The food service industry as a whole has had decidedly mixed feelings about Yelp, the San Francisco-based internet company that provides user-generated reviews about a variety of businesses, including restaurants. As I wrote last year, Yelp had many owners suspicious because it seemed like the only way to get good …
Read More »Monthly Archives: February 2010
Mission Street Food: The Non-Profit Restaurant
Some restaurant owners may feel sometimes like they’re running a not-for-profit restaurant, especially after last year, but for most the intention has always been to create a successful and profitable business. That’s not the case at Mission Street Food in San Francisco, where a couple of ambitious restaurateurs are trying …
Read More »A.I.S.: The Ultimate Social Media ROI tool for Independent Restaurants
Here we are once again, the cacophony roared up after the SuperBowl over the legitimacy of ROI in social media whether it’s measurable, valid, does anything or whether it’s just a bunch of numbers the next “expert” throws up to validate his job/salary/cost. The roar seems to be mainly coming …
Read More »Is Your Food Safety Program This Hardcore? It Should Be.
McDonald’s hasn’t grown into a multinational restaurant chain without doing a lot of things right. And whatever you think of their culinary achievements (or lack thereof), you can’t deny that they’ve built an empire in food service. If one lesson is clear from the rise of McDonald’s, it should be …
Read More »Community Based Restaurant Marketing: Get Some Real Bang For Your Buck
Fine dining restaurants in Denver, CO are pooling their resources this weekend to kick off Denver Restaurant Week, an annual event that allows diners to sample the city’s fine cuisine over the course of a week for an incredible price: $52.80 for two. Tons of restaurants are participating in the …
Read More »Restaurant Marketing: The Future Is Now
Foursquare is a location-based application for mobile devices that allows users to discover and rate local businesses and then share those discoveries with their social network. Since I wrote about Foursquare last year, the company has really started to take off, landing promotional deals with Bravo, Warner Bros., and HBO. …
Read More »Asian Carp Have Only One Predator: Restaurants
Invasive species take over new habitats so quickly because they usually have no natural predators in their new home, allowing them to reproduce quickly and overwhelm native populations competing for the same food. The latest foreign invader to make headlines in the U.S. is Asian Carp, a fast-moving, quick-breeding intruder …
Read More »Want To Start An Independent Restaurant? Start With The Incubator
Every restaurateur has been through the baptism by fire known as Opening Night. Those who have survived can testify to the nerve-racking experience of preparing menu items for the first time for a dining room full of people. Many hopeful entrepreneurs have had their dreams realized or crushed on opening …
Read More »Text Message Ordering: Why Your Customers Already Love It
One of the biggest shifts in customer behavior over the past few years has been the preference for take-out food. All the major national chains (Applebee’s, Chili’s, etc. etc.) have added drive-up service for their customers. And I’ve written on this blog about taking your restaurant’s food out, whether it …
Read More »