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Lizard’sThicketServiceAuditBy:SavannahCleveland,JakeSims,ElizabethAnnLambdin,

OscarArellano,andAustinHood

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Background

Lizard’s Thicket is a family-owned and operated country cooking restaurant specializing in authentic regional

Southern home cooking at reasonable prices. It was first opened by Bob and Anna Williams in Columbia, SC in 1977.

The business has grown to a multi-unit operation with 700 employees including Bob and Anna’s children and

grandchildren. For our project, we worked directly with Robert Willimas III, who is the restaurant operations manager.

Our first task was to meet with him and gather information about how we could best aid Lizard’s Thicket with our project.

From that information, we were able to better customize our objectives and goals (see interview notes and results in

Appendix-A).

Our project consisted of analyzing three Lizard’s Thicket locations. These locations demonstrated various

performance levels based on numbers and perceptions of the management. The lowest performing restaurant was expected

to be the Knox Abbot location, the average performing one was located on Elmwood, and the best performer was located

in the Forrest Drive area (according to the perception of the management). Mr. Williams explained that the first two touch

points were the most crucial to the customer experience. The first touch point is defined as the moment the server

welcomed the customer and took their drink order. The second is defined as the fulfillment of the drink order and the

placement of the food order. With this in mind, we created two separate categories for our data points. We recorded the

time it took from when the customer sits down to the time the drink order is placed, and then a second wait time was

recorded from the moment the drink order was placed to the time they received their drinks.

We visited each location five times, for a total of fifteen visits. Each visit consisted of data collection and the final

three visits to each location also consisted of survey collection. During our first two days of observation at each location,

the management and staff did not know our objective. We did this to ensure unbiased data results avoiding the possibility

of skewed data due to staff awareness of observation. Regarding survey distribution and collection, the manager did not

want us to hand out the surveys to customers so that we did not disturb the dining experience; instead, we placed them by

the register for customers to complete on their way out. At the start of our survey we had a customer-grouping question to

split customers into Student, Family, Couple, or Other categories. The rest of our survey consisted of eight questions plus

a comments section (see Appendix B for examples of the surveys). These questions consisted of five-point Likert scale

questions, ranging from very dissatisfied to very satisfied, and open-ended questions that gave us a chance to collect extra

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information on items the customers may feel would improve their dining experience. We visited the locations Monday

through Thursday, from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. During this time, the influx of people was surprisingly low. We had expected a

large influx, but instead, we were able to collect data from each individual table due to the gap between arrivals. From

this, we expected the wait times to be lower due to the availability of the servers. The resulting free time allowed servers

to get the first two touches to the tables more quickly.

Analysis of Wait Lines

During our intitial meeting with Lizard’s Thicket management, we were informed that there were no existing

issues with queuing or wait times at any of the three locations. Our site visits confirmed this to be the case. In order to

coroborate the absence of waiting lines at each of the Lizard’s Thicket

retaurant locations, we used the touch point and arrival time data collected

during our observations to build a dynamic model of our process. Using

100 data points from each location, we determined the average touchpoint

times as well as the average total amount of time customers were spending

in our defined system (from initial seating to fulfilment of drink orders).

The calculations derived from our raw data can be seen in the “Location

Metrics” table to the right.

Next, we used these table touch averages to construct a

simulation of our system in ProcessModel. Since each restaurant

possesses approximately the same capacity and resource contraints, the

process maps for each lcoation are identical and can be found under

“ProcessModel Diagram” on the next page. For each location, arrival

times and table touch averages were adjusted to model the Forest

Drive, Knox Abbott, and Elmwood locations. These simulations were

then run for 2 hours to mimic our observation experiences. To the right

are the data outputs showing the quantity processed and average cycle

time for each location. These quantities closely resemble the number

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of customers we counted during our observation periods at each location (Knox Abbott experienced less dinner traffic and

greater time between customer arrivals). Furthermore, the average cycle times for each location predict nearly the exact

same cycle times calculated using our raw data points (see “Location Metrics”).

Our model outputs also confirmed that there are no

existing waiting time or queuing problems at any of the

three Lizard’s Thicket locations. The activity state outputs

to the left show the metrics for the queues in each

restaurant (this chart is representative of all three Lizard’s

Thicket locations). During our simulations, each

queue remained empty 100% of the time—

meaning that no queues formed at any point

during the process. Collectively, this data

indicates that Forest Drive is the best performing

location with regards to process cycle time,

followed by Elmwood and finally Knox Abbott.

These cycle time metrics align exactly with the

restaurant management’s perception of each

location’s performance. While improvements in

process times at the Elmwood and Knox Abbott

locations may be desirable, at present the

average service times measured at these two

restaurants are not resulting in additional waiting

time caused by customers queuing in the system.

Each customer is able to place and receive their

drink order before the arrival of the next

customer to the same seating area.

ProcessModelDiagram

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Analysis of Survey Data

Based on our surveys, we found that each location had varying

strengths and weaknesses. Our questions helped us gain insight into Lizard’s

Thicket customer satisfaction. The data shows that 86% of surveyed

customers were returning customers. We also found that Lizard’s Thicket

has a variety of customer groupings, of which students were the least

frequent customer base (Exhibit A). Although overall customer satisfaction

was high in most areas, Exhibit B shows that every location had a problem

with satisfaction of healthy dining options.

Looking at Exhibit C (following page) we are able to see that Elmwood has the highest satisfaction overall with

an average of 4.70, followed by Knox Abbott with 4.35 and Forest Drive with 4.02. The average of all three was a 4.34.

This data is interesting because the operations manager expected for Forest Drive to be the best followed by Elmwood

then Knox Abbott. Our survey data did not match his conclusions.

Family25%

Other36%

Couple28%

Student11%

CustomerGroupings

ExhibitA

00.51

1.52

2.53

3.5

4

4.5

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OverallSaLsfacLonWaitTimeSaLsfacLon ValueofMeal

SaLsfacLon SaLsfacLonwithNumberofHealthy

OpLons

SaBsfacBonLevelsAcrossDifferentLocaBons

AverageSaLsfacLon

ForestDrive

KnoxAbboX

Elmwood

ExhibitB

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Additionally, we surveyed the servers

and found data that did not align with the

operation manager’s conclusion again. We

discovered that Knox Abbott performed best

with an average satisfaction across all types of

4.78, followed by Forest Drive with an average

of 4.67 and ending with Elmwood with an

average of 4.50. These responses were not surprising to our team based on our experience during our visits. We found that

Knox Abbott and Forest Drive had more cooperative managers and that Elmwood was difficult for us to work with. One

Elmwood server mentioned that the servers get complacent. Comments from Knox Abbott servers included the need for

more healthy dining options and one said that certain wait staff needed to have a more positive attitude. Lastly, Forest

Drive servers reflected that the food temperature was often a problem, which could have a significant effect on customer

satisfaction. These additional comments do not give us much insight into which location is best but do help to pinpoint

some issues. By observing the interaction with customers we again found that Knox Abbott was the most personal with

their customers and all surveyed customers from this location had been there before. Comments from Knox Abbott

customers included good value, good food, clean restroom facilities, and friendly waiting staff. These comments support

our data’s conclusions. The only additional comments for Forest Drive just reiterated that customers want more options

for healthy food. Surprisingly, the additional comments for Elmwood discussed how much they love Lizard’s Thicket and

how friendly the staff is. These comments did not reflect the overall thoughts of Elmwood’s customers as seen in our data.

We also had questions that dealt with how the customers heard about Lizards Thicket and if they had considered

dining somewhere else. Our team found that most people had heard of the restaurant through word of mouth or had been

going there for so long that they could not remember. Our data supports this by showing that, overall, many of their

customers were returning. When asked if they had considered dining somewhere else, some said they considered staying

home, one said they had considered Miyo’s and three customers commented that they considered eating at Maurice’s.

This data shows which restaurants Lizard’s Thicket is competing with and could provide knowledge to help them better

guide their marketing strategy.

3.5

4

4.5

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AverageSaLsfacLon

ForestDrive KnoxAbboX Elmwood

CrossCategoryCustomerSaBsfacBon

ExhibitC

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Overall, the analysis of our data shows that Forest Drive has the best waiting lines, Elmwood has moderate times,

and Knox Abbott is the slowest. Based on that analysis we would expect for the customers to show that Forest Drive is the

best, but our analysis did not support this conclusion. From this knowledge we believe that the amount of time customers

had to wait did not affect their overall satisfaction levels; they were more negatively affected by their food satisfaction and

the lack of healthy dining options.

Recomendations

There are a few recommendations that we can make to management after analyzing all of our data. First and

foremost, the most obvious issue of the factors we surveyed is the need for more “healthy” menu options to choose from.

A significant portion of the customers surveyed were older age groups (50+) and families with young (<18) children,

which matches with the manger goal of creating a “family atmosphere of casual dining.” It makes sense that these groups

are more concerned with eating better as they age and with growing young children, respectively. As mentioned in the

manager survey, Lizard’s Thicket has recently added some grilled and low-carb options to their menu. First, we

recommend that management take some time to see if customer’s simply have yet to realize that these new menu options

exist, and this problem may correct itself without any intervention. However, if the new items are not being ordered,

Management should seek to either add completely new healthy options, such as vegetables that are not fried or cooked

with salt, or even better, improve current menu items. By creating an overall more healthy menu, instead of just adding

some new items, guests will appreciate old favorites that they always order, while simultaneously improving the

healthiness of the dish. Also, it may be beneficial to label them seperately on the menu or provide a small logo or icon

beside it, to indicate that it is a “healthy” eating option.

Another piece of information we gleaned from the surveys was the lack of one major demographic who

frequented the location: college students. USC has a student body of tens of thousands of students, who on average

probably eat out multiple times a week. Two locations, Knox Abbot and Elmwood, are just a couple of miles away from

campus. The prices of Lizard’s Thicket are very comparable to many local dining options around campus, and some

people may argue that the quality of food at Lizard’s Thicket would be much better than the majority of the places where

students eat every day. This is a largely untapped resource that Lizard’s Thicket could greatly benefit from if utilized

correctly. In order to do that, our recommended course of action is to have promotions geared specifically for USC

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students to incite interest. For example, Uncle Maddio’s Pizza, a relatively new restaurant located near campus, used a

free pizza promotion for the first hundred customres on its opening day. HUNDREDS of students showed up, and even

though the previous two restaurants that were in that location failed, Maddio’s was incredibly successful and is still a

favorite location for college students today. While giving away hundreds of free meals may not be the best option,

something that will generate excitement and discussion among the students could go a long way to bridging the gap to

bring those potential customers in, like a free entre with a drink purchase or a coupon booklet that is handed out at the

student union or somewhere on campus that gets heavy foot traffic.

In terms of the waiting line analysis, it is very difficult to recommend any surface level improvements. During

the time period in which data was collected, customers sat themselves and the restaurant locations were never full, thus

there was never any wait time to negatively affect their experience, so we can not offer any improvements there.

Typically the servers were at the table very quickly, more often than not less than a minute, and only in very few instances

did the customers not have their drinks within a five minute time period (another managerial goal). One issue that might

be considered is that because the customers seat themselves, they may unknowingly all sit in one server’s designated area,

which can cause the appearance of one worker working hard and keeping busy and the others hardly doing anything.

However, having the customers seat themselves allows them to choose their own seats. With no waits, this is probably the

better of the two options rather than attempting to evenly spread out the server assignments. Another point to consider is

that we did not take data for when the customers receive their food (entirely dependent on the type of dish ordered) and

when they received their check, which could have affected their overall experience and thus the rating they gave that

location. The only real recommendation that we can offer is that the servers, even while working a slow shift, need to

avoid being complacent and be even more attentive when the restaurant is less busy. It is easier for a customer to

understand why their food or drink is taking time if the restaurant is busy (and the server has many customers to handle),

but it reflects very poorly on the quality of service when hardly anyone is in the restaurant and the customer still has to

wait several minutes for a drink. Overall, the servers performed within managerial expectations; but it is entirely within

reach to eliminate any negative outliers, especially if there are three serveres on staff for only half a dozen customers,

which was frequently the case during our period of observation.

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Appendix Appendix A – Manager Interview

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Appendix B – Survey Examples