St. John Launches Restaurant Consultancy, Store by Store, to Drive Retail Growth

St. John, one of the largest independent agencies in the Southeast, announced today the formation of a new restaurant consultancy, Store by Store (SxS). Well known for successfully growing restaurant and retail brands for nearly 40 years, St. John is channelling its industry experience through SxS to help QSR, fast-casual and casual brands drive rapid growth store by store. 

SxS mines store-level data to simplify planning, tap into unique insights to grow menu dayparts, increase average checks, monitor local preferences, determine best-use occasions and inform decisions around the right message, right offer and right time for each store’s unique profile. 

SxS is led by restaurant-industry veteran Jenifer Boyd Harmon. Jenifer’s career spans work on both the client- and agency-side of the business and includes a track record of successful growth rooted in optimising store and market opportunities. In her role as EVP at SxS, she’ll manage a team of data scientists, analysts and experienced restaurant strategists to provide rapid and actionable plans for growth. 

Jenifer understands the opportunities and challenges facing today’s restaurant CMOs. Most recently, she served as CMO of Ruby Tuesday. Prior to her role at Ruby Tuesday, Harmon served as an executive vice president and account group director at St. John, where for 14 years she oversaw the agency’s fast-casual restaurant account, Zaxby’s. Her previous experience also includes Denny’s restaurants, where she was a senior director of advertising; and EP+Co, where she headed the Firehouse Subs account team.

“Restaurant brands have so much data available to them; however, few concepts look to the store-level data for growth opportunities unique to each store,” said Jenifer. “We use a proprietary approach to drive growth from the local-store level, making it simple for the brand team to embrace the planning on a store, co-op or systemwide basis.”

Joining Jenifer is Jeff Day, director of marketing analytics. Day brings more than a decade of experience in data-driven industries, such as transportation, logistics and insurance. Jeff has taken his work in data modelling and operational excellence to benefit marketing, organising and mining media and sales for insights and strategies to optimise growth and return on advertising investment. He is a published writer and frequently consulted on identifying key performance indicators for executive leadership across the nation. 

“Store By Store was created to answer a need in the restaurant category,” said Jeff McCurry, president and COO of St. John. “Helping brands focus on the business-driving insights embedded in store-level data will translate into rapid, actionable growth plans.”