restaurant tips and advice

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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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Singles Nights Bring More Customers to Your Bar

May 15
Posted by Daniel in bar stools, fun, restaurant tips and advice

Finding someone special today is more difficult than it has ever been. Even if you are happily married, you can probably sympathize with the plight of all of those singles out there. Meeting people is tough, and you never know what you can expect. Online dating might have some benefits, but you don’t get to meet the person face to face for a while, and most people crave human contact when they are looking for a potential soul mate. Since you are a bar owner or manager, you are in a perfect position to help these people. Best of all, you will be able to drum up more business for your bar. More business is always good!

How can you do this? Set aside one day a week / month at the bar to be singles night. On this night, only single people who are looking to connect with others will be in the bar. Since everyone knows that its singles night, no one will have to worry about approaching someone only to have to slink away later, once realizing that they are already with someone. Make it a comfortable and friendly atmosphere where people can get to know one another. To draw in more people, you might want to offer discounted drinks for the first couple hours of the night.

If you want to make your singles night really effective, you are going to have to do some advertising. It isn’t too difficult, but you are going to need to start your advertising at least a month before you have your first singles night. The following are some great ways to start getting the word out.

First, make sure that you put an announcement on your website. If you don’t already have a website or blog where you talk about your bar and the events and specials you offer, then you are behind the times and you really need to set one up. In addition to advertising on your own site, look for websites and even blogs that talk about events in your location. Advertise in these places as well to spread the word further. Also, make sure that all of your employees know about the singles night and let them mention it to some of the regular customers. Word of mouth is a low tech and effective way of getting the word out.

Once the word is out there you will also need to prepare relevant music for the singles night and re-arrange your bar chairs and tables to make room to getting around easier and to make sure most of the areas in the bar are visible.

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Add Healthy Options to Your Restaurant Menu

May 12
Posted by Daniel in Booths, Restaurant, Restaurant Furniture, restaurant seating, restaurant tips and advice

More and more people are choosing to go the healthy route, and that means that they might not be eating out as much as they once did. Does this sound like a frightening prospect for you and your restaurant?

It shouldn’t.

You can take advantage of this new trend and start adding healthier menu options to drive your business back up.

When you are making these changes to your menu, consider just how much you want to change. Are you going to make sweeping changes to your menu, or are you only going to add a few healthier choices?

You may only want to add a few different options here and there and slowly overtake your menu with healthier choices. The way you do it is up to you. You might want to have a separate menu so that you don’t have to change the layout of your old one that your customers are familiar with. The cost to print these additional menus shouldn’t be too high.

As you make the change and start adding these healthier choices to the menu, you need to make sure that you advertise the changes that you are making. Send out a press release to the papers as well as online. Tie it in with the rising trend of health problems and obesity and tell everyone what you are doing to help combat that. Promote these healthier changes on your blog and anywhere else that you do your advertising so you can be sure that everyone is going to see them.

Changing just the menu might not be enough to start enticing new customers to your establishment. You might also want to make some cosmetic changes to your restaurant. They don’t have to be drastic, but a few décor changes and even buying new restaurant booths, chairs and tables can give your place a new look that matches in with the new theme of your menu. As always, you want to make sure that the restaurant furniture is comfortable and that the seating arrangements work.

How long will this healthy trend last? No one can tell for sure, but it certainly looks as though it is here to stay. With so many people wanting to get into shape and live a better, health conscious lifestyle, there will always be a large segment of the population that wants to have healthy options at their local eatery. Remember, even if your menu isn’t the healthiest around, adding an option for the health enthusiasts can only increase your clientele base. So don’t leave them out.

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Customer Appreciation Ideas for Your Restaurant

Apr 28
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, Booths, restaurant seating, restaurant tips and advice

What is it that makes any business successful? Without a doubt, it is the customers. You might have the best and most comfortable roomy restaurant booths and tables in the city. You might have the greatest chefs and the most innovative dishes. You might have a themed restaurant that is unique and fun. You might have any or all of those things, but if it weren’t for your customers, you wouldn’t have a restaurant at all. It is important to show your appreciation for them. The following are a few ideas that you can use.

Customer of the Month – Everyone has heard of employee of the month, but not everyone has heard of Customer of the Month. Choose a customer that already comes into your establishment regularly, and deem them the top customer. As a reward for their loyalty, offer them free coffee or soft drinks for the month whenever they place a regular order. Choose a new customer each month. You might even want to take their picture and place them in a Hall of Fame!

Drawings – Drawings are great ways to get your customers even more involved with your restaurant. Have a drawing each month and the lucky winner receives a free meal with the purchase of a drink. You can draw more customers’ names and offer them discounted meals. (more…)

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Honor Heroes at Your Establishment

Apr 21
Posted by Daniel in restaurant tips and advice

As you’ve noticed, I decided to write a series of posts that will help you not only increase your income and number of customers but will also benefit the customers themselves.

This time the focus is on the men and women in uniform.

As we have seen time and time again, the world is a better place with the brave military men and women, firefighters, policemen, and paramedics. They put their lives on the line to help people each day, going into places and situations that would make most people pale with fear. They have jobs that most people don’t want and that even more people couldn’t handle. As the owner of a bar or a restaurant, you are in a position to give these folks a little bit of recognition.

Set aside one day per week for each of the above professions. On one day, you can offer discounts on meals or drinks to the men and women in uniform. On another day, you can honor the firefighters and the paramedics by offering them discounts. Then, give the policemen their discounts on yet another day. You may even want to offer free desserts or something similar to them and whomever they happen to be dining with at the time. They are sure to appreciate these tokens of gratitude on your part. (more…)

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Get Your Restaurant Customers to Come Back on Slow Months

Apr 20
Posted by Daniel in bar tips and advice, fun, Restaurant, restaurant tips and advice

If you have been in the restaurant game for any length of time, you know that you have some months that are just busier than others. You should be looking for ways to increase your business before those slow months occur and the bounce back idea is one that works wonders. Best of all, it is very easy to implement and you don’t have to spend very much money to do it.

The first thing that you want to do is buy a large quantity of small envelopes. You will place special deals inside those envelopes, all of which are redeemable in the coming month that has been slow for you in the past. You will want to have some envelopes that offer a discount with the guest’s next meal, perhaps some that are 10% off and a few that are 20% off. You can have some of the envelopes contain free dessert or drink vouchers. Others can have a free entrée. You may even want to have one or two that are actually gift certificates for a certain amount that you deem appropriate.

Stuff the envelopes with the deals and place them in a large fishbowl or a tumbler. When the guests leave the restaurant, let them reach into the bowl and pick out one of the envelopes. Since the vouchers are valid for the following month, which is one of your slow months, you can be sure that quite a few people are going to be making return visits. Everyone likes to save a little bit of money, and this is a great way to boost the number of guests that visit during the slow period. (more…)

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