Professional Restaurant Evaluators

Owner: Robert McCormick

Address: 1722 N. College Ave.,

Suite C-182, Fayetteville 72703

Phone: 501-571-3094

Hours: By appointment

Start-up date: Feb. 10

Professional Restaurant Evaluators gives local restaurateurs the opportunity to contract “mystery shoppers” who will evaluate the service, food quality and overall cleanliness of their restaurants.

Robert McCormick and a friend, both having been in the restaurant business for several years, came up with the idea to start a mystery shopper company that only evaluates restaurants. McCormick says that most consumer evaluation companies evaluate any consumer business including banks, convenience stores, outlet stores, as well as restaurants.

“We felt that was not providing the necessary information for improving restaurants,” McCormick says. “We have taken it from there. “

“Our shoppers are only current or former restaurant employees. We select [shoppers] for their background in the restaurant field,” McCormick says.

A restaurant evaluation begins with a discussion between the restaurant owner and a Professional Restaurant Evaluators representative about what is to be evaluated. The company then sends a representative to the restaurant at an undisclosed time. Afterwards, the evaluation is returned and discussed with the owner. McCormick says his company is able to complete this process at a much faster pace than large corporations.

McCormick says very few companies are providing this type of service at the local level, and the prices of the large corporations often are out of reach for small restaurant owners. He says he wants to help local owners “achieve the level of service that they want to reach.”

McCormick says everything is happening faster than he had anticipated.

“Actually, it has been a roller coaster ride. We sat down at the new year and set a time table and hit the usual snags. But, we have gotten a pretty good response and it has mostly been word of mouth. We have been contacted by four different restaurant groups. We have also done a mass mail-out, and we have been contacted by several of those as well,” McCormick says.

McCormick, who is still working a full-time job in addition to running a new business, is optimistic and enthusiastic about the future.

“This is our first new business. We thought we had it all planned out, but we are finding every day that we are unprepared. We are definitely going beyond our expectations for the first year. We already have. I knew going in there was a market, but it has been kind of overwhelming.”

Professional Restaurant Evaluators is now serving just Northwest Arkansas, but McCormick hopes to extend into Oklahoma and southwest Missouri. But, he says, before that happens he wants the business to become a member of both the Arkansas and Missouri restaurant associations.

McCormick soon hopes to hire more evaluators. He is currently in the process of publishing a web site with an on-line application, where applicants can describe previous restaurant experience.