‘Dig Inn’ is back—here’s why

Out with the new, Inn with the old.

The fast-casual chain Dig Inn, which shortened its name to Dig in 2019, announced late last month that it would return to its original moniker, much to fans’ delight. The decision to reverse course on the rebrand, according to Dig Inn CMO Jessica Serrano, came from a slow drip of customer feedback over the last six years, with a particularly powerful inflection point on April Fools’ Day of this year.

“We did a post about opening a Dig Inn, as in a bed and breakfast, and it performed really well,” Serrano said. “It reignited that conversation internally about, ‘What is it about Dig Inn? People really love it, and maybe it’s something that we should consider more seriously.”

We spoke with Serrano about why shorter wasn’t sweeter.

What’s in a name?

It wasn’t long ago that it seemed like every brand from Dunkin’ to Jamba was cutting a word from its name. But while a shorter name can come with benefits, it can also come with risks to brand recognition and affinity, as HBO Max and Dig Inn have recently learned.

Since joining the company in 2022, Serrano said she’d become used to getting questions about why the brand dropped the “Inn” in the first place or even having to clarify who her employer was.

“Oftentimes, even if I would introduce myself as a member of the Dig team, I’d get that little head tilt,” she said. “Then [I’d say] ‘Dig Inn.’ ‘Oh yeah, I know Dig Inn!’”

That challenge was only amplified as the brand expanded beyond New York and across the Eastern Seaboard. Serrano said she’d hear questions from customers about whether Dig was the same restaurant as Dig Inn from Manhattan.

And then, of course, there was the SEO issue. “If you search ‘Dig Virginia,’ you’re going to find websites about making sure that when you dig into the ground, there’s nothing unsafe,” Serrano said.

The initial goal of shortening the brand name to Dig was to give the brand room to expand into different verticals, like its upstate farm, Dig Acres, or even a potential venture into fine dining, Serrano said. The focus in recent years, though, has been on the brand’s core business and setting it apart from other fast-casual chains through a focus on hospitality—a goal that only affirmed the decision to add back the “Inn.”

“It’s only three letters that we’re adding, but I think it does evoke a level of warmth that we had lost,” she said.

Blast from the past

Luckily for Dig Inn’s digital team, some things are staying the same, as the brand never ceded its original social handles or URL, Serrano said. Restaurants will also look mostly the same as they did under the Dig moniker—minus the adjusted signage, packaging, and uniforms.

To own the rebrand, Dig Inn hired muralists to create Dig Inn designs on its restaurant windows, Serrano said. The brand also rolled out a campaign called “Always Inn,” which nods to the 2010s, the brand’s founding decade, through promos like limited-time 2011 prices on certain items, including the brand’s original millennial-pink paper bags.

In the coming months, Serrano said Dig Inn will continue to lean into nostalgia through things like throwback menus. “We’re always listening on social, so we’ve been observing comments that folks have been making about their favorite items from the past,” she said.

Given that the return to “Dig Inn” was largely a response to customer feedback, Serrano said she’s been paying close attention to the responses online. So far, she said, they seem to be digging it.

“It’s been really well received,” she said. “The sentiment has been a mix of ‘Thank goodness, I thought you’d never realize’ or ‘I always called you Dig Inn, anyways.’”