Pro Restaurant Design is a collaboration of experts and resources for restaurateurs in the beginning stages of opening a business to an established business that wants to refresh their current state or add or create additional outreaches to their patrons.

Our resources include:

  • Restaurant Interior Design
  • Restaurant Web Design
  • Restaurant Web Marketing
  • Products Marketing
  • Social Media tutorials and Social Media Marketing Packages
  • Graphic Design
  • Menu Creation and much more…

Contact us today to see what we can do for you.

Use Promotional Pens As Cost Effective Restaurant Marketing Tools


Anyone who runs a restaurant knows that it is essential to promote their establishment. Many successful restaurants give out promotional pens for their advertising and marketing needs. These pens are relatively low cost items and ensure that your restaurant’s name and logo are prominently displayed.  Promotional pens are an essential part of every successful restaurant’s marketing plan to help your restaurant grow into the future.

Promotional pens are one of the most effective promotional tools in the restaurant industry. Rick Thomas, manager at one of the largest restaurant franchises across the U.S. recently purchased 200,000 promotional pens from BIC Promo Pens, for him “these promotional pens are a great way to spread the word and remind customers of their dining experience.”

Restaurants can choose logo pens that are in line with their color scheme and with their logo imprinted. They are easily handed out to people who are passing by, can be sent in the mail and also given to customers after they have dined or provided to serving staff to use when guests sign their credit card receipts.

Many restaurants are small family run businesses that do not have gigantic marketing budgets and promotional pens offer a cost effective way of promotion. They are great marketing tools that give you the opportunity to build customer relationships and show your appreciation.

Bic Promo Pens has hundreds of BIC Pens that can be printed with your logo and details. There are many types of promotional pens available, including the BIC Round Stic, BIC Grip Roller, and BIC Clic Stic pens. Starting from as low as $0.26 a unit, BIC Promo Pens has just the right pens available for your advertising needs. They are the top provider online and can deliver your order to any city within the United States within 48 hours. All of the products are guaranteed and the more you buy, the more you save. Bic Promo Pens will assist you in finding just the right pens for your marketing needs.

To save on your first order of promotional pens, contact www.BICPromoPens.com today.

Using FaceBook Deals to get more customers to your restaurant


Over 2010 FaceBook perfectly executed their plan to compete with Foursquare in the location based Geo-Tagging arena. 2011 will see the rise of FaceBook deals.

What are FaceBook Deals?

FaceBook deals are a way for people to check-in to a physical business location using their mobile phone (iPhone app or any HTML-5 enabled mobile device via facebook) in order to get a deal or discount of some kind. This is done by using FaceBook places, there are currently over 200 million users of FaceBook mobile worldwide & that number is rapidly growing. The service is now available to all businesses in the USA. It is being slowly introduced to other countries such as UK, Canada, France, Italy, Germany & Spain. If you live any of the latter countries you must contact a FaceBook representative who will help you set up your campaign for your business.

How can FaceBook Deals be used for restaurants?

FaceBook deals are an ideal way to get new customers into your store by providing them with an incentive to come and dine there for the first time. They can be utilized to encourage loyalty and keep those customers coming back time and time again. They can be used to get large groups of people to come to your restaurant & you can even serve the wider community by taking part in a charity deal.

There are two main aspects to deals…

Firstly, it will mean a higher foot fall & more business done within your premises because of the deals themselves. Secondly, each time someone checks in to your restaurant it will create a story on that persons FB wall & potentially go into their friend’s newsfeeds as a story. The average user has 130 friends, many of whom may also live locally to your restaurant. They can potentially see that your restaurant is doing deals & take advantage of your special offer their selves. I’m sure you can see the viral potential this could have for your business. It’s word of mouth facilitated by technology.

What types of deals are there?

There are four types of FaceBook deals…

  1. Individual Deals – This type of deal is a one off for a single customer. Someone checks in they get a deal. An example may be “Buy one main course & get a free starter”.
  2. Loyalty Deals – This is the perfect way to get repeat business. This type of deal can be redeemed after a customer makes multiple check-ins. An example may be “Buy five cups of coffee on five different days & get the sixth for free”
  3. Friend Deals – This requires more than one person to check-in at one time in order to redeem the deal. This not only means more people in your restaurant coming in as a group but the story is also shared on all their FB walls & will get more visibility. An example may be “Four people check-in together to get 25% off the entire bill”
  4. Charity Deal – This is a great way to show goodwill. For every deal redeemed you promise to donate some money to a good cause. An example may be “We will donate $1 to charity when you spend $10 or more”

FaceBook deals are still relatively unheard of so get in quick whilst the service is cheap. FaceBook are planning to charge more for the service in the future once it is has become more established. Take advantage of this now before your competitors find out about it.

Go to http://www.facebook.com/deals/business/ to sign up for the service & create the first deal for your restaurant.

About the Author. Joseph Bushnell is an Internet Marketing Consultant from the UK. You can receive more tips about Social Media Marketing over at his blog.

How Twitter Can Help Your Restaurant Make Money

Twitter For RestaurantsI have been working with the internet for quite some time now and I have seen some pretty strange things, some very useful things, and a lot of mediocre things. Can you believe the internet was already a teenager before the first web page went live? One of the strangest and most useful applications to appear on the web in the past decade is Twitter.

Twitter brands itself as a social networking / microblogging service. It’s more than a newsfeed and less than story. And though it is a business tool for your restaurant, it’s a showcase for your business’s personality. People want to know the people behind the restaurant. Trust me when I say that your Twitter followers think you are more interesting than the work you do. Make sure to utilize the bio opportunity on Twitter to showcase what’s interesting about you and your restaurant. The connections you make on Twitter are valuable because you get to interact with customers. That’s not to say customers don’t want to know anything about your restaurant. Of course they do.

So while you spend some time tweeting about your dog’s antics or your new car, don’t waste opportunities for restaurant buzz. There are tons of coupon and deal sites emerging on the internet every day. The one thing they have in common is that most of them charge you to present your deal of the day to their readers. These sites do work; and for many they work well. However, many businesses claim that they were pushed in to lowering prices so much that it not only harmed their business in the short term, it also provided no long-term benefit either. Twitter is different because it gives you the ability to broadcast daily or even hourly specials if you so desire. For example, when I tweet my favorite burger stand, they’ll give me a small discount when I show up. Because of this, I’ve told many of my friends to follow them on Twitter, as well.

Along the same lines, showcase specials on your menu, too. I follow a cupcake stand on Twitter, and I’ve found myself pulling in there on my home from work because I saw a tweet about new cupcake flavor that really sounded good in that moment. I never would have done that if I didn’t follow them on Twitter. Because most people on Twitter also have it on mobile appliances, there are opportunities to reach people while they are out and about.

It’s important that you follow the people who follow you. Twitter is not about collecting fans. It’s about interaction. If you engage with your followers, the ability of Twitter to draw customers through your doors will grow geometrically over time. Here’s the main takeaway: If you want to be effective on Twitter you shouldn’t fully separate your business life with your personal life. The connections you make may be slow, but that is okay. The investment in Twitter is small. It takes little time to set up, only a few minutes a day to manage, it’s free to use, and it reaches a group of people who are loyal their Twitter application and ready to spread your tweets.

J. Salvage is a love of both food and technology. She is so glad the two have finally found each other.

How to Get Started with Social Media for your Restaurant

Everybody knows that you have to be using social media these days to boost your business, but there are so many different platforms and products on offer that it can be hard to know where to start. In some cases it can even be hard to know why to start! In this post we’ll examine why you should be using social media to reach out to the customers of your restaurant, and what you can do today to get started.

What is Social Media For?

Many restaurants make a huge mistake when they start to use social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, because they use it simply as a means to tell people about their brand. They do this because they are tied to the old media notion of paid advertising and think social media works the same way. Facebook and Twitter can be used as a bulletin board to post free advertising about your brand, but really, who would be interested in that?

Social media tools are great for building relationships. Why are relationships important to your restaurant? It should be obvious, but relationships mean customers that feel a connection to your establishment. At the very least, this can lead to returning customers, but the pay off is when they become real advocates for your restaurant.

Where to Start

The obvious places to start are Facebook and Twitter. If you do not have a personal Facebook account, you will need one before you can build a page for your restaurant. Once you have your own account, you can build your restaurant’s page in much the same way as you built your profile page. Visit Facebook Pages to start creating your page. You can also set up an account on Twitter very easily. When choosing your user name it should be recognizable as your restaurant but also be as short as possible. This will be make it easier for other users to re-tweet your content, spreading your message that little bit further.

First Steps

Now that you have a page set up on Facebook, you’ll need to add a little content. The pages on Facebook have recently been redesigned to make the most out of pictures. Restaurants lend themselves well to photography, so you can really present the best of yourself using the image strip on your page. You’ll need some high quality images relating to your restaurant, so it make be worth hiring a professional photographer. The chances are that you’ll have someone on staff that can take a half decent picture, so try using the resources you have in your own team before outsourcing. If you’re stuck for ideas, consider taking some pictures of your best dishes, the interior of your restaurant and one of you handsome Maître d’.

To help gain some exposure for your Facebook page, it can help to launch with some sort of promotion linked to customers that ‘like’ you on Facebook. If you have a webpage for your business you should use the ‘like widget’ somewhere it will be noticed on your main site. You may need to speak to your web-developer to make this happen, but it is as simple as copying and pasting a very simple line of code that Facebook provides, so don’t let them fleece you!

You can also link your Facebook page to your Twitter account, which means everything you post to Facebook will be automatically sent to your Twitter followers, too. A message will pop up on Facebook encouraging you to do this, and following the steps is very simple.

Using Social Media Regularly

Once you have your social media tools in place, your objective should be to connect with your customers as often as you can. With social media, content is king. You’ll want to be giving something of interest to your customers regularly to keep them engaged. As your fan base grows you will increase the reach that your new social network will have. As your fans start to interact with you, their friends will start to see this activity in their news feeds, ultimately spreading the message about how good the service or food is at your restaurant.

The key to producing successful content regularly is to add value for your growing community of followers. For example, don’t simply repeat the phrase ‘Come to our restaurant’, but instead give your customers new reasons to do so. If you are hosting a special event, tell your fans and followers. If you can provide a special deal, let you fans know first: good news spreads! Also, consider asking directly for feedback. If you are launching a new special, be sure to ask your fans what they think of it. Asking for feedback like this is a great way to increase the interactivity of your page, which means you will show up more often in the news feeds of your fans’ friends.

Building Relationships by Listening

The most important thing to do with social media is to listen. No one ever forged a strong relationship by ignoring the comments of the other person, and the same goes online. If you receive criticism via your social media sites, don’t just delete the comments and hope nobody saw them: engage with the issues. If a customer cares enough to tell you they have a problem with something, then they are a customer worth keeping. Thank them for their feedback, address their concerns and remain positive. Don’t take it personally, and resolve the issues publicly. Showing your fans that you care and listen is the best way to build a dedicated group of customers.

This guest post was written by Jackson, the Social Media Coordinator for Dealsguide. When he’s not working on Dealsguide, you can find his professional musings at the blog All Daily Deals.

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How iPads generated massive buzz for new restaurant chain

The new “fast-casual plus” restaurant concept Stacked, created massive newsworthy buzz using hot and trendy innovation.

At Stacked, guests will use iPads mounted at the table to select signature items from the menu or build their own meal from options that will include hamburgers, pizza, salads or sausages. Once the order is placed on the iPad, a server will deliver the food to tables and tend to guests. At the end of the meal, guests can pay by using a card-swipe system.

Now, this isn’t the first time iPads have been used at a food establishment. Restaurants across the country have increasingly found uses for Apple’s iPads including using the portable devices for their wine lists and others, as a point-of-sale ordering system.

What’s notable is how much traction this latest announcement has made for the restaurant chain. In our ongoing series, Pro Restaurant Design will serve up the hottest tips for offline and online marketing, reputation management, social media, website and commercial interior design for restaurants and other establishments in the food industry.

Pro Restaurant Marketing Tip:

Here’s the good news: Coupling a traditional restaurant industry with innovative ideas and technology can create an amazing amount of newsworthy buzz online like it has for Stacked. This type of publicity can really boost a restaurant’s visibility with news and other food or tech related sites reporting on topics in the restaurant industry. This also is a perfect opportunity to get inbound links from “authority” sites which in turn will give the restaurant more visitor traffic to their site and a higher page rank for certain keywords.

With the announcement came a massive missed opportunity: The site for Stacked.com isn’t anywhere to be seen in the first page of Google’s search results even after this huge announcement. A search for “Stacked restaurant” or “Stacked” should at least show the restaurant’s site in the top 10 for it’s own name. In fact, any organization should show up for its own name especially if its a unique name. If the site doesn’t, search engine optimization really should be considered.

There’s always room for improvement: When creating a press release or any other notable news for online purposes, make sure your hyper-linked domain name is used in the content. For best practices, add the link in the first paragraph since some sites simply link to the main article by copying the description or beginning paragraph. These links help generate “popularity” from outside sites and help the site they’re pointing to show up higher in the search results.

Not sure what all this means? No worries, we’ll explain SEO in detail in another segment of our series.

As for Stacked, the two founders of BJ’s Restaurants Inc., Paul Motenko and Jerry Hennessy say the first location of the new brand will open in May 2011 in Torrance, Calif. Two more locations are expected to open this year in San Diego and Cerritos, California.

I know I’m looking forward to experiencing a touch of digital ordering mixed with some decent eats. See you at Stacked!

Upcoming Stacked Locations:

Del Amo Fashion Center
3525 W. Carson Street
Torrance, CA 90503
Opening Spring 2011

Fashion Valley
7007 Friars Road
San Diego, CA 92108
Opening Summer 2011

Los Cerritos Center
18425 Gridley Road
Cerritos, CA 90703
Opening Fall 2011

Restaurants take service to a whole new level with mobile tech

Text My Food is a texting service catering to the restaurant industry where patrons can order a new round of drinks, appetizers, desserts or even request their check right from their mobile device.

This technology works great for restaurants wanting to give their patrons another level of service to keep ahead of the competition. This texting service is particularly great when your server is out of view or at another table especially when servers seem to disappear for a long amount of time right when you’re ready to pay for your check.

Text My Food increases restaurant cover average and adds a new element to the guest experience. Guests can use the system to make short requests for additional drinks, appetizers, desserts, the check, and other items, if their server is out of view. The guest simply sends a text message from their cell phone to the system’s touch-screen display station. By making it easier and even fun to order that second round and additional appetizers, guests are ordering more at the restaurants where the system is in use. The system can also send out promotions to guests who have opted in to receive them which adds another opportunity to reach out to your loyal patrons.

All in all, Text My Food could be a great new solution for the restaurateur to help grow restaurant revenue and enhance their guest experience. Why Text My Food? Easy:

  • Sell more drinks, sides, and desserts
  • Provide the ultimate in service
  • Draw in young professional guests who send over 5 billion text messages daily
  • 5x return on investment – pays for itself during the first week
  • Simple installation

For more information contact Text My Food:

Text My Food LLC.
One Broadway, 14th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
info@TextMyFood.com
617-444-9998
http://www.TextMyFood.com/

Restaurant Resources For The Restaurateur

Pro Restaurant Design aims to be the top resource for restaurateurs. Restaurant owners, managers and others in the food industry can follow Pro Restaurant Design’s blog to hear about the latest tips and trends for traditional offline marketing as well as online marketing tips for new or established restaurants. Topics will range from social media, search engine optimization, commercial restaurant interior design to best practices and usability for restaurant website design, reputation management and more.

If you own a bar, restaurant, grill, sandwich shop, 5 star restaurant, deli, or anyone in the restaurant and food industry make sure to follow our RSS feed for the latest and greatest tips to get more people through your door.