MEME MONDAY: Clowns, Forever 31, Benefits of Serving Green Tea to Guests, and More!
We took a week off, but Restaurant Meme Monday is back. In this week’s edition we have Americans eating like they have free healthcare, passion for the wings, serving green tea, deadly beds, work interest and more! Ping ‘em to your message board for your staff to have some chuckles or share ‘em with guests for social fodder. Enjoy!
DID YOU KNOWS…
It's Complicated
The Cambridge Analytica scandal severely damaged peoples’ trust in social media companies and many have changed their online behavior in response to it. According to a recent Pew Research survey, more than half of Facebook users in the United States have changed their privacy setting in the past 12 months, 40% have taken a Facebook break of several weeks within in last year, and more than a quarter of the respondents have deleted the Facebook app from their phone. Something to keep in mind when trying to reach potential guests via Facebook.
Yahoo! Supplements NFL Coverage
This is the first full season that Yahoo’s contract with the NFL allows them to live stream in-marketing and primetime NFL games. But on top of showing those games, they’ll be doing some new, supplemental sports programming, including Mostly Football starring Martellus Bennet. It’ll talk football but also culture and lifestyle. Other shows include Fantasy Football Live, The Rush (a daily, short-form morning show), and The Spin (analysis-based show from in-house reporting). We’ll continue to say it, but OTT sports is a great way to stand out from all the other plain sports bars.
We Want to Believe
The Food Standard’s Agency (FSA), the UK’s independent food safety watchdog, has been testing meat samples it collected in 2017 and 20% of tested meat had “mysterious DNA” aka DNA from animals not listed on the label. Yikes! They collected samples from restaurants, supermarkets and meat-processing plants. The most frequently contaminated meat was lamb, followed by beef, goat and pork. One ostrich meat contained 0% ostrich and 100% beef. *shakes head*
FREE-ZZA FOR 100 YEARS
Why it matters to you: Domino’s promotion for free pizza for life was way too easy.
Promotions can be a huge part of what keeps a restaurant going, especially in the delivery world. Sometimes it takes a crazy deal to get people to choose your establishment over the next one, something Domino’s knows that better than anyone. Unfortuantely, sometimes a good promotion can go too far and backfire. In Russia, they recently offered 100 pizzas per year for the next 100 years to fans of theirs if the customer got their logo tattooed on a prominent body part. Photos started to pour in of dedicated fans with Domino’s logo tattooed on their arms and legs. As it turns out, the deal was sweeter than the pizza chain realized. The promotion -- which was supposed to run for two weeks -- was cut short and limited to only the first 350 participants. Yes, they had more than that…
This is a cautionary tale about making your promotions sweet and enticing but also being sure you can financially back it. We’d always suggest something a little more low impact than 100 free pizzas a year for 100 years, something more along the lines of a hot wing challenge or massive meal where guests have X-amount of time to finish and if they do their meal is free. These challenges and promotions work because they don’t have you on the hook to give away food past the meal they are served. They are also fun for friends to come in and try together or watch one another. Fun promotions and challenges ftw!
[Source: Thrillist]
KID FRIENDLY DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN ANTI-ADULT
Why it matters to you: Kid friendly restaurants usually mean hell, but does it have to?
When a friend says they are dining at a kid-friendly restaurant usually the non-children-having folk cringe or make a comment about it. We think the negativity surrounding these places is due the likes of Chuck E Cheese and other kid-specific establishments scarring people away, but it certainly doesn’t have to be that way. As managers, owners, and operators, we can change the stigma surrounding family restaurants.
The palate is a good place to start. Historically speaking, there is always a kid’s menu that is way more dumbed downthan your normal menu -- chicken fingers and fries, maybe a hotdog, etc.And while those are tried-and-true items, it doesn’t have to be just that. Restaurateurs are realizing that kids’ palates aren’t as unsophisticated as we thought. If their parents have a good palate then chances are they do too after all, they cook the majority of their meals for them. We’d say that it is time we stop dumbing down our establishments because of what we think kids want, and time to start feeding them some good thoughtful food. This will help take the first step out of the stigmatized work of kid-friendly restaurants.
[Source: Table.Skift]
