homemoney to purchasehow Once this had been done, then management techniques would need to be devised and applied if the full benefit of any marketing policy was to be obtained. As it was to turn out, some four years were to elapse before the industry received the essential freedoms governing the supply of materials and the licence necessary for reconstruction, and these years were spent mainly in thinking and planning the marketing future. As a result, it was considered that any solution to the marketing problem would require at least The creation of an entirely new appeal to the old and, if possible, a new public; An extensive reconstruction of the restaurants; The reduction of labour costs; The recovery or replacement of technical expertise; and An effective control of materials which were rapidly increasing in price. Drawing upon their extensive catering experience Lyons decided that this situation could best be met by adopting a policy of what are now known as 'speciality restaurants'. These are smaller restaurants with modern intimate decors, where the labour problems could be largely solved by the adoption of restricted menus which would not only enable food controls to be simplified, but where, because of the single mindedness of the menu, the food could more easily be guaranteed as good to eat because the techniques required could so easily be taught and supervised. This had the advantage of enabling a less experienced grade of staff to be used and, in turn, making possible the reduction needed in the overall wage costs of the business. In deciding the items to be served Lyons was influenced by previous experience of those dishes or sections of the menu which had bfien clearly popular in the past. The firm was also concerned that it should retain the appeal which goes with the offer of a wide choice of meals, and this was clearly possible because the number of restaurants which could be constructed in any one Corner House guaranteed that if each dealt with only a limited part of a menu, then in total a single House could still offer on one site most of the dishes formerly available. In America a similar recession in the catering industry had been experienced, and it is interesting to note that they too adopted a similar marketing policy, but in their case each 'speciality' restaurant was a quite separate unit operation. Having decided the marketing policy Lyons now had to decide which speciality to adopt first, but this problem solved itself because bacon and eggs were derationed before meat. The result was the opening of a Bacon & Egg Restaurant in Coventry Street Corner House in 1954, which was to be followed by a series of restaurants each highlighting a different commodity or section of the previous all embracing menu. In this way and over the years were created restaurants, such as Wimpy, where the specialization was based upon a single item, which in itself was an innovation, and where the service resulted in a spending power considerably lower than the previous average, and, on the other hand, restaurants such as the Grill & Cheese and Chicken Fayre, where the price of the meal was far in excess of the previous average. personal finance