By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

One response came back louder and stronger than all the others: They want more family-style restaurants. And they want them badly.

In an open-ended question about what type of business they would most like to see locate in Hastings, nearly half of 500 respondents named restaurants.

And those surveyed said they leave Hastings for family dining about 46 percent of the time.

"We knew people would say they wanted (family-style restaurants). I don't think we understood the depth to which they would say that," said Dave Buchholz, president of David & Associates, the Hastings research firm that conducted the study for the Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce.

Results of the study, which was conducted by phone last August, were made public at the chamber's annual banquet Wednesday night.

The study did find that consumers in Adams, Clay, Kearney, Nuckolls and Webster counties generally view retailers in Hastings positively in price competitiveness, employee friendliness, convenient hours and customer service.

But it also found significant perceived gaps in Hastings' retail community, led by the absence of family-dining restaurants such as Applebee's or Chili's.

In fact, the city has no national chain restaurants other than fast food, said Tom Hastings, the chamber's president.

The city does have several locally owned "sit-down" restaurants, though. And interestingly, many out-of-town visitors prefer it that way, Hastings said.

"The comments we hear from them are, 'It is so nice that you just don't have those types of (chain) restaurants. You just have family-owned institutions,'" he said.

But the survey showed that many area residents see things just the opposite.

And in retail, Buchholz said, consumer perception can be more important than reality.

That principle applies to another area of relative dissatisfaction, he said. Consumers gave the choice of Hastings' stores and the variety of products within them low marks.

Buchholz said Hastings stores may have what customers are looking for, but they also may not be advertising or highlighting their unique or hard-to-find products.

"If consumers don't believe they can find it there, then they're probably not going to walk into the store," he said.

The degree to which Hastings-area residents looked to Hastings first varied greatly depending on merchandise category. Respondents said they tended to get everyday products, such as groceries, in Hastings, while many looked elsewhere for big-ticket items such as furniture or home improvements.

On average, respondents had shopped in Hastings 11 times during the previous 30 days and in another regional city about five times during that time. Grand Island was the most often visited out-of-town shopping site for Adams County residents, Buchholz said.

Both Buchholz and Hastings said they would use the study to work with businesses to better promote their distinctive goods and services and better develop their products to fit consumers' desires.

They also said they would continue to work on recruitment, though they stressed the need for patience.

Hastings said many people have the idea that community leaders can make their pitch to a company and have a decision to move into town by the end of the week, but that's not accurate.

Buchholz said building the city into a retail destination for new businesses and shoppers is a process that takes years.

"We're going to hit some singles and some doubles and some triples in the process," he said. "But the key is to have some long-term commitment from the community."