Students Help Broadway Restaurant

Restaurant demographics collected by MBA students impressed Stacey Hettinger at table219.

Light rail along Broadway will bring more people and energy to Capitol Hill, yet weathering six years of construction for the tunnel and new transit station won't be easy for retailers.

That's why Stacey Hettinger, co-owner of table219, a small family restaurant at 219 Broadway East, welcomed consultation from Seattle University students in the Albers School of Business and Economics.

Funded by Sound Transit, Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and the Broadway Business Improvement Area, the Business Technical Assistance program offers growth strategies for retailers directly impacted by the light rail construction project.

"I saw it as a win-win," says Hettinger. "It gives us some new ideas as we prepare for what's ahead and it gives students an opportunity to work on a community project."

For Swati Gulati, who completed her MBA in June, and Cara Peterman, who just finished the last class for her MBA, table219 provided a fresh challenge. Both were students in a class called New Venture Consulting last spring.

Gulati, a software development engineer at Microsoft, says their recommendations had to align with table219's customer preferences, industry practices and business model.

"To come up with some fruitful recommendations, we analyzed all three components and proposed an actionable and reasonable plan," Gulati says.

"We had to conduct market analysis and understand table219's business strategy to develop a creative marketing plan to help achieve its goals of mitigating the impact of Sound Transit construction while increasing dinner revenues," says Peterman, a senior financial analyst at Puget Sound Energy in Bellevue.

The pair discovered 81 percent of Capitol Hill's residents are single, so they suggested more menu options to appeal to this demographic as well as a to-go menu aimed at the neighborhood's youthful population. The student consultants also created a restaurant index of similar dining options in the area. "They gave us mind-boggling demographics," says Hettinger.

Hettinger hopes to implement several of their recommendations for table219's website and is encouraged to try new promotions this fall. She has a few surprises planned, among them a way to inform customers about what's ahead.

For more details about the Business Technical Assistance program, contact Greg Scully, Albers corporate relationships manager, at (206) 427-8575 or e-mail scullyg@seattleu.edu.