How to really WOW guests while eating in your restaurant

Implement a system where you (the restaurant owner) on the slowest night of the week select one or two tables to be your guests for the night. You would surprise and delight them with a dining experience never to be forgotten and they would definitely tell their friends.

Here’s how it could work: When your guest asks for the bill, they won’t get one, instead, they receive a personal letter from the owner, saying that in appreciation of their patronage they are your guests tonight and the meal “is on the house”. This letter could also be used as a news story in a local paper on how restaurants can grow their business by giving.

The restaurant owner could also entice his guests by mentioning that this is done the same day every week. You want to select the slowest day. Guests are picked at random so no one knows who will be chosen. This makes for a fun night for guests, waiters and chefs who are in attendance that night.

How Clean Are The Places We Eat?

We all hear the horror stories about eating out, either upscale in a Ruth’s Chris or fast food chain like McDonalds. I’ve heard everything from bugs crawling to hairs in people’s food and sometimes the wonderful story about animal droppings.

Does it really matter where you eat? What can a restaurant do to prevent these?

I watched a TV show featuring Chef Gordon Ramsey called “Kitchen Nightmares” and it had me thinking. How many restaurants do I go into where I can only trust the management on cleanliness, fresh food and that I won’t get sick? Does the food sit out in the open? Does the meat stay cold enough not to attract any harmful bacteria? Each state has it's own way of inspecting restaurants and people should check out the results before eating out. I’m not sure of what the answer is, tours, dining tables in the kitchen, cooking class or some other way to let the public view behind the traffic doors. A great place to start for owners is the National Restaurant Asscoication.

What Kills Resturaunt's? It's the "WE'LL BE BACK" Trick

Having lunch with the publisher of Today's Restaurant News he told me a story of a close friend of his in the the restaurant business.

His friend had asked him what he thought was wrong with his restaurant as the sales were going steadily south. He said; "Howard, I don't understand it, as the guests leave, they shake my hand, kiss my wife and tell us, "It was wonderful, we'll be back..." but they don't come back, why?

This publisher, Howard Appell, said he did not have the heart to tell his friend all the things he knew was killing his business!

If this operator had any brains, he would start calling his guests the very next morning on the phone and ask if they had a good experience in his restaurant last night.

This operator would then learn that most of guests are a bunch of liars as the very same people who told him; We'll be back," had a very different story to tell him in the privacy of their own home.He would instantly learn and understand why his business was going south!

Then, if a guests had a real bad experience, he should send back all the money including the tip that this poor abused guest had spent in his restaurant along with letter of apology.

In many cases his guests would be thrilled to death over his gesture and send the check back, with reassurance that they indeed would be back to his restaurant.
Some of his guests would cash the check and deduct only what they spent and send the balance of the money back.

This restaurant operator would soon find out that his guests 'trust account' would start to grow along with his increased business.
No guest will ever forget a gesture like that!

Years later this guest will not remember the name of the restaurant, what they eat or whom they had dinner with, but they will all ways remember the check in the mail!

In order to using this idea as a marketing concept to grow your business, you need to allocate 1% of sales to be refunded to "unhappy" guests.

EVERYONE LOVES A BIRTHDAY PARTY...

If you are looking for great ways to promote goodwill, increase traffic and sales, look no further than the guest at your tables, because everybody has a birthday.

66 % of all Americans go out for dinner on their birthday according to National Restaurant Association.

"Get this: Eigthty - one percent of those who were send a birthday card redeemed their offer." said Karla Pavese, co-owner of Cuisina di Amore in Liverpool, New York

"Even a poor restaurant operator like me can afford .27cents for a postcard wishing my guests a happy birthday"

"This marketing strategy is cheap to put in place. Get some comment cards out on the tables today. Once your database becomes bigger you will need to automate the process. The first few months of fulfillment can be done by hand, and the money that you will make will help you buy the initial cost to automate your system"

"Do yourself a favor and get into the birthday business. You will gain a friend instead of a guests when you send a card to him or her. And when you make a friend, you have a guests for life."