Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Today's Specials:
TIPPING: More Reader Responses to ‘Why Tipping Sucks’
A couple of months back we wrote about Why Tipping Sucks and some of our readers took offense. Here's why some restaurant owners think tipping is still the superior compensation practice.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Trump Vs. NFL
President Trump and the NFL were at odds this past weekend. Multiple NFL athletes and teams knelt during the National Anthem to make a statement to protest racial injustice and police brutality which Trump called “disrespecting the flag.” The NFL stood behind their players which only fueled the Twitter storm.
Cookie Dough-n’t
An Instagram-famous raw cookie dough shop in NYC has been sued for allegedly making people sick. Dō’s website boldly claims there is “NO chance of foodborne illness” whereas multiple cookie dough buyers argue “within 15 minutes of eating” they got sick. Never judge an Instagram post by its cover.
Flippy’s Here to Flip
The restaurant chain Caliburger has employed the notorious robotic arm to cook at its Pasadena location. Flippy is the robotic kitchen assistant from Miso Robotics and finally been put to work doing what it does best. The restaurant plans to introduce Flippy in 50 of their restaurants worldwide. This is how Terminator starts, right?
YELPING FOR INSTAGRAM
Why it matters to you: Most Yelp searches are now containing the words “seen on Instagram.”
The restaurant industry is operating in a social media dictated world, and restaurant owners are doing everything in their power to keep up. Competition has been growing between establishments as to who’s restaurant is trendiest to attract ambiance-driven customers. A recent Yelp study found that a spike in users searching for restaurants or food have included the word “Instagram” over the past two years. For the month of August, Yelp recorded more than 3000 searches related to Instagram compared to only 100 in May 2015. This is a strong indication of how restaurant operators should be thinking.
Restaurants have noticed the importance of Instagram in their décor and atmosphere which has led to people pouring money into redesigning their business to appear well on social media. In this process, some establishments create a false sense of reality where most of their effort is spent on appearance whereas effort on food quality is compromised. Marketing strategies are becoming reliant on social media and how to attract the “hip and finicky” consumers that spend much of their time looking for food on Instagram. For restaurant owners looking to step up their social media game, food pictures are a great start.
SAY HELLO TO OLO & AMAZON
Why it matters to you: Takeout & delivery gets an upgrade with an Olo and Amazon partnership.
If you haven’t noticed, delivery and carryout are making real inroads on the business of the full-service restaurant. Consequently, chain operators are scrambling to keep up and include delivery in their distribution models. There are plenty of options for online ordering plug-ins from Foodler to GrubHub, but only Olo has considered themselves software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. This partnership with Amazon allows Olo restaurants to essentially add delivery to their services, but not have to make the investment in the infrastructure for execution. With Amazon’s reach and already in place facilities, Olo instantly becomes a marketplace for consumers to see aggregated restaurant choices for delivery.
For those of you that already have a proprietary mobile app or have integrated online ordering, Olo may already power your services. If not, they at least represent a solution that will allow you the power of those integrations. With their newly minted partnership with Amazon, they can also offer you an external marketplace. This is precisely the type of creative solution that we would encourage any operator that wants to own their guest interactions to explore. This way you aren’t giving traffic to a third party app that could be directed to you, and it puts you in control of how you deliver service. If delivery is on your radar, then check out this partnership to see if it fits your needs.
