When Becky Sims, owner of Dream Dinners in Hazel Dell, was five months pregnant with her first child in 2008, she was laid off. While attending a trade show for new moms at Legacy Salmon Creek hospital, she and her husband Mike stopped at the Dream Dinners’ booth, which was advertising affordable nutritious meals prepared in advance.
“He ate a meatball, and was sold,” said Sims.
They had stopped at the booth because they were attracted to the idea of simplifying meal preparation, making focusing on the baby easier. That day, they were just prospective customers. Just a few months later (May 2009), they bought the franchise and have never looked back.
Dream Dinners was started in 2002 by two moms in Snohomish, Washington who were struggling to get dinner on the table. They came up with the idea of in-advance meal assembly, and the idea caught fire. First a few friends wanted to be part of the action, then there were so many participants that they had to rent a kitchen. Now more than 100 Dream Dinners franchises across the country are dedicated to the mission of getting people back around the dinner table and eating healthy home-cooked dinners.
It works like this: Customers make an appointment to come to the Dream Dinners location, where at six stations meal ingredients are ready to go – all the shopping and chopping is done by Dream Dinners’ staff; customers go from station to station, assembling 14 meals in an hour or less. These go into the freezer, and the family can enjoy three to four meals per week for a month; each meal takes less than 30 minutes to cook. Sims said the cost is about $200 per month, with an average serving cost of $5.71.
“Our customers don’t have to think ‘what’s for dinner,’ or go out to eat,” said Sims. “It’s real food that’s portion-controlled so that it is healthy – all our ingredients are fresh and recipes are low-fat and low-sodium where possible.”
The Hazel Dell Dream Dinners franchise has been at its location on 81st Street since 2004; Sims is the third owner.
“It’s been the best thing ever,” said Sims. “The flexibility and freedom is my favorite part. I can spend more time with my family, stay home with my son on snow days, attend his games, and so on.”
When she purchased the business, Sims said, it was “dead last” in the nation and had only 23 customers. Since then, Sims and her staff – she now employs five workers and said she “really needs twice that many” – have grown the business so that it is consistently in the top 15 in the nation and serves 220 guests each month. In the last few years, the business has been nationally recognized for its performance, such as Highest Sales Increase in 2011 (over 600 percent); Top Guest Retention in 2012; and Top Sales Performer in 2013. December 2015 was their “biggest month ever” and Sims anticipates outgrowing her current 2,500-square-foot facility in the not-too-distant future.
Sims said the secret to her business’ success is how the Dream Dinners brand revolves around “growing great kids and getting people back to the dinner table.” According to the Dream Dinners home page, over the past 25 years dinners at home in the U.S. have dropped 33 percent. More than one in five parents with children and teens say they are simply “too busy” to have family dinners together, and research has suggested that adolescents who often have family meals are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol or to have behavior problems.
“[The dinner table] is one place where families can share and reconnect,” said Sims. “Dream Dinners is investing in our next generation. Our guests are getting time back to spend with their family.”
Besides the company mission, Sims credits the growth of her business to a commitment to connecting with her customers. She has watched many of their children grow up, and shares in their joys and disappointments – new babies, a death in the family, the bittersweet excitement and worry of a daughter leaving for college.
“We solve a problem they have,” said Sims. “We have changed 220 lives in our community.”
The typical Dream Dinners customer, Sims said, is a busy mom with school-age children, trying to get a healthy dinner on the table for her family. Customers also include single dads, new moms, stressed out millennials who don’t know how to cook, and “neighborhood angels” – people who pool their money to buy dinners for people in times of distress.
One major challenge, said Sims, is finding employees who “get it” – that can understand how people-oriented the business is, that can deal with the huge variety of quantities and ingredients that need to be procured, and that can multi-task and work flexible hours.
“We put people in specific jobs that use their strengths, and train to their weaknesses,” explained Sims. “Other franchisees are amazed we are doing it with only six people.”
To build on her success with the business, Sims intends to do more community outreach. For a personal-touch business model, she said, traditional advertising such as coupons in the newspaper doesn’t work. Instead, Sims plans to increase word-of-mouth referrals.
“Face to face connections are key to the growth of our business,” said Sims. “My goal is to reach out to the busy, the stressed out, the weak and the weary, and let them know that how Dream Dinners can help. It’s life changing!”
The “Bring a Friend” program for example, encourages existing customers to bring a new customer with them to their appointment. Dream Dinners also makes an introductory offer available to new customers (18 servings for about $75).
Another new outreach effort is the “Take a Break” program, where Dream Dinners brings break-time snacks such as cookies, soup, bread and salad to teachers and students at local schools and small businesses. She also wants to find ways to connect with new mothers and those people who can’t or don’t want to cook and “take away the guilt of not having healthy dinners.”
She is also encouraging her employees – and herself – to reach out to people they meet on a day-to-day basis. Whenever she sees a frantic mom rushing around the grocery store, said Sims, she intends to reach out to that mom and explain how much easier it could be.
“Not a lot of businesses tie themselves to an emotion – something that makes you feel good at the end of the day,” said Sims. “We are grateful to be a part of a business that does.”
Seven ways to build a family dinner tradition
Dream Dinners can help make preparing healthy family meals less stressful. Here are some tips to encourage the family to gather around the table to enjoy those meals.
- Make a plan and stick to it.
- Start small and work up – first one night per week, then two…
- Eat at the table – without the TV.
- Encourage conversation by having everyone take turns saying something meaningful and positive before eating.
- Learn something new. Share something from a recent article, or break out the dictionary.
- Try new foods and discuss them – local sources of ingredients, history of the dish, suggested variations, etc.
- Laugh! Studies have shown that laughter aids proper digestion.
Dream Dinners
616 N.E. 81st St.Vancouver Six employees
www.dreamdinners.com
