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    “There’s not another foodservice distributor in the area that can match Pate Dawson’s                               integrity, service, and dedication to my restaurant’s success.”                                                                             – Gianna Cramer, Owner, Bullfeather’s Wings & Grille, Fuquay-Varina, NC                                                                     

The Library...

We scour the internet daily to find the most helpful and pertinent information for you and your business, always keeping our eyes and ears open for new ways to help promote your success.

Here is a collection of some of the best ideas and knowledge that we have found... 

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Marketing Strategies

  • Developing an Effective Marketing Plan


    Developing a business plan for your restaurant is extremely important - it helps you plan for your future instead of reacting to changes in your business. Additionally, it gives you credibility and lenders will always ask for one if they consider lending you money.
  • 5 Social Media Trends To Watch Right Now

    Source: American Express Briefing  Social media is a growing trend that's here to stay, and many companies are keeping tabs on new social technologies as they emerge.
  • Menu Pricing - The Start of Strategic Positioning

    Source: Ron Gorodesky and Ed McCarron  One of the most important factors in the strategic planning of a restaurant is in the development of the menu. It involves designing an appealing selection of menu items that are competitively priced in the marketplace.

  • 10 Menu Mistakes That May Be Costing You Plenty...And How to Avoid Them

    Source: Excerpts, Mark Laux for Restaurant Startup & Growth  A menu should be your most effective marketing tool. It should suggestively sell products, describe your offering in a poetic way, entice an upsell and, most importantly, be a visual representation of your brand. In addition, it is the place your guests will find what they want to order, so it is also your catalog.  
  • 5 Free Ways to Drive Restaurant Sales

    With the economy down businesses need to work harder to drive sales with less. The good news is that there are a number of free services that can help you promote your restaurant.
  • 10 Steps to Social Media Success for Restaurants

    (Source: Sara Bozich)  Social media is becoming a valuable and usable marketing extension for the restaurant and nightlife business.

  • 4 Keys to Beating the Competition

    Source: Jeff Hookham  I can't think of another segment of the business world that has as much competition as the restaurant industry. That's why when I'm working with an owner and he says "I want to beat my competition" I always talk about 4 things.

  • Gain More Repeat Business

    In Pate Dawson's May 4th Marketing Webinar, we discussed at great length the effectiveness of growing sales through your current customer base. Reaching out to your customers is also the most efficient means of investing your marketing budget.
  • Social Media Measurement: A 10-Step Guide

    (by Chris Lake) Social media measurement is a tricky subject, not least because not everything can or should be measured, and in some ways social measurement is a bit like measuring the impact of TV ads on brand awareness: it's a slightly softer area than, say, paid search.
  • Foursquare: Restaurants' Next Social-Media Frontier
    (By Allison Perlik)  "Location, location, location"-the old adage about the key to business success gains new meaning in the context of the latest social-media opportunity for restaurants: location-based social networks.
  • Why Google Is The Future Of Restaurant Marketing

    (By Greg McGuire)  “Favorite Places On Google” is a new feature that provides maps, directions, reviews, and photos of 100,000 businesses across the U.S. Many of these businesses are restaurants, and that’s significant because eventually users will be able to post reviews and other information about your restaurant and have it display on Google.
  • Your Crew Is Your Brand

    (By Christopher Wolf)  Think of your crew training as a marketing project and your brand experience will benefit.
  • How to Use Twitter for Restaurant & Bar Marketing

    Modern marketing is about conversations, not just one-way broadcasting.

    Twitter is a great tool for online or 'social media' marketing: it's free, and only needs a small time commitment. It's also a good way to 'find your voice' and practice writing short sales messages. If you have time to write one promotional text message each week, you can manage Twitter!

Best Practices

  • Money Mangement: Control Your Cash

    Source: monkeydish.com  Running a cash flow positive restaurant is challenging even in the best of times. But in this Great Recession, marked by customers spending less and banks tightening or even shutting off access to funding, cash flow problems can invade your business, turning your dream of prosperity into the nightmare of barely surviving.

  • 20 Steps to Lowering Your Food or Liquor Costs

    Source: Brandon O'Dell   Outlining this plan for you may be to me a little like a restaurant owner publishing their secret recipes, but my main interest is not in keeping the things secret that I do to help restaurants. My main interest is in improving the restaurant and food service industry as a whole.

  • How to Get More Repeat Business

    If you think about it, there are no "new" customers out there. Everybody has been to a restaurant. Everybody has their favorite eateries. And just because you've opened or acquired a restaurant, don't expect the world to stop spinning while mobs of starving maniacs line up at your door begging for a table.

  • Lessons from the Best Restaurant Chain in the World

    (Source: Tome Howes) People often ask me, "what is the best franchise system out there?" That's a difficult question since franchising is represented in so many industry sectors.

  • Costing Out Soda & Free Refills - How to Price Soda

    (By Wilton Marburger)  A traditional box of syrup or B- I- B (bag in the box) holds 5 gallons of syrup. Let's say a five gallon BIB of your favorite Cola costs $50.

  • Eight Basics of Cost Control

    (By Eric F. Nusbaum, PhD, CHA)

    Recently I have been getting a lot of phone calls from operators experiencing food, beverage, and labor cost problems.  Given the stagnant economy, increase in competition from new chain units, and rising costs of ingredients, the need to control costs is understandable. Now is probably a good time for a refresher on the basic principles of cost control. 

Food Safety

  • Safety Tips For Cooking Meat

    (By Bill Tomson)   Meat cutters at grocery stores aren't necessarily trained to address health issues regarding meat. But harmful bacteria like salmonella and E.coli are often present on raw meat. Here are some ways to remove the threat.

The Bottom Line

  • Measuring ROI For Social Media Initiatives

    Source: Restaurant Startup & Growth  One of the most talked-about challenges for businesses when it comes to the social media arena, aside from putting aside the dollars, time and staff to engage in it, is figuring out a way to track or document any success with those initiatives.

  • How to Renegotiate Your Lease

    Source: Larry Green, Esq.  You have no more good ideas about how to stop taking on water. You are too busy plugging leaks and bailing the flooded mess. Until the consuming public regains confidence in itself, you can't depend on increasing revenues. Relief, if any can be found, must come from reduced expenditures.

  • Waiter! No check, please!

    Source: Mike Elgan (www.itworld.com)  My wife and I had lunch at a horrible restaurant in San Francisco Saturday called Santorini. After suffering through a hideous meal, we just wanted to get out of there, but our waiter was nowhere to be found. It was a hostage situation. Which got me thinking: Why do we cling to the obsolete ritual of paying restaurant checks the way we do? 

  • Focus On Retaining Loyal Guests Instead Of Fighting For New Ones

    Traditional mass marketing depended on interrupting customers with repeated broadcast messages. Mass marketers relied on "bribes" to sell products when using discount offers. These were the ways to leverage TV, radio, newspapers and other forms of mass media: trumpet a one-size-fits-all message and coax consumers to buy products with coupons.

      

  • 4 Ways to Generate More Restaurant Business FAST

    (Source: David Scott Peters)   If your restaurant is clean, your food is great, your service is great and all the little details are in line and you want to generate more sales... GET OUT! GO GET THE BUSINESS!

  • 8 Ways To Build Sales In Summer - And Year-Round!

    8 Ways To Build Sales In Summer - And Year-Round!
    These sales-building ideas work to build sales in the summer as more people venture out to enjoy the warm weather - and help sustain sales throughout the year!

  • Waiter, Bring Me a Fresh Idea - 10 strategies that are working in the tough restaurant economy
    (By Jason Daley)  It was about 20 years ago that the casual dining boom got started in the United States. It was a golden, batter-dipped age: We were lured in by the novelty of mozzarella sticks and artichoke dip, marveled at the cluttered walls and uniform flair and gulped down two-liter mango margaritas like every night was Friday.

Service

  • “Ready to Order?” Four Ways to Avoid This Opening Line Stunner

    The Question -- How many words does it take to wait on a guest at a full-service restaurant? Based on my experience recently, I know the answer.

  • The Five Levels of Service

    Source: Shep Hyken  Recently I was asked to rate and compare a number of companies on their level of service. As I started the comparison, I thought a scale of 1-5 would be a good way of doing it. (One is bad and five is excellent.) I came up with the "Five (Descriptive) Levels of Service."

  • Ten Compelling Reasons to Deliver an Amazing Customer Service Experience

    Source: Shep Hyken  I love lists, especially when it comes to learning. The list below was the result of a quick brainstorming session about the advantages of delivering a great customer service experience. I came up with many more, but wanted to create the "Top Ten List" for you.

  • Training To Win

    If you were to ask a panel of professional dining critics what they would consider the No. 1 factor in rating a restaurant, don't be surprised when they tell you it is the food. In fact, they can even overlook bad or indifferent service when the food is outstanding.

  • Top 12 Service Expectations & Remarkable Service

    (Source: Jeff Hookham) What do I expect? Let's say I walked into your restaurant tomorrow, what would I expect from your staff:

  • Readers: Top 5 Restaurant Complaints

    Source: SYLVIA RECTOR, FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

  • iPad POS System - Coming Soon!

    A company called Lecere is working on an iPad Point-of-Sale system. The system is compatible with the iPad and the iPod Touch and allows restaurants to add portable POS systems for under $2,000. Watch Video

  • 8 Ways to Build Full-Service Sales


    (By Ron Ruggless)  While full-service restaurant sales aren't expected to rebound as quickly as in other industry segments, the National Restaurant Association offers eight ways that table-service operators can weigh the odds of recovery in their favor and build much-needed sales.

  • 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do

     

     (by Bruce Buschel)  Here is a modest list of do's and don'ts for servers at the seafood restaurant I am building. Veteran waiters, moonlighting actresses, libertarians and baristas will no doubt protest some or most of what follows.
     
    They will claim it homogenizes them or stifles their true nature. And yet, if 100 different actors play Hamlet, hitting all the same marks, reciting all the same lines, cannot each one bring something unique to that role?