DOWNLOAD: The 2018 Winter Olympics TV Schedule Here!
The Winter Olympics officially begin on February 9th from PyeonChang, South Korea. During each Olympiad we try to offer you some insights on how to leverage them to your best advantage. To that end, there is good news and bad news for restaurants and bar. Get tips for airing & marketing the Olympics and download your 2018 Olympic TV schedule for free.
RAILTALK: Handling Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry
Sexual harassment and assault is a blight in our industry. Join The Rail’s Andrew Jaffee as he speaks with Lauren Taylor from DefendYourself.org and SafeBars.org, and Lauren Paylor, an industry pro and survivor. It debuts live today at 4pm ET. Register to get early access to this inaugural RailTALK and watch it live!
DID YOU KNOWS…
Beer Industry Employment Doubles
Craft beer certainly has a large and passionate fan base with drinkers appreciating a product that is locally made, produced in small batches to high quality standards and of course, the sheer variety and multitude of flavors on offer. Others dismiss it as an over-expensive fad, jam-packed with brews with silly names that are beloved by snobby hipsters and annoying hop connoisseurs. No matter where you stand on craft beer, one fact is clear: the brewing revolution has turned into an unexpected economic success story.
Patriots launch “Not Done Network”
Looking for 24/7 coverage leading up to Super Bowl LI? Well the New England Patriots got you, as they launch the Not Done Network with Jay Crawford and Molly McGrath. It’s live streamed from the Pats’ website, plus social media channels. This is perfect content for any Patriots’ fan bar to air instead of Sports Center re-runs.
Are Breakfast Sandwiches Killing the Planet?
Take this with some serious grain of salts. Researchers at the University of Manchester decided (for some reason) to carbon footprint breakfast sandwiches. And they’ve concluded that breakfast sandwiches are bad for the earth’s health. However, not everyone is eating what they’re serving up in their study.
SMILE YOU’RE ON INSTAGRAM
Why it matters to you: Take some pointers from a successful restaurant social media marketer.
Who better to teach us best practices than our peers in the industry? The basics of social media marketing matter for a variety of reasons. To start, it’s essentially free to post (although getting seen on Facebook might cost something) and it’s also where your guests are spending their free time. And let’s be honest, if you perform poorly it’s also the first place your customers will go to air their frustration. That’s why a professional restaurant marketer, like Kristen Hough of Kenny’s Restaurant Group in Dallas, dedicates a full-time person to monitor the social accounts of the five restaurants she serves.
Kristen offers a couple of solid insights into successful marketing strategies -- including social media -- in a recent interview with FoodNewsFeed.com. Her assertions include simple things such as not discounting by percentage, but rather offering a free item or whole dollar amount off on the items.
Her social media advice is equally as succinct: “Social media rules all! If you do not take care of people and serve a great meal, everyone will know about it within seconds.” Finally, she focuses on the simplest of suggestions and encourages her team to always smile. Although basic sounding, these tips are good reminders that best practices start with simple steps. There really is no need to complicate things.
OH DEER!
Why it matters to you Scientists are concerned about the possibility of the ‘zombie deer disease’ spreading to humans.
Today in “Why we should probably be super worried news” we have… zombie deer?! Yes, that’s correct. Although that is just a catchy nickname that is essentially what the disease is, the technical name for it is Chronic Wasting Disease or CWD. As of January 2018, it has been found in 22 states and two Canadian provinces. This illness is classified as a prion disease, meaning it belongs to a rare family of progressive neurodegenerative disorders (aka ones that damage to kill your brain) that affect both humans and animals.
Thus far, it has only affected several deer and moose species, yet scientists are concerned because other prion diseases have been spread to humans before. The disease has a year incubation period but once it takes hold these poor deer are displaying behaviors not dissimilar to those by zombies in horror movies. The main issue is that the more obvious symptoms are only displayed during the terminal stage of the disease, meaning the diseased animals have almost a full year to spread it and contaminate others before we even know.
Basically, we’d say it probably isn’t an awful idea to avoid venison for a while until this whole thing blows over. The disease is spread though saliva, blood, feces, urine or but coming into contact with an infected environment, so no Bambi burgers for us for a good long while at this point! Also, it clearly would not hurt to cut back on your venison order and clear out what you have left in stock for now if it is on your menu -- especially now that Canadian scientists have shown it can be spread to monkeys. Stay safe out there everyone! Prevention is better than cure.
