Restaurant Marketing Goes Hyperlocal

There’s a new movement afoot in the urban centers of this country.  It started sometime last year and is still in its infancy, but given enough time, it could become the next MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter of the social media revolution. It’s called “hyperlocal” social media.  One of the pioneers of the movement, Everyblock, provides...

Huge Money Saver Or Needless Middle Man? KlickKitchen Offers Online Ordering For Chefs

The website KlickKitchen, launched over a year ago, allows chefs to source food products for their restaurant or commercial kitchen exclusively through the web.  Vendors upload their food products and restaurants log in and order what they need from the website’s catalog of foodstuffs.  The site is the creation of Jordan Glaser, formerly of the Institute for Culinary Education.  KlickKitchen contends that it saves chefs valuable...

The Inamo Restaurant: Fun High Tech

The Inamo restaurant in London’s Soho district has taken high-tech ordering to a whole new level.  Gone are the days when picking up a phone at your table was the techiest gig in town.  Sure, some restaurants call themselves high-tech because their servers have wireless pads for taking orders.  Inamo takes it even further: touchscreens built into the tables and illuminated with images of menu items from an overhead projector. The...

7 Technology Trends In Food Service

As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millenium, technology has become a stronger and stronger force in our lives.  Every industry has been affected, and food service is no exception.  Yet it seems that many restaurants lag behind when it comes to harnessing the power of technology to their advantage. The following Back Burner posts peg the cutting edge of technology and how it is being applied in the food service...

Should Your Restaurant Have A Website?

The short answer is yes, definitely.  As long as you build a decent site, it can’t hurt your marketing efforts and has the potential to be a big help.  Some of the things you can do with an internet presence for your restaurant: Get to know your customers.  A website is a great way to learn more about your customers.  Take surveys of visitors to your site or ask them to sign up for an email list and then ask for some general...

Motorola Makes Tableside Ordering Easy

Motorola recently released a case study highlighting the latest in restaurant POS system technology: handheld, wireless ordering systems for servers.  The handheld device is about twice as big as a BlackBerry, and connects directly into the restaurant’s POS software via a wireless connection. The case study focuses on ...

Online Ordering: Is It Your Future Blessing or Curse?

You can do anything on the internet these days, and increasingly people are relying on the web to do  all kinds of things that make their daily lives more convenient.  On paper, the idea of introducing an online ordering service sounds exciting to restaurateurs.  After all, who can complain about making sales before your customer ever steps through the door? At this point, it’s mostly national chains that have introduced online...

10 iPhone Apps Your Customers Are Using

iPhone apps are all the rage right now, and already there is an app for just about anything you can think of under the sun.  This includes the restaurant industry, and these 10 apps are affecting how consumers make their decisions on where and when to go out to eat, which directly affects your business. Here’s the top 10 ways people...