restaurant

There’s Nobody Home

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header_012I spent the morning driving around, dropping off award certificates.  One of our clients is the review site CNYDining.com , and they asked us to create and deliver award certificates to the last several places to which they'd given 4 star or better reviews.  So, loaded up with the freshly printed awards, I made my rounds of the city of Syracuse.

I realize that it's the Friday before the holiday that officially kicks off the summer season, but every place I stopped – except one – had the second string on today.  My first stop was a donut shop that's only open early in the morning.  A part-timer was on, and she thought the award was cool, and put it aside for the owner.  Things went. . . well, not exactly down hill from there, but things started to get skewed.  I visited a place that didn't open 'til noon, and scooted off again.  The next guy just shrugged and smiled.  The following restaurant was the one where the manager was still on duty.  However, she looked like I was presenting her with a bill.  I explained what it was, and she cheered right up.

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Give Them Free Rum

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My wife and I just returned from St Martin in the Caribbean.  We were staying on the French side (there's also a Dutch side to the island) in the town of Grand Case.  Yes, it was a vacation, but I'm always on the lookout for new and unique marketing ideas.  Sometimes, like on this trip, I get whacked over the head with how effective "the basics" are, and how time-tested techniques can – and should – be used.

Grand Case is the culinary capitol of the Caribbean.  I don't know who first bestowed that sobriquet, but I'd say it fits.  The Boulevard is narrow, with cars parked haphazardly on either side of the street, tourists walking along it and other cars and motorbikes zipping between them.  The Boulevard, at less than a mile long, is also home to 20 or more restaurants.  While some of these are barbecue joints, serving things like pork ribs, chicken and other "home cooked" specialties, most of the restaurants serve fancy French cuisine, mostly in open-air establishments.  Half of these. the ones on the north side of the Boulevard, are right on the beach, and offer spectacular views.

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Restaurant Rants – Part 2

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I used to have lunch at a chain sandwich shop near my office a few times a month.  When they first opened, they were doing a good business.  I enjoyed the place enough that I signed up for the corporate emails, which sometimes included coupons.  I’d print them off and use them in the restaurant.

Granted, the town where I had my office has slid far, far downhill in the last 15 years.  Three major factories closed around 1998, and a lot of the people left in town don’t make anywhere near as much money as they used to.  So any business there is kind of hard.

There was (and still is) another franchised sandwich shop in town.  For years, that chain had been my favorite.  But they’d begun raising their prices to what I consider a ridiculous level, and I was really enjoying the new place anyway.

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Restaurant Rants – Part 1

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I was speaking to a friend of mine today when he asked, “Did you hear the news?”

Seems a small, well-respected Italian restaurant near him is moving down the road into a building that has housed at least three major chain restaurants in the last 30 years.  This building is literally 4 times larger than their current location.

I love this restaurant.  It’s romantic, it’s intimate.  The food is great, and because they can’t fit that many people in the place at one time, it comes out hot, fresh and hand-made just for you.  We lamented the fact that, if the move is real, it will doom this restaurant.  They’ll be out of business by February.

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