Bearno's translates itself to China
Advertiser News Services
BEIJING — When the first Bearno's restaurant was ready to open in downtown Beijing, company president Robert Mooney called a huddle with his Chinese partners to discuss advertising strategy.
Gannett News Service
"They really didn't understand what I was talking about," said Mooney, top operations man for the Louisville chain of Italian restaurants.
Bearno's, a Kentucky-based chain of Italian restaurants, has expanded to Beijing. In an urban area of 9 million people, it turns out, American-style advertising wasn't necessary to draw customers.
It wasn't a problem translating American business jargon into Mandarin Chinese, though there had been some of that in the months Mooney spent in the city setting up two prototype Bearno's Inc. eateries.
It was just that with more than 9 million people living in the densely packed urban heart of the Chinese capital, advertising wasn't necessary.
"You just open and they will come," Mooney said.
They're still coming, 14 months after the two stores opened within a half-mile of each other.
The customers are not spending quite as much as Bearno's would like, but enough to keep the Louisville company's China venture in the black.
"Between the two stores, we're showing a small profit," said Bearno's CEO Joe Steier. "The one store is making a good profit, and the other is just below break-even."
That gives Steier hope that dozens of Bearno's outlets serving Westernized tastes to millions of Chinese consumers is more than just a pipe dream. He said the company could be close to an agreement with a Chinese holding company that develops American brands.
