opening up a new restaurant

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Use the Digital World to Draw More Customers to Your Restaurant

Aug 25
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, Commercial Seating, Restaurant Furniture, restaurant tips and advice

What are your customers and all of those potential customers doing when they aren’t enjoying a meal at your restaurant? Well, when they aren’t at work most people spend oodles of time on the web. Of course, quite a few of them are probably on the net even when they are at work, but that’s beside the point! Once you realize how much time people spend on the web, you can see what a powerful tool it can be. If you have only a limited web presence right now, beef it up.

You need to have a website for your restaurant for starters. It doesn’t have to be full of bells and whistles, and you don’t have to spend a fortune to get it set up. However, you want to try to set the right tone with your site. It should match the ambience that you are trying to create inside your eatery.

Make sure that you have your menu up on your site so people know what they are going to find in terms of eats. You also want to have some photos of your restaurant. Have a gallery of shots of the exterior and the interior to show your restaurant furniture and seating arrangement. Highlight the best parts of your restaurant. You can hire a professional to take the photos or you can do it on your own. Just be sure to put up clean and clear photos. That means the snapshots you take with your cell phone probably aren’t going to cut it.

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Pass Out Drink and Food Coupons for Your Restaurant

Aug 21
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, Restaurant, Restaurant Furniture, restaurant tips and advice

After a well deserved holiday we are back with more tips and advice on how to keep your restaurants and bars going and how to keep making profits even in these hard economical times. This time it’s all about coupons and discounts and how to make them work for you without loosing money:

Every bar owner wants to have a nice establishment where people can feel comfortable and have a great time. They put effort into picking out the right tables and seating, knowing that it is very important, and they make sure that the ambiance in the place is just right for the clientele they want to attract. When things don’t immediately go their way, they are sometimes tempted to give up. Now is the time to start promoting harder though! All of the hard work that promotion entails is well worth it. Here is a simple way to get more people to come into your bar in the next couple of weeks.

Coupon is a word that you generally only think of when you are heading to the grocery store or maybe a restaurant. You can use them for your bar as well though, and they can be very effective. When you create your coupons, you want to make sure that you offer some real incentives for people to come into your bar. Buy two get one free coupons are always nice. Offer 50 percent off appetizers if you have finger foods at the bar. You need to make sure that you have an expiration date on your coupon, otherwise people could take advantage.

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Deep Discounts can Drive Profit Up for Your Restaurant

Jul 28
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, Restaurant, Restaurant Furniture, restaurant seating, restaurant tips and advice

Many people who are new to the restaurant business are afraid of offering discounts that they deem to be too large. However, a large discount might be just what you need to stir up more customers and get new people to come into your restaurant. How deep is a deep discount? Consider offering a meal for .25 cents with the purchase of another meal at full price.

This seems like it is going to cost you money, but you will be able to make up for it in volume. In addition, more people will hear about your restaurant, and you might be able to attract some customers that would never have visited. If they have a good experience, they will likely come back.

How can you make sure that they have a good experience at your restaurant? Well, for starters you need to have great food and a great staff that is going to be able to handle the higher volume of traffic. Because you should expect to do more business during this time, it is important that your restaurant seating is able to handle that many extra people too. Good restaurant seating, a good staff, and great food are three ingredients that you can’t do without.

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Branding Your Bar and Restaurant is Important

Jun 30
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, Commercial Seating, Restaurant, Restaurant Furniture, restaurant seating

As a business owner, you’ve probably heard about the importance of branding. However, you might not know how important it can be when you have a single restaurant or bar. You might not realize the branding is still vital if you want to project a coherent image through all of your promotion efforts and beyond. How can you go about branding? That’s not an easy question to answer because there are so many variables. However, the following tips should help you to get on the right track. If you are still having trouble identifying, solidifying, and promoting your brand, you can always hire a specialist to help.

The first step in branding is identifying how you want your customers to see you and your establishment. Are you running a fun family friendly restaurant that caters to the kids and makes everyone feel at home? Do you have an upscale sushi restaurant? Are you running a family-owned Korean barbeque shop? Every restaurant or bar is going to fit into certain niches better than others. Find what you want to promote as a part of your restaurant and make that a part of your brand.

Of course, there is also the very literal aspect of branding. You need to have a logo, even if you are a small bar or restaurant. A logo, which you use for all of your communications and advertisements, is very important. Do you disbelieve the importance of logos? I bet if you close your eyes, you can picture the Apple logo, the McDonald’s logo, the Chili’s logo, and thousands of others. Those logos are very important, and they establish the brand. When people see those logos, they know what to expect.

In addition to putting your logo on all of your coupons, flyers, menus, and everything else, you need to make sure that the interior of your restaurant meets the expectations of your customers. You need to have good quality restaurant seating that matches with your restaurant’s theme and the brand that you are trying so hard to promote. Your décor is equally important.

Consider all of the above when you start trying to brand your bar or restaurant. If you do, and if you keep studying branding and how effective it can be, you will find that people will know your logo, your establishment’s name, and what to expect, even if they haven’t yet visited.

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Frequent Loyal Diners Deserve Rewards

May 25
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, fun, Restaurant, restaurant tips and advice

If you have been in business for a while, you have probably started to see some familiar faces around your restaurant. Those customers that come in a few times a month, once a week, or even a few times a week are your best and most loyal customers. They probably even sit in the same area each time that they come into your place. You and the rest of the staff may even know them by name.

You want to treat them well, and you want other customers to follow their lead. It would be a wonderful world if you could count on all of your customers to come back day after day, wouldn’t it! A great way to repay those loyal customers is by offering a stamp card so that they will be able to save a little bit of money and feel welcomed and appreciated.

The card can have several spots on the back – generally around 12. Each time the customer comes in and orders an entrée, a buffet meal or the like, your employees can stamp their card. After the customer reaches those 12 stamps, they are entitled to a free meal and you replace their card with a brand new one. They will keep coming back, and you can be sure that they are going to tell their friends about it. When they bring others to your restaurant, you are the winner because you are able to meet and greet some new blood. (more…)

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Social Networking and Your Restaurant

May 19
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, fun, Restaurant, restaurant tips and advice

You probably use social networking in your personal life. Most people today do. Perhaps you Tweet about the things that you are doing with your friends or family or about the latest movie you saw or book you read. People love Facebook too, and it can be a great way to keep in touch with people you know and even to meet new people. Of course, social networks are also a great way to promote your business. If you want to get more people into your restaurant, get onto all of the social networks that you can.

Set up special pages on Twitter and Facebook specifically for your restaurant. While you want to let people know about all of the great things that your restaurant serves, you don’t want to inundate them only with promotional posts. Make your restaurant’s social network a fun place. Give people some insight into the neighborhood where your restaurant is located. Maybe post some information or links about things people can do in the area after they’ve dined at your place. Of course, you will also want to make sure that you add information for any discounts or specials that you are currently offering – just don’t overwhelm people. (more…)

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