Restaurateurs come from many backgrounds. Most never had formal training or experience with marketing. Commonly I see the term advertising used interchangeably with the word marketing. Advertising is just a small part of marketing.

One of the key errors I made in the early years of operating restaurants was that I thought media advertising was the way to get new business and keep old customers. I followed what I saw the competition doing. Newspapers, magazines and other publications were full of restaurant ads. I just thought you had to do that!

When business wasn’t growing as fast as it should, my old business skills reverted to basic marketing techniques to build a plan. We needed to find out why customers were coming in our doors for the first time. We found that very few were motivated by ads. Most came because of a referral from a neighbor, friend or family. Even more surprising was the extremely high cost to acquire new business through traditional advertising. One new customer may cost as much as $75 to obtain! We might as well have sent a $75 check to random people just to try our restaurant! Not very smart.

By applying techniques of basic marketing we determined;

• Who our potential customers were.
• Methods to communicate directly with them.
• What motivated them to act.
• What made them want to return.

It sounds like heavy business school stuff and typical “consultant” drivel you read every day. Really it was simple, just ask! Managers, owners and servers need to communicate with new customers as they come in the door. First time visitors like the interaction and are more than open about why they are there. You can create a little form used by employees to fill out after visiting with guests. Record their responses to the questions above. After a few days a pattern will emerge.

There are many aspects and components to the marketing function. The Restaurant Ebook details exactly how to go about creating a marketing plan and executing each step. The size of your operation is insignificant. A small coffee bar and a 300 seat theme restaurant must do the same thing to keep growing and maintaining a customer base.

Rarely is advertising successful economically for the independent restaurateur. Advertising cannot produce the results a well thought out marketing plan can produce, usually for less than the cost of traditional ad media.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

One of the most inexpensive, but powerful marketing tools a restaurant can use is email. It’s fast, responsive and relevant. There are many articles out there about how to use email, but few on collecting those email addresses that should be treated like our industry treats saffron - use it occasionally, sparingly and protect it carefully.

Email addresses are now used like fax numbers, phone numbers and other communication methods. They are published on many documents and advertisements. Below is a list of methods to begin your collection;

• Business cards you accumulate including your suppliers.
• Advertisements in local newspapers. Don’t forget the critics and food section editors.
• Property advertisements in newspapers, flyer’s and real estate magazines that are on every street corner. Pick the ones in your area. No one eats out more frequently than real estate agents.
• Social, business and fraternal organizations have emails in their rosters.
• A simple form at your counter or hostess stand asking if they want to be added to your email list for valuable coupons and specials.
• Offer a promotion that has a prize. To enter they must give you their contact information.
• Offer a free appetizer, entree or dessert on a guest’s birthday. They must fill out a form to be added to your database.

All of these methods will start your email collection quickly, but as a marketing tool you will want to perpetuate your data as a regular ongoing function. Remember, it costs the same to send out one email or 1000 emails. It works!

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

Over the last few months I have occasionally blundered onto the websites of hucksters trying to sell ebooks. It amazes me that people will buy just about anything, I think, if these sites are actually selling ebooks.

With a humorous eye, you might want to stay away from any sales pitch that contains some of these;

• Any site that starts out “Dear Restaurant Profiteer” - makes our profession sound like carpetbaggers!
• Any site that offers you “Over $2000 worth of material for $29.95” - do people really believe that stuff?
• Any site that offers “double your money back guarantee” - I considered getting out of the restaurant business and just buy 100 of this guy’s books each week!
• A pitch that says they are going to reveal “dozens of closely guarded secrets of success” - I always wondered what they were guarding them from and how they kept them from McDonalds.
• One site offers “laser-guided accurate information” - Sounds like this “author” has found a secret to using laser beams somehow to make his book more accurate.
• My all time favorite was almost irresistible. It offered, if you buy today, “seven bonus values worth $1800, four super-time bonuses worth $280 and, today only, 2 valuable audio tapes, plus my personal free gifts for budding entrepreneurs” - My neighbors may not appreciate the semi truck that it would take to deliver all of this stuff!

If you have bought any of these books, I apologize. Now if you would just visit my website where I have this great bridge for sale called the Brooklyn Bridge ……….

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

Buying an existing restaurant is a little like buying a used car. You can kick the tires, look under the hood, check the mileage and get a great deal - until you drive it for a few days. Thats when all the imperfections start becoming rattles, dents you didn’t notice, sputtering engine noises and the flat spare tire you didn’t check until you needed it.

Restaurants all have their imperfections. Finding them before you buy can be extremely difficult. In The Restaurant Ebook, I spend quite a bit of time explaining the benefits and pitfalls of buying an existing restaurant. There is also a checklist to evaluate just how good the opportunity may be, but in the end it is “caveat emptor” - buyer beware!

A few of the benefits of a restaurant purchase rather than starting a new operation are;

• Existing customers that may cost time and money to attract in a new operation.
• Stiff regulations for new restaurants may make an existing restaurant attractive due to being “grandfathered” in around new requirements.
• Staff may already be in place.
• Equipment and furnishings that cost a lot less than new.

Some of the pitfalls of buying a restaurant are;

• Liens and debts that are difficult to find unless you know where to look.
• Equipment that looks ok, but quickly falls apart due to temporary fixes.
• More unhappy guests than happy ones. Old dissatisfied customers are harder to get back than attracting than new ones.
• Regulatory violations that may cost you thousands to fix.

Unless you have the experience, never try to buy a restaurant without a lot of research and discovery. You have to know what to look for and where to find it.

If you would like a copy of our Checklist for Buying an Existing Restaurant, just email us.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

In Chapter Seven of The Restaurant Ebook, there are 100 ways to market your restaurant and increase sales. Several of the marketing tips revolve around the last few minutes of your guest’s visit. The book explains how to keep on selling after the check is presented.

There are numerous ways to send the customer on their way with a marketing message. Here are a few of the ideas;

• If you use a check presenter, tray or book, always have a label on the presenter highlighting things like your gift cards, next event or special occasion.
• Attaching a coupon to the check is another alternative if you use coupons.
• The check itself can be printed with a message at the bottom.
• Have businesses in your area? Offer them a listing on a small generic coupon that lists their business. In exchange, ask them to display your marketing materials, menu or coupon at their cash register.
• Have a big tourist trade? Use the idea above, but make the coupon a “Things To Do in the Area” coupon.
• Have multiple locations? Include a list of locations with the guest check.
• Long term servers can build return guests with a business card for guests as the leave.

The Restaurant Ebook not only offers these type of marketing ideas, but explains how to do them. If these don’t work for you, there are 99 more in the book that may.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

Somewhere around 1997, just after retiring and buying my first restaurant, I was intrigued by a prep cook from Jamaica. He was, I thought at first, a little strange, quiet, hard working and very resourceful. He grew up in a place that most of us in this country would call poor to almost homeless. Shacks that blew down after each storm that passed through the island of Jamaica is what his family called home.

Food was scarce during the prep cook’s childhood days. He watched as his mother scrounged around the tourist areas for “fresh” garbage. The tops and ends from onions, the stems of peppers, seeds and discards from papaya, yucca peels and anything thrown out behind the restaurants where well heeled travelers stop for food. From these roots, our cook learned how to preserve, live and make some of the most awesome stocks you could imagine!

Everyday I would roam through the kitchen and see three pots on the stove. Each held a gallon or more of water and was distinguished by their contents. One always held the remnants of almost every scrap of waste from vegetables, another held all the shrimp tales, fish bones and seafood trimmings and the third had the fat, bones and skin from beef and pork waste or some days, chicken. By the end of the cook’s workday, he strained down the remnants of the three pots into two or three quarts of these cloudy looking liquids.

I discovered that he fed the entire staff. Cooks, dishwashers, servers and managers savored daily concoctions that generally ended up with lentils, beans, chickpeas or some other indescribable ingredient. To my amazement, these soups were far superior to the items available on the menu. The Kitchen Manager explained that most of our recipes were started from bases. Our Jamaican prep cook changed all of that. He not only revised our recipes, but started a daily soup that outsold the three already on the menu.

When looking for ways to control food costs, perhaps the place to start is the trash. What are you throwing away everyday that could be used? Many common restaurant dishes originated from food that otherwise would have found the dumpster. Potato skins and twice baked potatoes came from left over baked potatoes. Many great fish stews and gumbos got their start from carcasses of cleaned fish. Sauces made from broken pieces of shrimp, scallops and fish fillets are flavorful and easy to prepare. Bread crumbs and croutons made from stale bread have more flavor than commercial counterparts.

The bottom line is…… the bottom line! 

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook

We have tried to make The Restaurant Ebook blog and website more than just a place to buy the book and get additional articles. At the right you will see various categories of links to restaurant resources. These are sites that I have used for research, ordering restaurant supplies, getting menu ideas and general information.

These links are not paid advertisements. They are sites that are easy to use and packed with detail about the subject they reference. Many are designed specifically for restaurant owner/managers and chefs. The magazine sites are major publications that have archive information that can be a valuable source for specific details. We hope my personal links keep you from wasting a lot of time trying to find information on the Internet.

If you have a valuable site that would benefit all foodservive people, let us know.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook