MARKETING: How Bars & Restaurants Can Win the Tour de France [TV SCHEDULE INCLUDED]
The Tour de France is one of our favorite sporting events of the year and is great content to fill what is otherwise a pretty barren July. The trick is how to market for it. Here are some tips for creating Tour de France promotions for your bar and restaurant, including the month-long event’s TV schedule.
DID YOU KNOWS…
No Passport Required
Eater has teamed up with PBS to produce No Passport Required, a six-episode series hosted by Chef Marcus Samuelsson as he visits different US cities to dive into their immigrant food culture. Much like Bourdain did, Samuelsson is hoping to exposure American viewers to new and different cultures through food. Watch the trailer here. First episode debuts on July 10that 9pm ET.
Avocado Meant What!?
Here’s one for our Millennial crowd. The word avocado once meant ballsack. Smashed ballsack & toast just doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as smashed avocado & toast. Here’s a little more history about the ballsack fruit avocado.
The Global Game?
Often referred to as the global game, football (i.e. soccer) is played, followed and talked about in almost every corner of planet earth. The sport’s biggest event, the World Cup, is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, only matched by the Olympics in terms of its near universal reach. According to FIFA, 3.2 billion people watch at least one minute of World Cup coverage on TV in 2014, a number that will likely be matched by this year’s tournament in Russia. The following chart, based on a Nielsen survey conducted in more than 20 international markets, shows where people are particularly fond of the game and where interest in football is limited at best.
We’re halfway through World Cup Group Play action! Don’t forget to visit our 2018 International Soccer Central guide to download the Group Play’s TV schedule and build some awesome traffic-driving soccer promotions.
D.C. AND THE FULL MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS
Why it matters to you: Washington, DC approved raising their minimum wage.
Everyone knows the average hourly for servers is the usual sub-minimum wage hourly rate of around $2 or $3 an hour and heavily rely on tips to make up the rest. Well in Washington, DC that isn’t the case anymore! They raised minimum wage to $15/hour and that also phased out sub-minimum wage for tipped workers who are currently paid just $3.33. This is great news for restaurant workers and hopefully will make serving jobs and other tipped gigs become sought after work rather than the other way around. Before this measure, DC serves barely made normal minimum wage even after tips.
This may cause problems for DC area operators however. Opponents of the minimum wage raise say operators will have to either slash hours or cut staff to compensate. Unfortunately, only two other places have axed tipped minimum wage (Maine & Flagstaff, AZ), and Maine reversed the measure before it went into effect. In short, there’s no real data on how a change like this effects restaurants.
Alternatively, we might see restaurants increase their menu prices, which operators (understandably) fight against having to do unless it’s a last resort. But if operators do cut staff or slash hours, it’ll be interesting to see how this effects the local industry’s War for Talent and staff retention efforts. Good luck to all of our friends in the DC area, and let us know how things fair in your area.
47 CRAFT CIDERS YOU SHOULD BE DRINKING THIS SUMMER/FALL
Why it matters to you: Lists like these are nice, but don’t forget about your best resources – your staff.
It’s easy to get bogged down with listicle after listicle after listicle telling us what the hottest food and drink trends will be for up-coming seasons. And as operators this can be confusing in many respects. Do we pay attention? Do we add a few of these to the menu? Etc.
And while some of your diners will most certainly be influenced by these blog posts (therefore good to keep an eye on) it’s important to remember your most valuable resources -- your regulars and your employees. The best thing we can ever do is listen to them! It’s always good to keep your regulars stomachs happy with food & drink they enjoy. As for your staff, they’re interacting with all of your guests every day. They can best be able to collect and relay to you what guests are enjoying and asking for.
A good POS-system that can produce ordering trends & historic data doesn’t hurt either.
