Ikea Wants to Transition From Furniture Store to Lifestyle Brand

I couldn’t determine: Beet hummus with cilantro, or lentils and cream cheese with chives? The toppings couldn’t be extra completely different, however which might pair higher with stewed mushrooms and tomatoes? It was early fall round sundown, nonetheless heat sufficient to eat outdoors somewhat longer, however a sudden breeze compelled me to decide for my handbröd, a palm-sized roll filled with cheese or greens and with my selection of toppings. I went with the lentils and cream cheese, paid — 3.50 euros ($4.06) with the elective topping — and ripped off a nook. The pastry was tender and buttery, the filling nonetheless heat, a pleasant counterpoint to the cool, creamy topping. The largest shock, nevertheless, had been the chives; I didn’t anticipate to get recent herbs in a dish from Ikea.

When Ikea opened its Vienna location within the fall, the handbröd was the featured dish of the corporate’s latest meals idea, a completely vegetarian snack bar referred to as Toppen positioned on the constructing’s rooftop terrace. This location counts among the many compact city stores Ikea has been testing out lately that, in distinction to its sprawling suburban shops, forgo the maze of a showroom and the warehouse in an effort to be positioned in city facilities — this one is on prime of Westbahnhof, one of many busiest underground stations within the metropolis — and thus have fewer merchandise out there within the retailer.

Even earlier than a pandemic compelled practically all features of our lives on-line, many brick-and-mortar shops have been looking for methods to lure clients into their bodily places. Greater than every other current Ikea metropolis retailer, the Vienna location appears to be doing this with meals, most of it vegetarian. Along with the usual Swedish restaurant (assume meatballs) and bistro (assume scorching canines and cinnamon rolls) present in all Ikeas, in addition to a restaurant serving espresso and cake, Ikea Vienna Westbahnhof has Toppen sitting on the constructing’s rooftop terrace, a novelty in and of itself.

The restaurant is accessible even when the furnishings isn’t, staying open on Sundays, which is in any other case revered throughout Austria as a day of relaxation for companies. On the FAQ page for the brand new location, there’s a piece devoted to food-related questions, and one in every of them asks whether or not Ikea’s meals is on the market for supply. The reply: not but, although possibly sooner or later.

Working a restaurant isn’t a certain enterprise transfer, particularly since, because the previous two years have proven, in-person eating is mainly all the time one other airborne pandemic away from closure. However with this new location, the world’s largest furnishings retailer appears to be asking: Can Ikea survive by doing simply that?

One doesn’t essentially go to eat at Ikea to be blown away by the freshest native specialties. In actual fact, one usually doesn’t eat at a sequence restaurant in the event that they need to be stunned in any respect. We eat at these locations as a result of they’re handy and constant and normally low-cost, and for these causes good. However on the new Vienna Westbahnhof Ikea, meals is asking to be taken extra significantly — and it’s taking on more room, within the bodily retailer in addition to within the advertising.

This new compact metropolis retailer, which strongly emphasizes its accessibility and environmental consciousness — there isn’t any parking zone, encouraging clients to journey by foot, bike, or public transportation and to order bigger objects to be delivered the following day — additionally supplied a possibility for Ikea to pilot a brand new menu targeted on just a few buzzwords: well being, sustainability, and freshness. Adverts and posters in subway stations throughout the town, close to the shop’s entrance, and within the retailer itself present just a few artfully plated meatballs — or are they plant balls? — on a clear white plate, with colourful accoutrements of recent greens and people herbs once more, letting you understand that the restaurant is, actually, open on Sunday till 4 p.m.

What these buzzwords imply virtually, amongst different issues, is that there aren’t any French fries on the menu — they’re normally ubiquitous at different Ikea eating places, out there on the facet with most entrees — and that there’s extra than simply the basic beef meatballs. There are vegan replacement-meat “plant balls,” which debuted throughout Ikea places final 12 months, in addition to veggie balls and hen balls, each of which had been launched in 2015. You will get your selection of balls with the basic sides of mashed potatoes and lingonberries, or you will get your veggie balls in break up pea soup, or your plant balls served on prime of a quinoa salad with cauliflower and a yogurt-feta dip, or your hen balls in a ginger-teriyaki sauce on a mattress of noodles.

“We’re slowly remodeling our full meals enterprise to satisfy the client’s wholesome calls for [and] additionally to be a extra accountable retailer,” mentioned market supervisor Johanna Cederlöf. “We consider that altering our meals vary in the long term is just not [only] good for our clients but additionally good for us and good for the enterprise as properly.”

That’s the aim of all of this anyway, isn’t it: to get clients to linger in physical stores in hopes that they’ll spend more cash there. It’s the explanation why Barnes & Noble began promoting $26 entrees in Barnes & Noble Kitchen in a handful of its shops in 2016, why Urban Outfitters began working with movie star cooks to open eating places in its places just a few years earlier than that. “Experiential retail” was seen as the best way to compete amid the web procuring growth, although it was not essentially a profitable one. B&N Kitchens solely ever had a handful of outposts and because the pandemic, solely 4 are left. The UO crossovers had been short-lived, and company as an alternative created a brand new department of its enterprise for the few restaurant manufacturers that stay.

Then again, Ikea had already been providing experiential retail — or, as Ikea Vienna Westbahnhof meals supervisor Equipment Wai Kan referred to as it, “an entire procuring expertise” — for many years. Founder Ingvar Kamprad opened the primary Ikea retailer in Älmhult, Sweden, in 1953; the primary Ikea restaurant opened there in 1960. And the corporate is clear in regards to the motive on its website: “[Kamprad] realises that hungry clients purchase much less. Or as we frequently say, it’s powerful to do enterprise on an empty abdomen.” No matter Kamprad’s intention, Ikea is now virtually synonymous with Swedish meatballs.

Over 60 years later, they’re extraordinarily self-aware in regards to the fame of Ikea meals, even whereas making an attempt to shift clients’ expectations of what “Ikea meals” will be. The handbröd, the small stuffed bread roll served on the Toppen snack bar, was discontinued this 12 months after a disappointing efficiency and poor buyer suggestions, in line with advertising chief Sandra Bamberger. Eaters at Ikea need one thing extra acquainted, mentioned Bamberger, in order that they’re planning on changing the handbröd with extra recognizable paninis and a plant-based burger, which continues to be being developed.

With just a few exceptions, Ikea has struck a profitable steadiness between retail and eating, so now it’s searching for different in-store-only experiences to draw clients, from design assist to rooftop terraces. The larger foot visitors Ikea’s metropolis shops expertise helps enhance “the attention and notoriety of [the] Ikea model,” wrote Maria Bertoch, a meals service trade analyst at market analysis agency NPD, in an e mail. (Ikea is one in every of NPD’s shoppers.)

That model recognition hasn’t translated right into a standalone restaurant but, although it’s an thought the corporate has toyed with before. A few years ago, the corporate discovered about 30 percent of Ikea consumers go to the shop only for the meals, although food sales solely accounted for 5 % of Ikea’s $39.34 billion income in 2019. However 5 % of $39.34 billion continues to be practically $2 billion, which might make Ikea’s eating places a bigger food chain than Wendy’s.

One of many first issues a buddy informed me after she visited the brand new Ikea was that the rooftop would make a reasonably good location for a primary date. There’s a pleasant view, plus a bar operated by the hostel that occupies the highest two flooring of the constructing. So I made a decision to go on a date to Ikea. You understand, for journalistic functions.

We took the elevator straight up from outdoors to the seventh ground, to the rooftop, passing the furnishings solely. Rows of picnic tables within the center, close to the bar and the Toppen snack bar, alternated with dozens of potted bushes, softening an environment that in any other case included plenty of metallic and sharp edges, mechanical issues that had been most likely essential however not significantly hygge. However all that light earlier than the true motive to come back: a reasonably spectacular view of Vienna, rooftops sprawling to the east, south, and west, earlier than it hit the mountains. Curiously, except for Schloss Schönbrunn, the components of Vienna which might be seen from the rooftop aren’t the touristy landmarks the town is understood for. The shop’s constructing feels built-in into the panorama, into the town. It appears like a spot to which Viennese individuals would truly go and need to spend time.

I did see loads of individuals spending time doing non-shopping issues whereas I used to be there, particularly on the rooftop terrace. A non-exhaustive checklist consists of: finding out and dealing on laptops utilizing the shop’s free WiFi, Instagram photoshoots, and even yoga. I additionally noticed a gaggle of individuals consuming beers they’d purchased elsewhere, a phenomenon that roaming safety guards are supposedly meant to forestall (Ikea doesn’t get any income from the bar; Cederlöf mentioned Ikea isn’t making an attempt to get into the alcohol enterprise). Up there, it’s straightforward to overlook you’re on prime of a furnishings retailer.

Niklas Stadler / Ikea

The meals itself, although, tasted prefer it got here from Ikea. The teriyaki sauce on the hen meatballs was watered-down and the handbröd with greens, chives apart, tasted virtually precisely like a pizza Scorching Pocket. The plant balls make an appropriate various to beef, particularly when coated in gravy, however they’re harder, clearly missing the fats that make the classics juicy even once they’ve been sitting in a serving tray for hours. For the worth — 5 euros ($5.80) for eight meatballs, 6.50 euros ($7.54) for 12 — they had been good. The actual standout, nevertheless, was a bag of pickled mushroom-flavored potato chips (0.80 euros, or $0.93) I received on a whim whereas ready for the handbröd. Their taste was harking back to salt & vinegar chips, with an additional depth due to the addition of dried porcini powder.

The date went properly, partially as a result of being on a date at Ikea was an automated icebreaker. After making an attempt the handbröd on the roof, my date and I went again inside to the restaurant on the fourth ground, the place we needed to present proof of vaccination to enter, a rule throughout the nation that’s constantly enforced. Throughout the day the restaurant is ethereal and vibrant as a result of all-white every thing and floor-to-ceiling home windows, providing a view that, although not as spectacular as that from the roof, would nonetheless permit an actual restaurant to cost twice as a lot for his or her dishes. When the solar goes down and the overhead lights come on, nevertheless, it’s simpler to understand that the eating room with solely Ikea furnishings is, certainly, within an Ikea. My date courteously shelled out the 5 euros for my order of plant balls, and I mentioned I’d pay subsequent time.

I believed I used to be going to handle to go to the shop with out being tempted to purchase something. However as we went by the shop to depart, proper in entrance of the exit, I noticed the one factor I stored forgetting I wanted in my condo: a microwave cowl. I grabbed one with out wanting on the worth (it ended up being 2 euros, or $2.32), after which, since I used to be going to have to take a look at anyway, I grabbed a bag of pickled mushroom potato chips for the highway.

I wasn’t the one one who thought going to Ikea would make a superb, low-cost date. I noticed a handful of different pairs that night, some younger {couples}, in addition to households and solo diners. I additionally encountered a gaggle of college college students who mentioned they got here right here to review, as a result of Ikea might be the one place on the town to get a croissant and scorching chocolate for lower than 2 euros, together with a free refill.

Retaining the costs low is essential to Ikea, as a result of all of it goes again to creating “a greater on a regular basis life” for as many individuals as doable, mentioned the shop’s managers. As meals supervisor Wai Kan defined, fairly than searching for to only fulfill starvation, the M.O. these days is to serve meals that matches a selected worldview, and Ikea is adapting to that worldview. “If we have a look at the meals improvement [over] the years, from bodily want, it has been modified way more [into] a philosophy or way of life,” mentioned Wai Kan.

The guideline of what Ikea is promoting is what the corporate calls “democratic design.” It’s a phrase that comes up steadily within the firm’s advertising and in my dialog with Wai Kan and Cederlöf (a PR consultant was additionally current throughout our name). In accordance with Ikea’s web site, what which means relating to furnishings is making a steadiness between type, perform, high quality, sustainability, and affordability. To me, a part of the aim of metropolis shops appears to be to use the precept of “democratic design” to the Ikea model past its furnishings, by bringing Ikea bodily nearer to the individuals and subsequently extra built-in into their lives.

However who precisely are “they”? Presumably, it’s individuals who need to see their furnishings earlier than shopping for it, however who can’t transport it themselves. It’s individuals who need to go to Ikea with out the standard trouble of going to Ikea: taking an entire day to drive out of the town and navigate the showroom and warehouse aisles looking for the few objects you got here in for. For Ikea Vienna Westbahnhof particularly it’s, after all, in the beginning the Viennese, these environmentally acutely aware and frugal urbanites who worth a espresso or beer break virtually as a lot as they do recent air and being outdoors.

What all of these have in frequent is bodily going to Ikea, which suggests it can not essentially be for everybody. Although Ikea’s CEO mentioned just a few years in the past that the corporate was modernizing its on-line ordering course of and “investing like never before in digital,” that didn’t appear to occur earlier than the coronavirus pandemic hit, leaving many customers frustrated and spawning a Reddit thread of experiences with Ikea’s supply service, or, in lots of circumstances, its failure to ship. In 2019, Ikea captured solely six percent of the web furnishings market share, method behind direct-to-consumer natives like Overstock and Wayfair. These compact metropolis places do little to deal with these underlying weaknesses — which means, in some ways, the corporate continues to be falling behind in a altering world.

“[I] see these metropolis shops as actual locations of experimentation” for the client, mentioned analyst Bertoch. They’re additionally experimental for Ikea itself, however the experiment is whether or not enterprise methods of yore can nonetheless work in an more and more on-line world — certainly, if the pattern towards e-commerce will be stopped and even reversed, and if that’s the case, how. Within the case of Ikea particularly, the experiment is pushing buyer’s notions of what a furnishings firm can and will do. Perhaps, if it will possibly ship meals sooner or later, it doesn’t have to ship furnishings.

To that time, whereas income is clearly all the time prime of thoughts for a enterprise, Cederlöf is aware of consumers spend on common lower than half as lengthy in Ikea’s metropolis shops in comparison with the suburban warehouses. However she’s okay with that, as a result of one time you may are available for a bookshelf, then keep for lunch, or vice versa. Or possibly you’ll come with out the intention of shopping for something in any respect, simply since you benefit from the view.

Emily Cohen is a author and reporter based mostly in Vienna.