Restaurants are great locations to install electric vehicle charging stations. Fine dining
establishments, whose clients often rank among Tesla drivers, are already known as a
hot spot for installing EVSE. Likewise, fast food and fast casual restaurants close to
freeway exits are great places for EVSE, as they allow EV drivers to charge up and get
back on the road fast. Casual and contemporary casual restaurants, however, often lack
electric vehicle charging stations, but they can be great locations to attract attention to
one restaurant from a long list of choices.
Set Your Restaurant Apart
According to Civilized.com, America’s favorite entrees include pizza in the Midwest,
Italian in the Northeast, seafood in the Southeast, burgers in the South, and Mexican or
Steakhouses in the West. American’s favorite restaurants according to Cheat Sheet
online– The Bonefish Grill, Maggianos, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, Longhorn,
Carrabba’s Italian Kitchen, Pizza Ranch, and TGIFriday’s—are all casual or casual
contemporary restaurants which offer, or specialize, in these favorites.
In a suburban area, there might be several of these kinds of restaurants within a couple
of blocks of each other. They are all within easy driving distance, all have similar
menus, and all have mid-range pricing. All encourage customers to sit down and take
their time with a typically large and fun menu. Customers with time for sit-down, casual
dining have a lot of choices, and no particular reason to choose one restaurant among
many.
Why should a diner choose one over another? Give EV drivers an immediate reason to
choose yours by installing electric vehicle driving stations. EV drivers are loyal to those
who support environmental issues and show they think of the needs of EV drivers. In
fact, contemporary casual restaurants, which often serve healthy food or minimize their
carbon footprint, are particularly good matches for EV charging stations and send a
consistent message to consumers.
If a group is going out to a restaurant and even one person in that group has an EV,
odds are greatly increased the group will go to the restaurant with a charging station at
their friend’s request, rather another restaurant where food and prices are nearly
identical. The EV driver can fuel up while they eat instead of searching across town for
a charging station.
Even if you think few of your customers drive EVs, installing a charger can still be good
for business. When your restaurant chooses to join a network, your EV equipment
appears on special maps that electric car drivers utilize to find locations to plug in and
charge. These maps are easily accessible to anyone who owns a smart phone. Having
your restaurant appear on Google apps can increase your business with all customers,
and literally put your restaurant on the map!
Doesn’t Charging an EV Take a Long Time?
Some restaurant owners may have heard it can take 8 hours or more to fully charge an
EV, and think drivers would never make use of a charging station at a restaurant.
However, the majority of EV owners fully charge their cars at home overnight, and are
not looking for a full-charge from EVSE at a restaurant. Just like drivers of gas-powered
cars, EV drivers can find themselves lacking needed fuel at inconvenient times, and
utilize charging stations on the go.
Most of these drivers are looking for a needed charge to get home, to the grocery store,
to daycare, or a meeting across town, not a full charge. An hour is plenty of time to give
drivers the amount of charge they need. Blink’s charging stations have the rate of 19.2
kWh which provides the fastest Level 2 charging ability, plenty to fill your customer’s
needs and get them back on the road. These stations are ideal for any location whether
the customer will be staying for a while or just briefly stopping in.
Do your customers stay long enough to use EVSE? A 2002 Cornell University study
showed 65% of Americans eat out once or twice a week, and diners consider
approximately 60.2 minutes to be the ideal length of a meal out, while 29.9 is
considered short, and 81.6 to be long. Diners may see themselves as faster than they
really are however since, according to Travel and Leisure, servers expect a party of two
will stay in a restaurant as long as an hour and 45 minutes, while allotting two hours for
a party of four. Most customers who frequent casual and contemporary casual
restaurants stay long enough to get the charge they need.
EV chargers can help bring in business, and be a great convenience for customers who
can grab a bite and get a charge at the same time. Blink makes bringing electric vehicle
charging to your restaurant simple, between the low installation costs and the stations’
ability to deliver a fast vehicle charge there’s no downside. As electric vehicles continue
to grow in popularity EV stations can be sure to keep your business on the map.
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