Archive for Web Site
August 2, 2006 at 1:44 pm · Filed under Advice, Free, Internet, Research, Resource Site, Web Site
If you would like to hear how others in the restaurant, hospitality, and foodservice industry feel about a topic, then visiting and/or participating in a discussion forum can be very helpful. While there are some fee-based membership forums for restaurant owners, here are some message boards where restaurant folks are talking for free:
Foodservice.com’s Industry Discussion Forums
sample forums:
Restaurant Biz Talk
TechTalk – Restaurant POS / Software
Chefs and Cooks Corner
Chef2Chef’s Professional Community Forums
sample forums:
Ask a Chef! Get an Answer!
Restaurant Equipment Forum
Wine Beer Spirit and Beverage Forum
Topix’s Restaurant Management Forum
Restaurant Report’s “The Great Debates” and “Question & Answer“
StarChefs’ Message Board
ChefTalk’s Cooking Forums
Atlanta Cuisine’s Restaurant Talk
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August 1, 2006 at 12:33 pm · Filed under Advice, Article, Financial, Free, Marketing, Menu, Resource Site, Web Site
RRG – Restaurant Resource Group provides financial management tools and support services. The site contains fee-based information, services, and products, but their site also has a free “Tips & Articles” section with many interesting pieces.
Here are samples titles:
“10” Restaurant Financial Red Flags
Counting Your Beans with Confidence…A QuickBooks Primer for the Startup Restaurateur
How To Win The Menu Pricing Game
Restaurant Marketing: An Art and Science
link: RRG’s Archived List of Featured Articles & QuickBooks Tips
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July 28, 2006 at 10:30 am · Filed under Advertising, Advice, Article, Free, Marketing, Newsletter, Resource Site, Web Site
excerpt:
“Delivering measurable increases in food and beverage revenues can be achieved with simple restaurant promotional techniques available to big budgets and shoestring marketers alike. There are thousands of possible tactics you can employ to drive revenues without any reliance on mass media advertising.
Here are 10 of the best restaurant promotion ideas to get your own creative marketing wheels turning:
Restaurant Promotions Tactic 1. Publicity stunts – Stunt is a word with negative connotations for restaurant owners, but I wanted to use a word that conjured up images that are different than traditional press relations efforts…”
source: “10 Tactics for Driving F&B Sales” (Quantified Marketing Group)
Quantified Marketing Group has an archive of restaurant marketing articles, here are some sample topics:
Restaurant Marketing Plan
Best Practices in Email Marketing
Restaurant Positioning
link: Quantified Marketing Group’s Restaurant Marketing Articles
QMG also offers a free newsletter which offers advice about restaurant marketing.
Click here for the July 06 newsletter.
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July 22, 2006 at 9:45 am · Filed under Free, Internet, Manager, Reference, Resource Site, Web Site
AllFoodBusiness.com has an incredible list of links to free restaurant checklists, forms, and posters for owners and managers. This site is a wonderful resource for anyone in the restaurant business and deserves further exploring. They have collected links from all over the internet and made it easy to find information.
sample titles:
Restaurant Market Analysis
Guidelines for Storing Frozen Foods
Manual Dishwashing Procedures Poster
Employee dismissal form
link: AllFoodBusiness.com’s Restaurant Forms and Checklists
You may need a free Adobe Acrobat PDF reader to view some of the documents.
The site is filled with free articles, resources, and advice. It is a site that is using the internet to help all restaurant owners improve their operations and share knowledge.
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July 21, 2006 at 9:58 am · Filed under Advice, Customer Service, Free, Marketing, Resource Site, Tools, Waitstaff, Web Site
“FHG International Inc., is a Canadian based boutique consulting firm specializing in the foodservice, franchise and hospitality industries.
…FHG has worked with clients to developed successful restaurant, franchise and hospitality businesses, conduct operational reviews, feasibility studies, market research, corporate restructuring, strategic planning, master planning, valuations and litigation support.”
link: FHG International’s Article Archive
sample titles:
Menu Planning: A Systematic Methodology
Marketing By Design
Service Timetable – A practical guide to efficient service
also available for free:
Book – “Restaurant Staff Service Tips”
Software – “MENUMANAGER©”
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July 18, 2006 at 9:22 am · Filed under Advice, Internet, Resource Site, Training, Web Site
“Tip20!com is the internet’s number one resource for service industry information, tipping practices and industry standards. Please select the category below that suits your needs. Please feel free to browse all categories and give yourself an education in all of the different pieces that make up restaurant and bar industry.”
link: Tip20!com
Article archive includes the folliowing titles:
Scheduling Basics for Restaurant Managers
Scheduling for Slackers
Office Romance
link: Tip20.com Article Archive
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July 17, 2006 at 9:16 am · Filed under Blog, Competition, Free, Internet, Resource Site, Web Site
excerpt:
“Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Ferociously tracking more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand.”
link: Springwise – Food & Beverage ideas
sample posts:
Happy Healthy Meals
Dessert-only Restaurants
Indian Fast Food
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July 8, 2006 at 11:52 am · Filed under Advice, Blog, Free, Web Site
excerpt:
“David Scott Peters, restaurant expert, is offering a weekly Web log, or blog, for independent restaurant owners.
“Independent restaurant owners are some of the hardest working individuals out there. I want to reach them in a variety of ways, and logging on for a quick message once a week is usually something these business owners have time for,” said Peters. “I give them quick and effective tips for their time.”
To read Peters’ weekly blog, visit www.davidscottpeters.net. Although Peters does offer several members-only products, his blog has no restrictions on who can view it.”
source: “David Scott Peters Provides Free Restaurant Profit Tips for Independent Restaurant Owners on Blog” (PRWeb, Jul.7,2006)
link: David Scott Peters’ “Restaurant Profits” Blog
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July 6, 2006 at 3:11 pm · Filed under Advice, Article, Free, Internet, Magazine, Marketing, Newsletter, Resource Site, Web Site
“PMQ.Com – The Pizza Industry’s # 1 Website
With an average of 2500 visitors per day and growing, PMQ.com has blossomed into the pizza industry’s favorite industry internet connection. Those just entering our industry and looking for new suppliers first learn about the pizza business through www.pmq.com.
Every issue of PMQ, dating back to 1997, is here for our visitors to peruse at their leisure. PMQ.com is a veritable treasure trove of pizza industry information.PMQ.com has 24-hour breaking pizza news, experts to address questions, recipes to try and many more valuable resources for today’s competitive pizza operator.”
source: PMQ 2006 Media Kit
link: Pizza Marketing Quarterly (PMQ.com)
Although Pizza Marketing Quarterly (PMQ.com) focuses on, well, pizza, it is an incredible resource for all restaurants. The site is filled with free articles, resources, and advice. It is a site that is using the internet and power of the community to help all restaurant owners improve their operations and share knowledge.
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June 22, 2006 at 10:56 am · Filed under Article, Blog, Customer Feedback, Internet, Manager, Restaurant Review, Web Site
excerpt:
"When Nell Ingerman recently discovered that her favorite neighborhood restaurant — a Mexican place in Manhattan called Baby Bo's Cantina — had boosted prices and swapped enchiladas for wild salmon, she was outraged. She planned to collect complaints and present them to the manager.
But she didn't have to. The restaurant's owner, Bo Quijano, emailed her and promised to bring the old menu back. He'd read a message she'd posted on a popular foodie Internet Web site called Chowhound.com. He even posted an apology, confessing that in a good-faith effort to improve the menu, "I simply got carried away."
To the chagrin of some restaurants and professional food critics, a lot of the most influential — and opinionated — advice on where to eat these days comes from Web sites and blogs…"
source: "Laptop Critics:Where the Web's Foodies Dish" by Steve Stecklow (Wall Street Journal, Jun.17,2006)
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Tips WaiterBell: Advice, Ideas, and Resources for Restaurant Owners 