MARKETING: 8 Tips to Run a Successful Menu Launch
If you’re a restaurant updating your menu and launching new items each year or season, you have to find new and creative ways to get the word out. This article focuses on helpful ideas how to successfully launch a new menu to get your guests excited and spread your fame.
SPORTS TV: Download Your Free 2018 NHL Playoffs TV Schedule
The 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are here. Make sure your guests never miss a second of the action with this free, downloadable 2018 NHL Playoffs TV Schedule, compliments of the SportsTV Guide.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Where the Gender Pay Gap Is Widest
South Korea has the most work to do in order to close the wage gap. OECD data shows that in 2016, a male worker in South Korea would outearn his female counterpart by 36.7%. The problem is also highly evident in other Asian countries, especially Japan. Even though things are slightly better in North America, both the U.S. and Canada still have a wage gap of just over 18%.
Restaurant Complains Sing-a-Long
Did you see Black Panther Chadwick Boseman on SNL this weekend? If not, then you missed this amusing skit of him and friends sing about their restaurant complaints. We really wonder if this would soften the blow in real life.
Border Apprehensions
A long view of so-called "illegal alien apprehensions" recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol indicates that illegal crossings of the border from Mexico into the United States had initially risen since the 1960s. The numbers have since peaked in 2000 at 1.6 million. While last year approximately 304,000 people were apprehended, the first half of this fiscal year has seen 174,000 people taken into custody since October.
MERGERS TO STAY AFLOAT
Why it matters to you: Postmates and DoorDash consider merging.
Apparently UberEats and GrubHub are taking the lead because allegedly Postmates and DoorDash are considering a merger in order to stay alive. It’s been reported that the CEOs of both companies have been discussing the idea of a merger at least once this year in person. This comes as no real surprise to us. We think of this as a similar field to Uber and Lyft; there were several smaller options available at first, but the smooth and easy options prevailed and are almost omnipresent at this point. Maybe the two brands merging will be the strongest competition against UberEats and GrubHub? Shouldn’t be too hard though, as UberEats is essentially known for shooting itself in the foot.
We’d like to think that, due to there being fewer options at play the restaurants (without their own delivery programs) will win. It is a lot easier to control the quality of your food when seven different start-up apps aren’t fighting to deliver it at varying speeds with zero insight into customer service. Not to mention that it is less and less tempting for restaurants to want to split their profits with these services, why not just own it? If you manage and run your own delivery program it is a whole lot better for your business as a whole. You can control the training of the drivers, how they interact with customers, and keep a lot more of the profits, and that is a lot more comfortable to stand behind than a faceless app. Who know though, maybe we are just old-fashioned…
PERSONALITY > EVERYTHING
Why it matters to you: Restaurant chains are ditching their corporate feel for a more personal approach.
Would you rather be served your food by a robot or a person? We think 90% of people would choose person (the remaining 10% might be aliens, so we get it actually). Restaurant chains are now quickly coming to terms with the fact that having an actual personality and being relatable is much more appealing to diners than being more proper and sterile. You’d think people in the hospitality business would have realized this sooner, but it isn’t always very apparent to suits in an office building who have never worked in actual restaurants before. Take Wendy’s for example. Their Twitter being real and funny got them further than anything else they’ve ever done.
So, does this mean you should start roasting people on Twitter? No, but non-professionally curated responses to inquiring customers goes a very long way. Being relatable and presenting yourself on the level of the customer will always win. That’s the way life is. Nobody (brand or not) is better than anyone else. Smaller restaurants have always known this to be the case but now that the larger ones are ditching the holier-than-thou approach, we have a pretty bright future ahead of us. Well, at least culinary.
