Maisano’s Italian Restaurant in Novi
// May 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Independent Restaurants
Archive for Independent Restaurants
LaPita in Dearborn
// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Independent Restaurants
Fame is good juiciness
// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Independent Restaurants
Fame is good. We live in the age of celebrity where Paris Hilton gets paid $300,000 for well doing nothing but showing up a bar opening and doing some shots. Whether you like it or not, agree with it or not, fame is a good thing for a small business like an independent restaurant owner like yourself.
This is how I l look at it – if you are going to work with our team to create and spread an online video about yourself – well why stop at that? Why not go more and actually attempt to be the most known brand, the most well recognized name in your category in your local market?
Do you really want to be just another Italian restaurant? Don’t you want to be the most famous Italian restaurant in your city? In your metro area? Online fame is better than offline fame.
Here is why: Detroit Free Press does a story on you. Very good. They do a three-column spread on you. Even better. Three days later nobody remembers that except you who framed that story and hung it on a wall.
You are famous online – that fame is recorded by Google, it is shown to hundreds of local wanna-be-your-guest in the coming week who are reading about you in Urban Spoon, Yelp and Chowhound.
It has a more stronger and measurable Return On Investment and we believe that putting a strategy in play to change you from being one of many to THE ONE is a play worth making in the online world.
Curiousity about food only bought the cat back
// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Independent Restaurants
You may be tired of talking about food but your guests, a large number of them are curious about what goes in the professional kitchens.
Blame Food Network and Top Chef for it. But actually you should be thankful for them because I cant remember anybody being curious about what goes on in a septic cleaning business.
Do you? Your guests: the ones you have and the ones that are coming in for the first time tonight and in the next seven nights… how do you keep their attention?
You could wait for Bravo or HBO to discover you and give you a show or you can launch your own weekly or daily show and dispense tips on wine pairing, the difference fresh and dry pasta, healthy eating, how to make a quick salad, even just show the inner workings on your kitchen and staff.
I know that you are thinking why anybody should be interested in THAT? On your next day off – spend the whole day watching Food Network and you would understand that there is a food revolution brewing in America. And it is not about telling people about anymore that your food is good – you have a chance right now to show them how good your food is.
I don’t think this opportunity will last forever. Smart restaurateurs in every metro area and specialty will realize that they have a once in a lifetime opportunity to own the space, to become THAT ITALIAN RESTAURANT that everybody knows by using online video. It is a short window of opportunity that will be realized by few for great profits. But then once again so are most opportunities in business. Obvious to all. Profited by few.
I blog about food. Therefore I am
// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Independent Restaurants
There are thousands of extremely passionate bloggers online right now, writing about everything under the sun: the restaurant they ate last night, the food they are cooking right now, the chef they are in love with, the chef they cannot stand, the cookbook that blew their head away.
This is something new and wonderful that did not exist five, six years ago. Armed with digital and video cameras and their Blackberries – these folks are spreading the word about good restaurants on Facebook, on Twitter and writing reviews that rival in my cases in quality and depth, a review in New York Times.
The times have changed. Yet it is easy to be busy in the tough daily grind of running your restaurant and missing out on this enormous opportunity to know these passionate folks and let them find about your good food.
Not waiting for that reporter to call you
// April 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Independent Restaurants
Mario Batali was profiled some years ago in Time magazine (if you have not read Bill Buford’s terrific book Heat about working in Batali’s place in NY then you should. You will love it).
How do you think you get so famous that TIME magazine actually does a profile on you? Well the obvious answer would be to make good food, have good service, nice location AND wait for couple of decades till your name gets called. After all there are around only million restaurants ahead of you in that queue.
PR and fame (of the good kind) online is something that comes from good food, good service, good location and ten other things. Or you can go out and tell your story over and over again till it is the story that demands to be heard.
Shake the trees and see what falls out.
If people are watching your videos on YouTube, joining your Facebook business fan page, tweeting about you, writing good reviews about on Yelp and Urban Spoon then now you have BUZZ of the good kind.
Guess where all the reporters are nowadays? All online, all taking the pulse of the world through their Internet browsers. If you don’t want to be famous (for some reason or what) even then you need to bring your restaurant into the 21st century by going the online video and social review sites. That is at best the minimum you can do to insure that new guests will find you in the coming weeks and months to come.