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The Front Burner
Your Restaurants Revenue
CRANK UP
Marketing Strategies
Taking the plunge into business takes courage and a
belief in yourself and your ideas. Not everyone has the
self-confdence required to run a successful restau-
rant. The fact that you believe in your business sense
enough to work at it as hard as you do says you have
something special. Otherwise you wouldnt be putting
this much time and effort into your operation.
Unfortunately, the talent and vision that form the core
of your restaurant are often lost in the sea of compe-
tition your customers choose from every day. If they
only knew what you already know about the great-
est attributes of your restaurant then you would never
have to worry about fnding customers.
This edition of The Front Burner features many ways
to communicate effectively with existing customers
and plots strategies for fnding new ones. A marketing
strategy is certainly important to the success of your
restaurant, but far too often the foundation of an ef-
fective campaign is overlooked.
Before you commit to a marketing strategy, identify
the two or three things you do really well. Those couple
things should be easy to fnd theyre the reasons you
get out of bed every morning and get to work. The
key is to weave those bedrock ideas into the narrative
that makes up your marketing campaigns. Whatever
channel you decide to use for marketing your restau-
rant, communicating your vision will ensure success
and help you connect with customers.
Michael Lewis
Tundra Founder
Taking the
plunge into
business takes
courage
Good food, great service, and a unique concept are the fundamentals of a successful restaurant. If you dont
impress your customers with these three things, they wont be coming back any time soon. Sending happy
customers out the door to tell their friends about their experience in your restaurant is the most effective way to
get the word out.
Unfortunately, word-of-mouth marketing can only get you so far. Eventually youre going to need to cast a
wider net in search of customers. On the other hand, any marketing thats more involved than your regulars tell-
ing their friends about you is going to cost money a prospect that will surely give any restaurant owner pause.
Fortunately, there are ways to market yourself without busting your budget or taking away from the time you
need to run your restaurant. Thats why we decided to compile 10 easy marketing tips that will help you crank
up your revenue. These strategies are designed to deliver maximum punch per dollar without taking up a lot of
your time.
Look for these Top 10 tips throughout
this edition of The Front Burner
unique marketing
efforts by
1. Social Media Marketing
2. Manage Your Online Reputation
3. ROCK Your Marketing Efforts
4. Completely Change Your Menu
5. Nothing Sells Like A Good Secret
6. Serve Fast Food For Lunch
7. Turn Your Restaurant Into A Hot Spot
8. Harness Email & Ride The Gravy Train
9. Recharge Your Happy Hour
10. Take Your Restaurant Marketing Underground
PLUS
Is Your Kitchen FDA Compliant With New Changes To The Food Code?
Controlling Insects & Pests
10 Easy Marketing Tips That Will
Crank Up Your Restaurants Revenue.
4
Tip
#
Social media. Its the thing everyone is talking about in the marketing industry. The
best part about restaurant social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is that
getting your message out there costs you nothing but time a precious commod-
ity to be sure, but a heck of a lot cheaper than a local newspaper ad or radio
spot. Already many restaurants have employed clever strategies to engage cus-
tomers and generate business for their restaurant online.
A social media marketing campaign, if done right, can become an effective cus-
tomer making machine. Its not easy, and will require some work. But if the right
strategies are employed, your restaurant stands to beneft.
Facebook is probably the most popular so-
cial media platform for anyone in marketing
today. Does that mean sales are going to go
up the minute you hit publish on your Face-
book page? Well, maybe not, but the bottom line is that having a
fan page defnitely cant hurt you, and may very well help. If you
dont start bringing in loads of new customers, youll at least im-
prove retention among existing ones.
More importantly, a Facebook fan page can be a great way to
collect information about your customers and get feedback about
your restaurant. You can leverage this information to connect with
customers in new ways and expand your email marketing cam-
paigns. Youll also have a direct line to customers, revealing what
they dont like about your establishment as well as whats working
well.
So how exactly do you create a great Facebook page? And how
do you start gaining fans and generating interest in your restaurant?
Twitter is a micro blog tool that al-
lows users to send short 140 character
messages to a list of subscribers. The
original goal of the site was to give
friends a way to update each other
on what theyre doing in real time.
Of course, as we all know now, Twit-
ter has quickly become much more
than that. Chief among the
things Twitter has become,
besides a news distributor, a
social media site, and a busi-
ness communications tool is a
popular vehicle for marketing
and branding.
In the food service industry, restaurants
and chefs have used Twitter to engage
customers with content that gives them
a behind-the-scenes view of whats hap-
pening and unique promotions that bring
in extra business.
Chefs are using the site to engage cus-
tomers by giving out recipes and asking for
feedback on new dishes and ingredients.
O t h e r restaurants are advertising meal
specials and events to draw in
loyal customers on specifc
days. Some restaurants
have even started
tweeting months be-
fore the doors open for
the frst time, resulting in a
packed opening night.
Here are some best practices
that will help you succeed
and get the most out of your
restaurant marketing efforts:
Post regularly. Some Twitter users send
out several tweets every day. You prob-
ably dont want to annoy your customers
with a lot of updates, especially at frst.
But you should defnitely choose a sched-
ule and stick with it. That way your follow-
ers know when to expect an update and
(hopefully) they look forward to your next
one.
Be creative. 140 characters doesnt
give you a lot of space. It also doesnt give
you a lot of time to catch someones at-
Some Facebook Strategies:
Build a great fan page.
As a business youll want to create a Facebook fan page
rather than a profle. The bad thing about a fan page is that
you cant communicate with others the same way youre
used to. A fan page is much more reliant on people fnding
you and engaging you.
The good part about a fan page is that you can do a lot of
customization. Create custom tabs, set up a couple RSS feeds,
and youll be well on your way to making your fan page stand
out for your customers. There are countless step-by-step guides
to building Facebook fan pages on the web. A quick Google
search will return you more articles on the subject than you
know what to do with.
STEP 1: FACEBOOK
STEP 2: TWITTER
Social Media Marketing
In Three Steps
5
tention. Boring tweets will get deleted,
guaranteed. Straight-up sales pitches will
also be ignored. Instead, use colorful, cre-
ative language to engage your subscrib-
ers and draw them in.
Do more than just sell. Yes, the ulti-
mate goal here is to get people through
the door of your business. But if all you do is
sell, sell, sell, youll start seeing unsubscribe
notices pouring in. Throw your customers a
few juicy bones before you set the hook.
Give out a few recipes. Tell a story about
the behind-the-scenes action. Ask for
opinions on a new dish. Get them looking
forward to your next tweet. Then hit em
with a dinner special.
Customize offers.
Want to know how much all your hard work
is paying off? Offer a special meal deal to
your Twitter subscribers only. Give out a
special code that allows them to redeem
the deal. Every time a customer uses the
code, you know they are there because
of your Twitter efforts. This strategy has the
added beneft of making your followers
feel special because they are the only
ones getting the deal.
STEP 3:
FOURSQUARE
Foursquare is part of a newer subset
of the social media phenomenon
that has been dubbed hyper-
local social media. It works
like this: as you patronize
your favorite local haunts,
you check-in with Four-
square, which allows you to
see if friends are nearby and
post information about the
venue youre currently in.
The more you check-in, the
more badges, or awards,
you get. For instance, you
can become the mayor of
a certain bar or club if you
check-in the most times from
that location in 60 days.
Tech-savvy restaurants and bars
caught wind of the mayor and other
Foursquare badges and started ad-
vertising to this ready-made customer
base, offering free drinks and other
comps to the Foursquare mayors of
their establishment. Most people had
no idea what the heck a mayor was,
but those who did quickly spread the
word to their friends, and it turned out
to be a hot way for restaurants and
bars to market themselves effectively
to their hippest customers.
In general the hyperlocal movement
is benefcial to the food service in-
dustry because it provides a real time
medium through which restaurants
can advertise to their customers. For
now, Foursquare and the inevitable
copycats that are forthcoming will be
largely limited to big urban centers
like New York, Chicago, and L.A., but
its not that farfetched to imagine a
hyperlocal medium of one kind or an-
other servicing communities of all sizes.
Tell everyone about your page.
With a fan page you cant just go around Facebook friending as many people
as you can fnd like you can with a regular profle. Therefore you must drive traffc
to your fan page in order to get some fans. The most obvious places to do this
are on your website and in email marketing campaigns, but it would defnitely
beneft you to explore some other options, like business cards or even your
menus.
Offer your fans something unique.
Once youve started to build a fan base, reward them with some sort of promo-
tion a free appetizer, 2-for-1 drinks, anything to get your fans to actually come
into the restaurant and spend money. The added beneft for you is that youll
be able to gauge exactly how successful your fan page is based on how many
people use the promo you only released through Facebook.
Managing Your Online
Reputation
Tip
#
Engage customers with
content that gives them a
behind-the-scenes view.
Even more impressive than Modmarkets fresh and tasty menu
is their extremely savvy marketing campaign. The restaurant is
a great example of how a great concept can expand quickly
with the help of some well executed strategies.
Modmarkets founders are skillful practitioners of many of the
marketing strategies youll fnd in this edition of The Front Burn-
er, but one of their most successful campaigns comes from an
innovation all their own: using receipts as advertising space.
We view the receipt as an asset, says co-founder Anthony
Pigliacampo, Weve taken what was going into the trash
and turned it into a marketing tool. All Modmarket receipts
list nutritional information for each item the customer ordered,
not only placing the restaurant ahead of the curve on menu
labeling but also reinforcing Modmarkets message: were a
healthy alternative to other fast casual chains.
People like the fact that its transparent. Weve had peo-
ple come in just because theyve heard about it, Anthony
says of the nutrition information on receipts. But Modmarkets
use of all that white space on customer receipts doesnt end
there. At the bottom of each receipt is a bold black arrow
pointing to the right that reads Turn Me Over. On the back
is a limited-time promo giving the customer 10% off their next
order, provided it happens in the next two days.
Read more about ModMarkets unique marketing
efforts at etundra.com/modmarket
Youd think fnding a place to eat lunch in a health nut haven like
Boulder, Colorado that featured simple, all-natural ingredients
made from scratch for a good price would be pretty easy. Boul-
der residents Anthony Pigliacampo and Rob McColgan realized
a couple years ago that fnding good, affordable, healthy food
prepared fresh and fast was much harder than it should be. The
two friends then set out to fx this problem.
Their solution is Modmarket, a fast casual restaurant located in
the heart of Boulders 29th Street Mall. The menu and the food
follow a simple set of principles laid out by Anthony and Rob
when they started.
SERVE FOOD THAT
Tastes great
Is made from scratch
Features simple ingredients that
anyone can recognize
Is served quickly
Is affordable, and
Wouldnt turn you into the guy from
Super Size Me if you ate it every day.
The crazy thing is how revolutionary this simple credo has turned
out to be. Modmarkets daily offering of fresh salads, brick oven
pizza, gourmet sandwiches, and made-from-scratch soups has
been an instant hit with the Boulder locals, and founders Antho-
ny and Rob are hard at work on a second location in Denver
that opened at the start of the year.
DENVER
1000 S Colorado Blvd
Denver, Colorado
BOULDER
1600 28th Street
Boulder, Colorado
303.440.0476 modMarket.com
were a healthy alternative
to other fast casual chains.
84% of American
consumers say online
reviews affect their
decisions on products
and brands.
Managing Your
Online Reputation
Tip
#
Everyones got an opinion!
And in the internet age, everyone can and
does voice their opinion online. So do you
have any idea what people
are saying online about your
restaurant? This is not to say
that the opinion machine driv-
en by the internet is all bad. It
is, however, a decidedly dou-
ble-edged sword. On the one
hand, positive reviews and feedback com-
ing from your happy customers can bring
new customers in droves. On the other, one
jerk who may or may not have actually had a bad experience
can pick up the megaphone and start screaming nasty things
about your restaurant.
HERE ARE 4 WAYS TO MANAGE YOUR REPUTATION:
1. LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING. You cant manage
something if you dont know what youre dealing with. So tune
in to the internet and start listening. Some places to start: Yelp,
OpenTable, and UrbanSpoon are just a few of the myriad web-
sites that post restaurant reviews. Dont forget about the social
media behemoths either: you should be on Twitter and Face-
book anyway, talking about your restaurant, but if youre not, go
there today and get started!
2. RESPOND TO YOUR CRITICS AND THANK YOUR FANS. The
internet is all about conversation. Youve listened. Now its time
to answer. No matter how you respond, do it with a healthy dose
of common sense. All the things that annoy you about people at
a dinner party are the same things that are going to annoy your
customers online. So avoid them.
3. TAKE THE INITIATIVE. Dont let the naysayers defne your
restaurants reputation online. If youre not offering an alternate
narrative, then people will start to think everything they read
about you is true. Heres where Twitter and Facebook come in.
These services are free. These services are popular. These services
are also considered culturally important. Take the time to learn
how to use them and then start talking about how great your
restaurant is. Youll be amazed how many people want to listen.
All this costs you is your time, and the potential for new customer
development is virtually unlimited.
4. GATHER INTELLIGENCE. This goes hand in hand with Step 1,
but you cant really gather effectively until youve started the
conversation that follows from Steps 2 and 3. Once youve es-
tablished your own presence online, you can start to really learn
exactly who your customers are and what they want. This is the
revered Holy Grail of marketing: knowing customers better than
they know themselves. You can achieve this through effective
online reputation management.
Tip
#
How To ROCK Your
Marketing Efforts
Denver based Smashburger, an emerging fast casual chain, has shown just how effective tapping into
the local music scene can be for a new restaurant. The companys Rock Your City program encourages
local bands to submit their videos via YouTube prior to the grand opening of a new location. Smash-
burger then selects the best applicants and posts their videos to the company website so that fans can
vote on the best one. The winners get to play at the new location on opening day in exchange for free
burgers plus a local radio broadcast.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BANDS EXISTING
MARKETING EFFORTS. Any band even remotely
serious about their prospects will have at least a
preliminary marketing effort online. And since both
you and the band want people to show up for their
gig in your restaurant, this is a great opportunity for
you to advertise to the bands fans through their
existing online presence.
LET YOUR CUSTOMERS TELL YOU WHO THEY
WANT TO HEAR. Smashburgers strategy of taking
submissions and then allowing fans to vote for the
winning gig is the perfect way to get the most mile-
age out of a live music gig before the band ever
steps foot on the stage.
INCORPORATE LIVE MUSIC INTO YOUR OWN
MARKETING EFFORTS. Include links to YouTube
clips of the bands that are going to perform in
your establishment on your website. Post live
music schedules throughout your restaurant
and email your customers when their favorite
bands have a gig.
Live music is a great way to connect with
your customers and turn them into reg-
ulars. It doesnt take nearly as much
work as you might think, and the payoff
in new business can make it more than
a worthwhile endeavor.
If youve got the space and an inclination for live music, keep
these tips in mind before you rock out your own establishment:
Tip
#
Completely Change Your Menu
In recent years smart restaurateurs have turned the psychology
of perusing a menu into a science designed to get customers
ordering your best menu items on a consistent basis.
HERES HOW TO GET STARTED OPTIMIZING YOUR MENU:
DROP DOLLAR SIGNS. Anyone who has sat in a res-
taurant trying to decide what to order is a liar if they tell you
they dont look at the price for help in making
a decision. So if every customer is going to be
looking at that number beside menu items, you
might as well make it as appealing as possible.
A study by the Culinary Institute of America
showed that menus without the symbol $
or the word dollars saw an increase in sales of over 8% per
person. Thats enough to make anyone scrambling to get the
white out!
STRATEGICALLY PLACE BEST SELLERS AND
MONEY MAKERS. Customers scan lists of appetizers, en-
trees, and desserts in a predictable way. Naturally, they look
at the top item frst. Maybe not so logically, they check out the
very last item second. Then a customer will usually go to the
second item from the top, then second from bottom, until they
get to the middle.
NOW THAT YOU KNOW THIS, TAKE THE MENU ITEMS OF
EACH CATEGORY AND SPLIT THEM UP INTO GROUPS:
Place the items that fall into best seller and high margin groups
in the prime locations at the top and bottom of your app, entre
and dessert lists. Place
high margin items in the
top right of the menu
and lower margin items
in the lower left as well.
The customers eye will
track to the upper right
frst, giving items placed
there a much higher
viewing percentage.
MASTER THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY.
When someone looks at a menu, they will inevitably compare
prices. Thats where the Theory comes in. More often than not,
customers will choose a middle-of-the-road option. The trick is to
defne middle-of-the-road for your customer.
Thats why a smart restaurateur will create one entre that is ri-
diculously expensive absolutely and shamelessly high end. You
may never sell a single one, but it doesnt matter. That unafford-
able entre will give your customers a compass by which they
will judge the rest of the menu.
Make sure you have
some prizes with real
value to them.
Nothing Sells Like A Good Secret
Tip
#
It all started as an attempt to perk
up January sales. If youre in
the restaurant business, you
know how quiet January
is. To combat that trend
Houlihans, a well-known
casual dining concept
based in Kansas City, MO,
decided to play Secret
Santa during the holiday
season by giving customers
a secret envelope.
In every envelope was a prize
and some envelopes had
sweepstakes-worthy prizes, like
a Caribbean vacation. Others
contained Houlihans gift cards
for different amounts. The catch
was that to redeem the prize, the customer had to return for a meal
in January.
The response caught everyone at Houlihans by surprise. The secret
envelope promo added an element of adventure for the customer
that really drove excitement. Sales soared, a lot of buzz was gener-
ated, and soon Houlihans decided to make the secret envelope
promo a regular twice-a-year event.
There are some complications for independent restaurants.
Every state has rules for sweepstakes promotions, and its
probably not very cost effective to give away a Caribbe-
an vacation. Additionally it can get complicated decid-
ing how to value different prize levels and how to distribute
them evenly.
That doesnt mean your restaurant cant implement a se-
cret envelope type campaign, especially if you make it a
raffe. Instead of a sweepstakes, hand out raffe numbers to
customers and then collect their numbers when they come
back a second time. Drop those numbers into a hat and
hold a drawing on a set day. Theres a good chance youll
collect a lot of numbers the day you hold drawing.
No matter how you decide to implement a secret envelope
campaign, make sure it gets picked up on the internet and
the local media. The best part about a campaign that has
an air of mystery to it is its potential to go viral. Make sure you
take advantage of this tendency to the fullest.
Also make sure you have some prizes with real value to
them. Naturally you cant afford to give away a Caribbean
vacation, but you should focus on variety and include some
big prizes with a lot of value. Nobody will care if all you give
away are $10 gift cards to eat at your restaurant.
Serve Fast Food For Lunch
Tip
#
Fast food is a successful promotion more than one
national chain has used to grab new customers:
QUICK LUNCHES FOR PEOPLE ON THE GO.
Weekday lunches can be a hard shift to
nail down for any restaurant. Sometimes
its busy, sometimes its completely dead.
One thing is certain, however. Most peo-
ple are at work and are busy. They want
to know they can get in and out of a res-
taurant quickly without having to worry
about being late for whatever it is they
need to do next. Guaranteeing a quick
lunch is a great way to let your customers
know you understand their busy schedule
and are ready to meet their needs.
Customers love the idea of getting any-
thing for free, and rest assured - theyll be
watching the clock tick while you scram-
ble to get their food out. Thats why youve
got to make sure this baby doesnt back-
fre on you. To start, stick to high margin,
easy-to-prepare favorites. That way you
can price them aggressively and know
that your line can whip them up quickly
even if it gets hectic out there.
If you get busy enough to be forced into
giving away a couple meals here and
there, then consider your speed lunch
promotion a success. Thats why you keep
the menu to a limited number of high mar-
gin specials. No one will be disappointed
when their food arrives two minutes too
late.
Step 1 Guarantee your customers theyll get their lunch in 15 minutes or less
after they order from a limited lunch special menu or its FREE.
Step 2 Make sure lunch is served in 15 minutes.
It works like this:
Turn Your Restaurant
Into A Hot Spot Tip
#
Make electrical outlets scarce.
When WiFi hotspots were frst brought
in to restaurants, many owners wor-
ried that patrons would turn into
serial table campers, hanging
out for hours on end without or-
dering anything more than a
cup of coffee and surfng the
net. The reality has been that the
vast majority of customers do not
overstay the standard table turn-
over time, however, the best way
to ensure this is to make sure they
cant plug in their laptops.
Create separate networks for
customers and internal use. Just
because you already have an internet
network set up for your business comput-
ers doesnt mean you should make that
same network available to customers.
The last thing you want is some creative
patron getting in to your POS system or
other important information through your
network.
WiFi isnt for every restaurant concept.
Tip
#
Turning your restaurant into a hotspot is
relatively easy and has proven to help
boost lunch sales by as much as 8%. It also
encourages customers to come in during
that extremely slow period between lunch
and dinner, and helps facilitate business
meetings, which can translate into some
good sales for your establishment.
If you are considering setting up
a WiFi hotspot in your restaurant,
keep a few key things in mind:
Give away internet service for
free. First of all, thats what most other
hotspots do, and so your customer al-
ready expects to get service for free. Sec-
ondly, youll be increasing sales and cus-
tomer loyalty by giving away free internet.
Password protect the network.
Have servers give out the password to
patrons when they are seated. This helps
prevent people from neighboring build-
ings from pirating your connection and
slowing it down, and you can at least limit
access to paying customers at the same
time.
Carefully consider who you want to tar-
get with your WiFi service and what kind
of customer is likely to use it. Obviously, a
fne dining atmosphere targeted towards
couples out on dates doesnt jibe well with
a WiFi service. On the other hand, if thats
your dinner crowd but you want to jump
into the business lunch market, advertising
a WiFi network could make a lot of sense.
Boost Lunch Sales
Up To 8%
Turn Your Restaurant Into A Hot Spot
Tip
#
Dont send emails unless its requested
Offer something every time you send an email
Track conversions
Use a proper email marketing system
Email is a great way to reach your customers because its
cheaper to send than print advertisements and much easier to
manage as well. If done right, email can quickly become one
of the most effective ways for you to
connect with your customers.
However, there are defnitely some
dos and donts when it comes to email
marketing:
Dont send emails unless its requested.
Sending unsolicited email is also known
as SPAM, and we all know how annoying that is. Thats why the
best way to collect email addresses is to offer a little something
in return and get your customer to volunteer their email address.
Offer something every time you send an email. The hard truth is
that your customer really doesnt want to be bothered reading
an email about a restaurant. What they do want know is when
your happy hour is and what days you offer specials. Dont send
an email unless you have something to offer. Otherwise youre
just clogging up an already busy email inbox.
Track conversions. Use coupon codes or some other system to
track the success of your email marketing campaign. Try differ-
ent types of offers and see which ones have the highest con-
version rate. Does a 10% off coupon on any meal work better
than a buy one, get one free drink during happy hour deal?
The only way to know for sure is to get customers who heard
about the deal through your email
campaign to use a code when re-
deeming their discount.
Use a proper email marketing sys-
tem. Dont try to send emails out
from your Hotmail account. For
one thing, it looks unprofessional.
For another, you will get labeled as
spam sooner or later. There are a variety of options out there.
Make sure you do your research frst.
The most important thing to remember when it comes to email
marketing is to experiment. Best practices only take you so far.
Try different types of offers and presentations until you fnd the
one that gets the most customers in the door. This is also why
tracking is so important. If you cant tell if youre having a busy
Tuesday night by chance or because of last weeks email, then
you cant improve and refne your campaigns.
Email marketing is usually something most people associate with retail,
but it can be a very effective marketing tool for restaurants as well.
Harness Email & Ride the Gravy Train
Tip
#
Recharge Your Happy Hour
Once youve got em in the door, keep em! Customers are
there because youve gotten their attention with some good
deals. Theres never been a better opportunity to get them
to stay. Use happy hour menus to advertise dinner specials
and train your staff to drop some great deals on happy hour
patrons before they leave. At the very least, they may come
back for dinner another time after learning your deals dont
end at 7 pm.
Once youve got em
in the door, keep em!
These arent the happy hours you might remember from fve
years ago. It isnt just a couple domestic beers on tap for $2 any-
more. Many restaurants are taking their happy hour all out, with
special tapas style menus at bargain-basement prices and pre-
mium cocktails for $5. Happy hour has also gotten much longer,
from 2-3 hours to 4-5 hours of deals.
If youre considering adding a happy hour or spicing up
the one youve got, keep a few key factors in mind:
Happy hours should make the customer happy. These days, your
customers arent looking for a dollar off a domestic beer. They
want more, and theyre getting it as restaurateurs continue to
fght for business. Make your happy hour a smokin deal if you
really want to ratchet up the buzz and the traffc.
Create a special menu. Theres no need to lose your butt on your
dinner apps just to stay competitive. Take your highest margin
apps and entrees and turn them into smart, fun, fnger-style dish-
es that can be prepared fast and effciently, preferably with a
margin you cant lose on.
Spend some money advertising. If youre changing up the menu
and slashing drink prices, you need volume. Youre not going to
get volume if you dont get the word out. Start with your regu-
lar customers and then hit the rest of the market with whatever
youve got (and whatever you can afford): email marketing, lo-
cal ads, fyers, etc.
It started in
San Francisco,
where a chef
known only as
The Dissident
Chef launched
a series of
events known
as Sub Culture
Dining.
Underground fne dining is a trend that is spreading
throughout the U.S. like a fre in 60 MPH winds.
What is underground dining? It can take
many forms, from sumptuous seven
course meals served in an abandoned
warehouse to super-secret, invite-only
seats in a chefs home kitchen. The
common threads binding this move-
ment together is fve star cuisine served
in a novel environment, prix fxe, and a
limited number of lucky invitees.
Social media has also played a huge
role in the success of the movement,
with many underground chefs posting
coded messages on Twitter, Facebook,
and even Craigslist informing members
where the next event will take place.
The combination of superb food and a
sense of exclusivity and adventure has
fueled the success of underground din-
ing. For traditional restaurants, the phe-
nomenon has raised the bar of diner ex-
pectations. On the other hand, there is
incredible opportunity here to do some-
thing exciting and fun that will market
your restaurant well and help you ex-
pand your culinary horizons.
Some ideas for taking your
restaurant underground:
Theme nights. No, dont put up a
couple plastic palm trees and call it Gil-
ligans Island. Transform your restaurant
into something completely different.
Dress your staff differently. Serve some
unique specials and really take things to
the next level. Make your regulars feel
like theyve never been in your restau-
rant before.
Interactive dining. Your best cus-
tomers probably have a little chef envy
hidden somewhere deep inside, and
its just dying to get out. Help them con-
nect with their inner chef by putting on
an event in which your customers par-
ticipate in the preparation of a prix fxe
dining event put on by your restaurant.
This is the latest and hottest trend in un-
derground fne dining, and foodies ab-
solutely love the opportunity to live like
a chef for an evening.
The ultimate take-out. Abandoned warehouses? Defunct
wine cellars? Just because those underground chefs have start-
ed making weird places cool places for eating doesnt mean
you have to be stuck in your restaurant for all time.
Take what you do, sign up 50 or 100 of your best customers, and
put on a prix fxe meal extravaganza in some cool, quirky place
outside your restaurant. If it can work for a rebel chef it can work
for you, and your customers will love the unique experience.
The underground dining movement has spread across the coun-
try so rapidly that it has quickly become mainstream. Incorporat-
ing a few exclusive underground events of your own into your
repertoire is the perfect way to build solid relationships with your
very best customers while also creating buzz about your restau-
rant in the local community.
Take Your Restaurant Marketing
Underground
Tip
#
Effective restaurant
marketing doesnt
have to be expensive
marketing.
In fact, the best kind of marketing youll do for your restau-
rant is the kind that doesnt require a big check up front. In
the competitive environment restaurants fnd themselves
these days, big spending on marketing is almost surely out
of reach for all but the very largest chains.
For the rest of us, strategies like customer engagement
through social media marketing (p. 8), creative promotions
like secret envelopes (p. 26) and hot happy hours (p. 46 )
are a much more effective (and affordable!) way to reach
customers and keep the dining room full.
Focusing on affordable marketing solutions doesnt mean
you cant harness the power of technology. Using Wi-Fi to
pump up slow afternoon business (p. 32) and email mar-
keting to reach your customers directly (p. 39 ) when they
arent dining in your restaurant are two great examples of
ways technology can be put to work.
Whatever tactics you incorporate into a marketing strat-
egy for your restaurant, make sure you track the results as
accurately as possible. Only by testing strategies, measur-
ing results, and then continuing with those that work and
discarding ones that dont will you be able to settle upon
the most effective marketing tactics for your restaurant.
1. Social Media Marketing
2. Manage Your Online Reputation
3. ROCK Your Marketing Efforts
4. Completely Change Your Menu
5. Nothing Sells Like A Good Secret
6. Serve Fast Food For Lunch
7. Turn Your Restaurant Into A Hot Spot
8. Harness Email & Ride The Gravy Train
9. Recharge Your Happy Hour
10. Take Your Restaurant Marketing
Underground
TIPS OVERVIEW
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The Back Burner
A restaurant blog