The Curtze team, as always, went out of their way to make sure every one of the attendees felt welcome.  Their sales team took the time to introduce us to many Independent Restaurant Owners, some who traveled several hours to be a part of this event.

Curtze Food Fair 2011

Market Source, Fresh Connect, Teri Trost

We enjoyed fabulous and beautifully prepared food samples like the Herbal Lemonade with POM Juice from MarketSource and Fresh Connect.

Special thanks to the Curtze team once again for making it possible for our team to connect with Independent Restaurant Owners.

I actually asked Kathy Danielson of  Performance & Event Management why we didn’t see this and the reason was staring me right in the face.  These companies have huge pieces of equipment geared specifically for outside cooking, storage and refrigeration……something few restaurateurs have at their fingertips.  And it is no small task to staff a 4 day event that runs 11AM-11PM.  So, I get it now!  And now I understand why she asked Diningverse to be a sponsor.  Yep, the restaurants could have a presence and get some exposure without serving food…..brilliant!

Erie Rib Fest 2010

So, in less than a week, with the help of Creative Imprints Systems and Apple Creative Group we got some Diningverse t-shirts made.  We rustled up some coupons and Gift Certificates from Nelson’s Tavern, Lorie’s Wildridge, Ricardo’s and Latino’s. Alice DeGeorge of Presque Isle Printing put together our ballots in a few hours.

During the 4 day event, the Diningverse booth became the hub for supplying water to the Dance Elite Company.  We lured the crowd with handy wipes and “clean” Diningverse t-shirts.  Many signed up as new patrons using our newly launched Simple Sign-in….smooth!

The daily drawings for the dining gift certificates reaped 5 lucky winners: Michael Trayer, Bonnie Lee Mikula, Judy Brown, Jacob Stevenson and Phil Senita. Those that did not win can stay eligible for upcoming contests by becoming a patron of Diningverse.

As we enter tourist season, we want to remind people that local cuisine is never a local secret.  We want people visiting Erie, PA to be able to easily find our local independently owned restaurants. Every town has its own unique flavor, signature food or something that it is noted for.

Although it was just “Ribbers” serving food at the Erie Rib Fest, Diningverse was there promoting local independent restaurants.

I couldn’t help thinking how much things have changed since the origination of this quote. Most of us would agree that there has been a dramatic shift in advertising with the onset of social networking. Perhaps the last line could be updated to: work like hell and socialize.

An effective marketing campaign is now within easy reach of any small business owner armed with a computer and email address. Unfortunately, restaurant owners using it (for advertising) often find it very time consuming. Wading through all the noise on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to capture a targeted audience is no easy task. Recognizing the limitations, they often use these sites to drive traffic to their ‘stand alone’ sites. But, those ‘stand alone’ sites must then compete against everything else on the Internet, further complicating the ability to search for them. Whew, where will it all end?

I often hear Independent Restaurant Owners (IROs) blame chain restaurants and the ugly economy for putting them on the endangered species list. But, at Diningverse, we felt that the real problem was often the inability to find these little dining gems; so, connecting IROs with locavores seemed like the right thing to do. Patrons create their own dining universe, right down to suggesting and recommending the restaurants, making Diningverse the place for locavores to socialize.

Which takes me to that patron’s suggested restaurant…..Ted’s Montana Grill. With multiple locations, it certainly appears like a franchise. And, since the Diningverse mission is to help folks find local dining gems, I wasn’t sure if it fit our description of “local”. Yet, isn’t it the call/duty of Restaurant Owners and Patrons to let us know if a restaurant should be included on Diningverse? After all, they are the end users. Ted’s Montana Grill does have a home town feel. Everything is done with a goal to “do good” as he puts it; from being eco-friendly to staffing each location. His restaurants stand as a good example of “doing the right thing”….respecting people and the environment, which is likely why it was suggested.

Since every restaurant listed on Diningverse must have its own web profile, perhaps it could be viewed as the great equalizer of all (suggested) restaurants. It levels the playing field for ‘single location’ restaurants, yet it gives corporate owned restaurants a home town feel. In many ways, because they are patron suggested/recommended, they enhance each other when they appear side by side within a given location.

So, I guess the jury is out…..and Ted, if you are listening, what do you think of replacing “advertise” with “socialize”?

The general consensus of the attendees was literally, shock. Most of them didn’t think of Facebook as a marketing tool, much less a management tool. And I can tell you, there was a crowd of folks asking him questions after his short commentary.

We are experiencing a pretty ugly economy and many small businesses are scrambling to be noticed on a very limited advertising budget. This has really set the economic climate for the explosive growth in social networking….creating a virtual stage where the tickets are free and a business can perform 24/7 to a packed house.

Many Independent Restaurant Owners are seeing social networking as their stage to effectively compete against chain restaurants; and Diningverse is a great example. Most cannot afford the price of a billboard, or commercials that air during the Super Bowl or Olympics. But for $79/month, they can level the playing field with a content rich web profile on Diningverse.

At first glance, Facebook appears to be a good place to start for independent restaurant owners. But upon deeper inspection, it lacks the tools Diningverse provides that are industry specific.  Let’s face it, when you are hungry, you have little interest in reading what is on a restaurant’s Wall. You want to know what is in the area and how to get there. If you have a particular cuisine in mind, well….you get it.

….so, say hello to Diningverse, “your entree to local restaurants”.

It’s very simple, restaurant owners/managers should check on Diningverse whether their restaurant has been already suggested by Diningverse patrons and their Basic profile added. They can browse for their restaurant name in the local area where their restaurant is located. While on the Basic profile page, simply click the link below ‘this is a basic profile’ sticky note and arrive on the Upgrade page.

In case the restaurant is not yet listed on Diningverse, restaurant owners/managers should just sign-up for a restaurant manager account and add their restaurant profile directly.

The Free Month trial will start automatically for every full restaurant profile. The restaurant will not be charged anything for the first full month and the full profile can be cancelled (or ‘downgraded’ back to basic profile) at any time during the trial period. After that, should the restaurant manager decide to keep the full profile, Diningverse will charge $79/month. There is no set-up fee, no contract, no obligation. “If you like it, keep it. Otherwise, cancel or downgrade at any time.”

What kind of question is that? Of course you can!   And here’s how you can get some magic from the Diningverse Wizard (a.k.a. DWizard).

Get out there and recommend all your favorite restaurants during the month of September. DWizard is going to use his digital abacus to keep track of all those recommendations.

On midnight, September 30, 2009, DWizard will wave his magic wand and the digital abacus will print a report containing ONE randomly chosen recommendation.

DWizard will then send his e-Pigeon to notify the author of the randomly selected recommendation.  If you are the lucky author, you’ll get to select any restaurant listed on diningverse.com and DWizard will promptly dispatch a $50 dining gift certificate for that restaurant to you.

You guessed it, the more recommendations entered during this period, the better your chances of being selected by DWizard’s digital abacus.  Maybe invite a buddy to share in the fun….agree if either wins to split the loot and dine together!

Diningverse is re-posting this information with Alistair’s permission… thank you Alistair!

Your website will be an essential marketing tool for your business. If done properly it can become one of your best ways of generating customer leads. In 2009 having a website is a “necessary evil” and a cost of doing business. As hospitality is an industry with a large number of youngsters brought up in a web world it shows them that you are a modern and up-to-date business. It is not necessary to have an expensive and flashy design, but it is more important to follow these necessary basics:

1. Capture visitor data in exchange for a free voucher or download. For example, “Free bottle of house wine for couple’s dining on a Tuesday night”.
2. A powerful headline to gain attention
3. A body of text explaining “what’s in it for me?” This should include your unique selling points
4. Proof of quality food or service – testimonials (Diningverse provides these automatically in form of patron recommendations)
5. Guarantee – nothing to lose, take away the risk, offer to pay for the same meal in a similar local restaurant if they are unhappy
6. Have a call to action or a postscript. Instruct your customer what to do next i.e. call for a booking, fill in the contact form etc. People actually like being told what to do next. If you are running a promotion ensure you have a cut off date, which provides urgency, or offer the prize only to the first 10 respondents to show scarcity.
7. You might also consider putting on photographs of your team, particularly if they have a long period of service and are well known in the area. (Diningverse provides this through an intuitive photo albums functionality)
8. Prices. Never be afraid to advertise your price. You know it is value for money. You don’t do cheap food! When you have promotions and special offers, include these on your homepage so that visitors can see what benefits you offer. This way your prospects will know exactly what to expect. Advertise your prices for a period of time to see if you receive more bookings. You maybe surprised how much faster people will call you if they know how much they are going to pay. (Diningverse allows creating and editing of multiple menus including pricing and item descriptions)

It should come as no surprise that our High Five goes to William N. Roemer and his recommendation for Road Island Diner in Kamas, Utah, since William created a pretty good odds for himself with 44 recommendations so far. Now that’s one prolific Diningverse patron and he deserves a High Five from the entire Diningverse community and definitely from all the restaurants he has recommended.

The variety and geographic spread of his recommendations is incredible. It is worth while to read a few of them, they are truly very engaging and majority of them quite funny.

Now we wait until we hear back from William with his restaurant pick so that we can send him the $55 dining gift certificate. We’ll post his choice here as a comment.

ALSO…

We have decided to send a Little High Five to Linda Branch, who also had an incredibly strong finish and posted the 554th recommendation (and a bunch more before that). So far Linda posted 30 recommendations and it appears that she is just getting warmed up. We are going to send her a “consolation prize” in the form of $20 dining gift certificate.

Congratulations William and Linda.

Stay tuned because we are just getting started. We have a more contests in our hopper. Keep recommending and keep exploring. It’s a tasty world out there, so let everyone know.

We like things simple, so we elected to stay minimalistic with the design. Please let us know whether you like it or if you feel that the blog is now too simple and needs some further jazzying up. You can just leave a comment blow.

Here is the original Diningverse logo:

Original Diningverse Logo

As you can see, it is black and blue. Our concern was that these are not very food related colors and on top of that, the font was not modern enough.

So, we decided to modernize the logo and make the brand relate better to food. Here is the new logo:

New diningverse logo

Also, as you can see, the logo starts witl lower case “d”. So, we are going to write the name as diningverse, unless it appears at the beginning of a sentence. Then it becomes Diningverse. Writing the name with lowercase “d” at the beginning of a sentence just looked strange.

The overall design of the site will also start using green and orange accents, rather than the blueish theme from before.