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Many restaurants that are performing well these days are those that don't try to be everything to everyone, but instead stick to what they do best.
That's the mission of Burger & Lobster, a 17-unit, upscale-casual chain based in London that doesn't even have a menu. Customers have the choice of a hamburger, a 1.5-pound lobster or a lobster roll. Each item is served with a salad and fries, and everything is the same price - Pounds 20 in the United Kingdom ($27.40 - or $28.60 earlier this month), and $20 in the United States, where its first location, in New York City, opened in January 2015.
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The chain is owned by four childhood friends who grew up in Moscow. Three of them are also involved in the British steakhouse chain Goodman. They later brought on former journalist Vladimir Borodin, once editor-in-chief of the major Russian daily Izvestia , who joined them in 2010 to restructure the company and now spearheads U.S. operations.
The group opened its first Burger & Lobster restaurant in 2011. The chain now has 14 company-owned locations: Ten in London, three in the United Kingdom - Manchester, Cardiff and Bath - and one in New York, as well as three franchises in Dubai, Kuwait and Stockholm.
"We believe in focusing on something rather than on doing a huge menu," Borodin said. In fact, in proper Russian fashion, they wrote what they call a "monoproduct manifesto," a page-long text about focusing on one product and doing it well. In fact,...