's latest delicacies. It was okay.

Don't get me wrong - the dinner was superb. For $60/person, we had a 5 course tasting menu consisting of skirt steak, shrimp, hamache, tofu and molten chocolate cake. With a bottle of wine, we were around $200/couple tax and tip included.

But here's the challenge: Susur is a culinary genius. He is famous for exceedingly complex dishes and his former restaurant in Toronto, Susur, was near perfect according to most food critics in Toronto and beyond. It was also an expensive restaurant, hovering around $400/couple.

A few years ago, sensing demand for a less expensive alternative to Susur, he opened a lower end restaurant called Lee right next door to appeal to people who wanted Susur at a fraction of the cost. An average tab at Lee is $125/couple. Lee has been a great success as it occupies a good spot in the market - interesting food by a top chef with cheaper ingredients at a reasonable price.

Susur had done a masterful job at offering a product for two very different markets.

So what happened with Shang?

This is the issue I have with Shang (or at least Shang imported to Toronto for 2 weeks). The food was great, but I was not blown away and when I am paying $200/couple I am expecting to be wowed. The molten chocolate cake, for instance, was fantastic but I can get molten chocolate cake at 75% of Toronto's restaurants. I left wishing I had paid $400 and got the real Susur Lee experience, not the middle Susur option.

I think this is Shang's challenge and likely explains why his restaurant in NYC has met with average reviews - he's in the middle. NYC, even more so than Toronto, can accommodate a handful of wildy expensive restaurants run by top chefs. Furthermore, the people that Susur used to cater to in Toronto exist in droves in NYC - diners who will happily pay upwards to $500/couple for a stunning meal. Not many chefs are able to deliver outstanding masterpieces at any price, but Susur is most certainly one of them.

This is why I left scratching my head last night. Susur is at the top of his game and Shang was no more than 3.75/5. This is a chef who can do almost anything he wants. If his creations must cost $400-500/couple on account of top quality ingredients and complicated prep techniques, then he has the credentials to pull it off. By opening up a $200/couple restaurant, he's in the middle market in NYC and I wonder whether this prevents him from delivering the world class food he once did at Susur.

To make matters worse, I suspect that most wealthy diners would rather skip an above average $200/couple meal for a stunning $400/couple meal at a place like Nobu.

In my view, this is the curse of being in the middle - not cheap enough to attract diners looking for great food at a reasonable price (this would explain The Spotted Pig's success in NYC) or expensive enough to attract the high end diners looking for an extraordinary culinary experience (like Eisenginn Farm in Collingwood or the French Laundry in Napa).

I hope that Shang can find its place, but I suspect it will only come by differentiating itself through extraordinary food. Perhaps that means a return to the old Susur.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Individual color shots are here

We just launched a new database feature that allows us to showcase individual color shots on http://www.rightsleeve.com/.

When we first went live with the site a few years ago, we simply displayed the same thumbnail/regular size/enlarged size colorway per product. The balance of the colors were listed as text on the product page, without the ability to click a link and see an individual colorway. This was fine for a color like black, but did not help as much with a color like Dijon.

This was inconvenient and grew to be a point of frustration for clients who wanted to see all of their options. You told us this, and we did something about it.

Over the next few weeks, we will be adding individual color shots to the majority of our web database. Thanks for bearing with us.

Check out a few examples of what the individual colorways look like on these products:

Zoomies

Bowling Shirt

No more emailing individual color shots - everything can now be seen on one web page.