MARKETING: Creative Tip Jar Ideas to Boost Guest Tipping
Most diners will just ignore the tip jar at the counter, but a lot of your restaurant’s staff rely on those tips to pay the bills. One way to boost guest tips is to get creative with your tip jars. Here’s a fun gallery with some examples to get you going.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Soft Drink Trends
The 2018 NRA Show ended this week and there were lots of fun soft drinks on display. Despite soft drink beverage programs being pretty profitable, it’s sometimes hard to get the upgrade from free water with guests. Here are some soft drink trends from the showthat operators should keep an eye on.
Three 224-Year-Old Wine on Auction
Love old wine? How about wine older than the USA? Three bottles of Anatoile Vercel Vin Jaune – aka “yellow wine” – are hitting the auction block this weekend. They’re made with grapes harvested from King Louis XVI’s reign for all you history buffs out there. Other bottles of this vintage have been sold & consumed recently, rated a 9.4 out of 10 with notes of “walnut, spices, curry, cinnamon, vanilla and dried fruits.”
Words that Make Groceries Less Appealing
As this infographic shows, over one third of consumers say “Vegan” is a turn-off and, in a similar vein, the other most unpopular words are “Diet”, “Sugar-free” and “Fat-free.” And while this pertain specifically to groceries, restaurant operators and marketers should also take note and maybe avoid these thumbs-down keywords on their marketing & menus.
BEER WITH BENEFITS
Why it matters to you: Anheuser-Busch InBev introduces a new parental leave policy.
Recently, AB InBev introduced a solid new parental leave policy. This policy will affect nearly 200,000 of its full-time employees in 52 countries worldwide. The policy permits 16 weeks of fully paid leave for all parents including those who adopt, have surrogate-born children, and fathers. Secondary caregivers are permitted two weeks of fully paid leave.
This is incredible news for their employees. AB InBev joining the like of Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, and IKEA in equal parental leave is setting an incredible example for all other companies whom are trying to figure out how to properly treat their full-time staff.
This is an important move as the US has no mandated parental leave, unlike most of the developed word. The question is when – and if – the restaurant industry will jump on board. The most we’ve heard of (on a larger scale) is Danny Meyer who offers 4 weeks of leave and 60% of staff’s wages paid. That’s better than nothing but it’s still crumbs by comparison -- although we do kinda get itbecause 16 weeks in the industry is an eternity. But with staff turnover at over 100% in the industry, operators need to look for ways of keeping their staff around – even if it means losing them for a few months.
ZEROWASTE
Why it matters to you: Are fine-dining restaurants that create zero food waste the future?
A fine dining joint in Helsinki called Nolla is trying to make having zero food waste cool for restaurants. Their dining room is lined with recycled plastic and packaging material even. By doing this experiment, Nolla is eliminating the (on average) 154,323 pounds of waste per year. That is an absurd amount of waste.
They do this by composting all food scraps, use local ingredients that would typically be thrown away, and don’t use/let anything through their doors in single use packaging. They’ve said that most of their vendors, once they’d explained their efforts, were even excitedto help the restaurant and switch to reusable packaging for their deliveries. Nollaalso is also paperless, so don’t expect to see even an old fashion menu. This works, however, because their menu is 100% dependent daily on what the farmers have for them.
We love their efforts; this is such an incredible idea that we wish could be adopted by the industry as a whole. We hope America can be as forward thinking as we claim to be and follow in Nolla’s footsteps.
