FROM OUR COLUMNISTS
RESTAURANT LOYALTY PROGRAMS ARE FACING A BIG TEST Tech Check: Many brands in desperate need of traffic are turning to their loyalty programs. Can they do enough to move the needle?
BY JOE GUSZKOWSKI JOE.GUSKOWSKI@INFORMA.COM
program may be the most generous in the industry—but at what cost? As my colleague Jonathan Maze pointed out, a customer could combine some of the chain’s existing offers with Sub Club to get a total discount of up to 61% on four sandwiches. That’s unheard of in today’s loyalty landscape, where most restaurants are shooting for a discount rate of under 10%. It’s no surprise, then, that Subway franchisees are pushing back on Sub Club, as Maze reports here. Subway, however, is betting that the wallet-friendly offer will boost traffic enough to make it profitable. One franchisee Maze spoke to estimated that the program would have to drive a 13% to 15% traffic increase to break even. So will it work? It’s a big if. At fast-casual Sweetgreen, customers have been complaining about its high prices. It responded this month with a limited-time, $10 bowl, the ‘Tis the Seasoned Harvest Bowl with Blackened Chicken. Most of Sweetgreen’s bowls range from $13 to $17, and the chain itself has pegged the national average for fast-casual bowls at $12 to $14, my colleague Lisa Jennings reports. So a $10 bowl is a great deal, one that would almost certainly drive more customers to the chain. Except there’s a catch: You have to be part of Sweetgreen’s loyalty program to get it. Why not make $10 bowls available to everyone? Because generating traffic is apparently only part of the motive here. Sweetgreen also wants to take the opportunity to get people to join its loyalty program, so it can collect their data and
PHOTO COURTESY OF SWEETGREEN
W hat do Subway, Sweetgreen and Cracker Barrel all have in common? They’re all in search of traffic. And they’re all turning to their loyalty programs to get it. Subway is reviving its Sub Club, which will give members a free footlong sub for every three that they buy. Sweetgreen just launched a bargain-priced $10 bowl—for loyalty members only. And Cracker Barrel is cutting its advertising budget by up to $16 million as it looks to save money, but plans to use its loyalty program to connect with customers in the meantime. These brands are desperate. Sweetgreen is coming off a quarter in which traffic declined 11.7%. Cracker Barrel is facing a
similar traffic plunge following its new-logo debacle. And Subway has been struggling with sales declines and closures for years. Can targeted, discount-driven marketing help turn things around? If it can, it would be a big endorsement for loyalty programs, a strategy that is still very much in flux in the restaurant industry. For evidence of that, just look at all the brands that have overhauled their programs over the past year or two—Sweetgreen included. When it comes to loyalty, restaurants are still Figuring It Out. And yet many are putting a lot of investment and urgency into these programs. Subway, for instance, believes that the Sub Club will help generate much-needed repeat visitors. It very well might—the
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS JANUARY 2026
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