Non-Alcohol Fruit Drinks Find Favor at Restaurants

In a scene from “Jewel of the Nile”--the soon-to-be-released adventure-film sequel to “Romancing the Stone”--Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are seated in a Moroccan restaurant sipping cocktails while watching the sunset.

But marketing executives from Grace Restaurant Co., Irvine, a division of W. R. Grace & Co., hope that the movie audience will ignore the sunset and instead watch the bottles on the table. Those who do might notice that the two aren’t drinking booze at all but a fruit-flavored mineral water--Victoria Springs Frutelle.

The fruity mineral water is the central ingredient in a new breed of non-alcoholic drinks that Grace restaurants such as Reuben’s and Baxter’s started promoting two weeks ago.

By Nov. 1, placards on tables at about 125 Grace restaurants will show photos of Michael Douglas gulping down the restaurant’s fruity “quenchers,” as Grace kicks off a $100,000-plus promotional campaign for the non-alcoholic concoctions.

All of this is the direct result of a nationwide decline in liquor sales and a corresponding increase in the demand for fancy, non-alcoholic fruit drinks, Grace officials say.

“We’ve always given customers the choice, but we just never presented it properly,” said John Hawck, director of beverages for Grace. “We’ve had non-alcoholic drinks from the day we opened but never thought about promoting them.”

Liquor sales have declined nationwide--to a great degree because of tougher drunk-driving laws in more than 30 states. Between 1980 and 1984, U.S. liquor consumption decreased more than 11%, according to the National Restaurant Assn. in New York.

As a result, restaurants that traditionally depended on heavy liquor sales have been forced to rethink their marketing. Many have replaced so-called happy hours, when alcoholic drinks were cheap, with off-beat promotions for creatively named non-alcoholic drinks or increasingly popular finger foods.

For example:

- TGI Friday’s Restaurants of Dallas, a division of Carlson Co. of Minneapolis, last year introduced “smoothies,” non-alcoholic fruit drinks mixed with yogurt, and four months ago began selling “slings,” fruit drinks mixed with mineral water. The company expects combined sales of these two drinks to exceed $3.3 million this year out of total projected sales of $300 million. Since 1980, Friday’s has seen its liquor sales drop from 41% of all sales to about 35% in 1985, said Diana Hovey, a company spokeswoman.

- Bennigan’s, a Dallas-based subsidiary of Steak & Ale Corp., for five years has offered a variety of non-alcoholic drinks that it bills as “Drinks for Designated Drivers.”

- China Rose, an Arlington, Tex., chain, recently replaced happy hour drink specials with a 24-foot-long buffet table that features an array of free snacks.

Some New York-area restaurants report that liquor sales have plummeted 20% to 40%, said Bob Wilson, president of Beverage Retailer Weekly, a New York trade magazine.

“Our industry is the nation’s whipping boy right now,” Wilson said. “Everything is working against us.” He predicted that even beer and wine could be banned from advertising on television within five years.

Well aware of these changing trends, restaurants like Baxter’s, Bennigan’s and Friday’s, which cater to young consumers, are not only accepting the changes but trying to capitalize on them. In many cases, these fancy fruit drinks cost consumers almost as much as hard drinks.

The fruit drinks cost up to $2.50 at Baxter’s and up to $2 at Friday’s.

“Items like freshly squeezed orange juice and fresh mangoes and papayas can be very expensive,” explains Grace’s Hawck, who noted that the fruit drinks sell especially well during the lunch hour.

Friday’s is marketing these drinks to the hilt with zany names like “Andre the Peachlifter” (a mixture of apple, lime, coconut and peach juices) and “Summer Cyclist” (strawberry, lime, orange and grapefruit juices).

“When they first came out, we tried to tie them in with the Los Angeles Summer Olympics,” spokeswoman Hovey said.

One of the strongest supporters of these non-alcoholic offerings is Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “We’d like to see all restaurants offer alternative drinks,” said Anne Seymour, assistant to the director at MADD’s headquarters in Fort Worth. “We think they’re great.”

U.S. per-capita consumption of beverages*

wine beer spirits 1970 1.25 18.48 1.82 1980 3.08 24.27 1.98 1981 2.17 24.62 1.96 1982 2.19 24.40 1.89 1983 2.22 24.24 1.84 1984 2.30 23.95 1.80

* in gallons Source: Distilled Spirits Council U.S. Alcoholic Beverage Sales*

1960 3.1 1965 NA 1970 4.5 1975 5.5 1980 6.4 1983 6.7 1984 6.5 1985 **6.5

* in billions of gallons ** projection

Source: IMPACT Beverage Industry Trends in America Review and Forecast 1985