Featured Blog Posts (3,071)

Thinking about franchising your restaurant? While the risks are big, the reward can be enormous. Franchising takes a lot of planning to pull it off successfully. Determining the best time to franchise – while your product is in demand, but not over-saturating the market –can be a daunting task.…

Confession: I’m a hot dog snob. I think it started after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. In recent years I've found myself meticulously reading the ingredients of hot dog packaging, opting for the kosher all-beef franks for our annual summer barbecue  This small obsession of mine, widely known around my family,…

Along with factors related to location, concept and marketing, one of the keys to determining a restaurant or bar’s success is the quality of its staff. How well a kitchen and dining room functions on a daily basis impacts just about everything the business is trying to accomplish.

Since that process starts with the management team, it’s probably a good idea that those hires are some of your strongest assets. Hiring a solid manager means targeting specific strengths that will give the…

Do you have one of those friends? Everything bad seems to happen to them. They get sick more often. They have troubles in life and work. They complain about anything they can. It’s like a cloud of negativity is constantly hanging over them.

Sometimes you feel bad for them. It seems…

The fourth annual Foursquare Day is approaching quickly, and you would be crazy not to get in on the action. According to MomentFeed, customer engagement was up 275% last year on April 16. So how can you celebrate in your bar or restaurant? Follow these five tips for promoting sales on Foursquare Day.

Do more than a discount

To…

With the explosion of social media, there has never been a better time than now for bars and restaurants to get on board with a customer loyalty program.

According to an article by Fast Company, researchers tallied more than …

Restaurant Managers rarely want to remain in their current position for the rest of their career. There is always another horizon to venture, a new challenge to accept, and a new mountain to conquer. The smart manager may not move from one company to another, but they will have developed a strong career path that will move their career in the direction they want to go.

The question that most career coaches ask is ‘why?’  What motivates you? Most people understand what they want. They…

Here’s to the hot dog; an American classic synonymous with baseball and summer. With opening week upon us, we've decided to take a closer look at the hot dog and the equipment necessary to serve the best sausage around.

Whether you’re a hot dog cart veteran or…

The kitchen is a very dangerous place. 

I was reminded of this recently while breaking down a trade show.  Four weeks afterwards, and I’m still recovering from painful second and third degree burns from hot deep-fryer oil.   There’s no doubt about it.  If you want to maim or kill somebody, the commercial…

So your business has a Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn account, etc. Now what? Social Media experts from all over have set etiquette guidelines, content strategies, tips for building a following, and tips for keeping them. There’s a lot of information out there, so I’m going to try and make it easy for you by summing it all up.

Let’s start from the beginning. First, Social Media Consultant Jeff Bullas says you need to ‘define and understand the target market.’  Ask yourself…

Career coaching at the management level can be enlightening for both the coach and the manger. I recommend that everyone pursuing a restaurant management position take a few courses in life coaching and career coaching. The basic fundamentals of coaching provide the tools needed to understand yourself, your motives, and your strengths. It also provides the structure needed to manage a team successfully.

One core element teaches managers to understand the difference between a ‘want’…

I found myself in a precarious position this weekend while celebrating a friend’s birthday. I was at a loss for what drink to order. I venture from the grape so infrequently that I spent a good five minutes staring blankly at the bartender and another 10 minutes scavenging for a drink menu and asking my…

While Facebook began as primarily a social network for college students, it has grown into a booming marketing hub for restaurant marketing and small businesses. New job titles such as “social media marketing expert” and “social media marketing ninja” have also surfaced. But what does all the social…

This weekend I met some friends out for lunch at a local restaurant.

Much to my delight, they brought along their adorably chubby, 14 month old son. Of course, it is MY delight to have a cute baby for me to snuggle while I’m enjoying a nice meal. However, anyone that has actually…

Location. Location. Location. It’s a cliche for a reason. Before you fold the napkins or add a dash of anything, you need to settle on a location. This should never be an afterthought. You can have the best food in the world and still be hungry for customers if you are not in the right location. Location is really the key to the success of your restaurant. Even if you have the “perfect” spot in mind, don’t get too attached until you do a little research first.

Here are four factors to…

In a recent article published in Gourmet Marketing, it has come to light that OpenTable made a change to their portal user interface. The restaurant URL previously was featured prominently on the Overview page; this was moved to the More Details section.  The article maintains that this subtle user interface change was done intentionally to capture reservations via the OpenTable…

It seems like the entire country was waiting with baited breath for NYC’s supersize drink ban to go into effect. Alas, in his last minute ruling, State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling dismissed the law, explaining the city’s Board of Health was only meant to intervene “when the City is facing imminent danger due to disease” despite Mayor Bloomberg’s protests that obesity is an epidemic.

All of the news and rhetoric regarding the sugary drink ban really stuck with me. Our society…

How do you engage your restaurant customers with your email campaigns? Studies have found that 94 percent of internet users use the internet to send or read emails (Docstoc).This is more than other activity such as social networking and buying a…

Brian Gatti, TableSites.com

Ah, social media. It's awesome! Who doesn't love Facebook? You connect with your friends, your colleagues, your clients, and potential customers. And you can play Farmville (or Castleville or Whateverville) for hours on end. And then there's Twitter, which is like the Attention Deficit Disorder kid in the social media classroom. Millions of tweets blasting by, all begging for your attention. Then there's LinkedIn. Then there's Google+. 

What…

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve got a great idea for a Facebook status update, but it would be better to post it TOMORROW instead of RIGHT NOW? Never fear, Facebook offers a simple (yet, somewhat unknown) tool that allows you to schedule posts in advance – or even back date them. Today,…