Monday, September 11, 2017

Today's Specials:

TECH: Technical Restaurant SEO Help So You Can Rank Higher

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about making it easier for search engines (and guests) to find out about your restaurant and classify it properly — so when somebody searches a relevant term or word, your site will show up high in the search results. Here are tips to optimize your site for Google.

DID YOU KNOWS…

Bud Touchdown Glasses

In honor of the start of football season, Bud Light debuted their new “Touchdown Glass” distributed at last week’s season opener between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs. The glasses use an in-stadium radio frequency to glow every time the Pats score. For now, the glasses will only light up for Patriots, 49ers, Broncos, Colts, Giants, Jets and Raiders fans.

Chicken, BBQ, and Strip Club Sign Wars

Chick-Fil-a, an Alabama BBQ restaurant and a strip club all got into a very public sign war after promoting Chick-Fil-a’s seasonal menu. Take a look at the absurdities that took place between all three places over the course of the month.

Stadium Instagram Stories

Sports teams including the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Sounders, and San Francisco Giants have begun using technology that lets them stream their Instagram Stories on the jumbotrons inside the stadium. The Tag-board powered service is aimed at driving social media engagement while also “keep the focus on the field.” It’d be cool to do the same at your bar during the games, right?

DEALING WITH IRMA

Why it matters to you: Restaurants considering reopening in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

Restaurants along with every other business in Houston are in distress fresh off Harvey’s tracks. Now Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful hurricanes in recorded history, hits Florida. Similar to Hurricane Harvey, Irma has the potential to drastically impact the restaurant industry by forcing locations to close and evacuations to take place. In addition, concerns of potential damage Irma can cause are overwhelming in close comparison with the devastating aftermath in Houston. In a Nation’s Restaurant News article, a restaurant analyst predicts the storm has the potential to reduce same store sales by as much as much as 100 basis points. However, it’s projected that it may not stay that way.

In combination with other concerns, price gouging by companies has seen an all-time high; for example, Amazon selling cases of water for $99.99. If some establishments are able to open after the storm passes, supplies and damage will be the first assessed in the aftermath. Restaurants are notoriously hurt by storms through a number of factors, but after the storm clears, the article notes that sales tend to recover quickly as construction workers, insurance agents and disaster cleanup crews flock to the area. Harvey was expected to have a drastic impact on the overall economy, but it’s still foreseen whether Irma will have a similar outcome.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM [Song]

Why it matters to you: Do you have any “Dreamers” on your team?

While ordering a pizza last night, I encountered a young woman from Ecuador that was a registered alien under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). She arrived here at four years old, is currently employed, in college, and is not getting any aid or special services. Her English is flawless, her demeanor a pleasure, and I was pleased to meet her. It seems that a lot of companies value these young folks as well. Given the War for Talent that you are all struggling with, deporting 800k young people who are prime candidates for jobs in our operations would be painful.

Leave it to Starbuck’s to step up and make a bold statement to their staff and advertise that they stand with the Dreamers in their midst. They currently have a program that helps offset the fees associated with DACA registration and count 84 “partners” among them. They aren’t alone either. Microsoft and Amazon have made similar statements and expect other companies to join in the conversation. In our businesses, we can hardly afford to drain an already shallow labor pool. These are the exact type of work ready immigrants that our country needs to grow and our businesses need to operate.