• First, our landlord at Buttonville Airport decided to renovate the lobby of the airport.  Our restaurant is in the lobby so this renovation involved us.  The landlord hired Spinning Wheel Design led by Peter Tillmann to do the redesign.  In reviewing our current look, Peter made it very clear that we needed a change, not only at Buttonville but at all our restaurants.  Peter was straight and to the point.  Our restaurants were a hodgepodge of colours and posters that distracted customer attention from the most important  element, our food.  Peter wanted our seating area and counters to be subdued with white walls, white menu boards and pictures of our food to accentuate our fresh food on display. 
• Second, we began an agency review to help us determine what direction our marketing should head.  We spoke to a few agencies.  Each suggested that we remove all of our various posters and menus from our restaurants because they were distracting attention from our food.  They recommended white menu boards that focused on our food.  This common theme intrigued us.
• Third, our restaurant at Commerce Court was significantly underperforming.  We needed a dramatic increase in sales.  We thought that it might make sense to encourage customers to design their own salads rather than choose from the 10 – 15 premixed salads we were offering.  This is the way we have always presented our sandwiches to customers but we had never applied this to our salads.  We picked as many vegetables, cheeses, proteins and seeds that we could fit into our displays, 54 in all, and let customers choose what they wanted.  We were amazed at what happened!  Customers said that it was like being a kid in a candy store, they loved the presentation of our fresh food and the freedom to choose what they wanted.  And they loved that no matter what they chose it was always the same price.  Sales sky-rocketed and we realized that we were on to something.  Then we added all of the fresh new items to our sandwiches and encourage customers not to have just a corned beef sandwich with mustard on rye, but rather to choose their fresh sliced bread, then their protein, veggies, sauces and anything else they wanted from our displays.  Sales of sandwiches went crazy.  And for breakfast we promoted grilled cheese sandwiches with 11 freshly sliced breads, 10 cheeses and all of our veggies and meats.  Another home run.

So we brought Spinning Wheel Design on board, hired a new advertising Agency, The AdLib Group, and threw our experience at Commerce Court into the mix.  DRUXY`S Fresh Deli Revolution was born.  A new store design that focused on our food, service that encouraged customers to design their own sandwiches or salads, new marketing that featured our fresh food and even a new logo.  After 33 years we dropped the man and meat logo and replaced it with a clean new logo!

Thinking back, it is hard to believe that over the past 12 months we have totally revamped our 33 year old company.  11 of our restaurants have taken on the new program, 5 more restaurants are being converted each week.  We have 2 new locations coming on stream in May.  Our future has never looked brighter.

The lesson here is that even if you think that change is not necessary, even if you have had long term success, better times are around the corner.  Look outside yourself for fresh ideas and see the greatness that is waiting for you.  The old adage, if you continue to do the same things, you will continue to have the same results has never been truer.  If you do everything differently a whole new world is waiting for you.

• Improved user interface for simplified navigation
• Information centric Home Page that is constantly updated
• Blog and Twitter integration for seamless community interaction
• Improved food visuals throughout, replicating a restaurant feeling
• More helpful and informative Franchise section, for those looking to become a franchisee
• A greatly improved store finder with a better integration of maps

And this is just the start.  We have begun work on several additional projects that we hope to launch shortly:

• Improved nutritional wizard to help you build your sandwich or salad as nutritious as you wish
• Mobile Applications to help you find the nearest store and even place an order in advance

The Internet is an exciting frontier that offers an important ability to communicate with our customers.   We are committed to remaining at the forefront in developing our website and associated applications.

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve your online experience we are always interested in hearing from you.

Thanks