My aunt and uncle have a Fish & Chip restaurant but no customers...what can be done?

How can I get the word out about their store? Be it online or offline? Store is located in Canada and has been running for 2 years. Food quality is exceptional and overall experience has been considered great by numerous people who've eaten there. BUT...Business today is very bad! Times are tough. Can the store be salvaged? Can something be done to increase visitors? What should I do to help the family operated Fish & Chip store? Make an advertisement in the newspapers? Should I build a website advertising the store? Create flyers and hand them out to every street in the city?

 

I don't think online advertising would work in this case.. I agree times are tough and so many restaurants are going out of business..

You need to try offline advertisng.. Put flyers in local malls, colleges and at places where people hang out.. Try giving huge discount on a particular day of the week or during off times or to teenagers and mention it in the flyers.. You need to surprise and delight your customers so that they keep coming back and spread good word about the restaurant...

Hope that helps,
Anup

 

See the real problem is the location. It's tucked away in a nondescript plaza downtown. On the other hand, a competing fish and chip store does good business because there's a massive high school literally right across from it so they get tons of traffic hence the smart owners having a whole lot of kids deals for all the kids who come on their lunch hours to eat. Relocation is not possible I suppose with the uncle's business so trying the other methods will at least make people aware of its existence. Junk location is the problem.

 

hmm.. that's a huge hurdle to overcome.. The best businesses can be destroyed by poor location choices... You would really need to think out of the box to attract customers.. I would suggest that you try to attract people who stay or work nearby first with good deals till you get a stable volume and then go after big volumes with advertising...

Regards,

 

For catering industry,I think it's necessary to advitise.For example,you can promote the restaurant in some famous
local food related websites.This will really make sense.In addtion,the environment of a restaurant also plays a part.
What's more,try to find some incentive to promote the business.Last but not the least,customer service is very
important.Without good customer service,your customers will not come here again even your food is delicious.

 

Look for partner, i mean like maybe you can partner with grocery shop nearby. Which whoever buy stuff more than $20 receive a free drinks or whatsoever in the fish and chips shop and vice verse ( receive 5% of at grocery shop if you spend 20 bucks at fish and chips shop) . There are more and more way such as partner with Uni, college and stuff like this.

 

And what is the target audience of the restaurant? Is it oriented on rich people or on those who have average income? Is this restaurant for young people or for those who are after 40 or for both of them? Where is it situated? Answer these questions and you'll understand how you should promote the restaurant.

 

Marketing plays very vital role in running and managing of a business. Do the best of your marketing part. All the very best

 

As a PR, marketer myself, there is really no way to give you any kind of sound advice that will help you bring in the kind of traffic your aunt and uncle wants without seeing the place, and whatnot. So I would suggest hiring a PR person who you can talk to face to face.

And even though the economy is bad, many restaurants still thrive.

People still want to go out to eat.

When a particular business is going down hill, it is usually the owners fault.

No offense.

There have been restaurants here in which the owners blamed the economy. Bullshit. They either had bad food, and or they did not keep the advertising up or they did not know how to do it, and or the place looked dirty, awful.

 

Have you tried bandit signs to get traffic?

They work for a lot of different industries and I know some restaurants use them as well.

You can find good info at http://thesignbandits.com on how to use them.

 

What I would do is to try and build an email list for the restaurant so that you always have constant contact with the customers.

The way that I would go about doing this is have a small flyer that is on each table or given with every purchase basically saying Sign up at www.nameofrestaurant.com to be either entered into a draw for a free slap up meal or money off future purchases.

Once you have built up an email list of customers you can then broadcast an email message when business is slow and have a discount night available to only those that are on the restaurant list so that only those who are actually on your list will receive the value for being on it, this will also encourage others to go to the website and register also.

That would be my main idea for this and also consider using adwords for local search of restaruants in the area for advertising.

 

Some excellent advice here! I must forward this thread to my uncle.

 

Phew! That's a good idea. After customers have finished their meals, they can fill out a small survey and leave their email or phone # entering a raffle. This seems pretty cool!

 

Google have a great tool "Local Business Center" there you could describe your business as exact as possible, include your menu, opening times, payment options accepted alone with address, phone, name, etc. You even have the possibility of include the place in a map with traffic advices (how to get there, if there are parking available, if it is paid or not, etc. The best thing is that you also sell discount tickets.

If anybody search in your location for restaurants, fish, etc; you will be on their search results.

I think it is a great possibility of getting new customers

 

Contact local newspapers, magazines, etc, and ask them if they'd like to send a food critic for a free meal in exchange for an honest review of the restaurant. If the experience really is that good, then you'll instantly get some positive press and help boost up the business.

 

I co-own a offline business - here is what I did:

Online
- Create a simple website (only one page) nice design, little overview, address
- Optimize it to rank for related keywords (should not be a big deal - since there won't come up many results on google for "fish and chips town"...
- Submit the restaurant to all online yellow pages for that city
- Submit to google maps

Even if you do not get any visitors to the restaurant from that --- it will only cost you a domain and a couple of hours

Offline
- I would not submit it to the paper yellow pages - we got 1 call in the entire year for a $2000 ad
- Print flyers or coupons and drop them in the mailboxes in the neighboorhood / car windows
- Give all friends / family 50% off - the place should look packed - a empty restaurant scares most people away

 

Small businesses are among the hardest to look after. When the customer base dies some questions need to be asked like;

1) where do my customers come from?
2) is the product right for the market, does it need a refresh?
3) is there simply too much competition?

Once you answer a few basic questions then put a plan of action and offer discounts to certain people during certain times. Do a leaflet drop with the prices in the menu. Maybe even consider doing a local marketing stunt such as frying the worlds biggest fish for a fish and chip shop.

Whatever you do, do not give up.

 

Here are a couple of things to consider.

Print 1000 business cards with a buy one get one free offer. Small print says the cheaper meal is the free one. Pass them out where your shoppers are. We used to have another version that gave away a meal absolutely free. That one was used less frequently as a gift to a customer, vendor etc.

Pick up to go special. The pickup person who picks up x number of to go orders to take back to the office eats free. This needs some limits.

Terrific Tuesday, Wacky Wendnesay, Fantastic Friday---- any day of the week. Every 10th order is free. Assuming cash register prints receipt, every order ending with ___ (pick a digit here) Limit $x in free food.

 

I was interested in restaurant business sometime back and was thinking of something like this - Probably, you could use something similar.

Offer something like 20% discount or something free everytime one of your customer produces your past receipts. Restaurant bill receipts are normally thrown away, but with this, you are creating a coupon out of this. So, people are going to save it for later when they want to eat out again..

You can improvise the following:

- Create a 2 month deadline: So, there is a call to action for people to visit your shop back inside two months
- Use the receipt space creatively. Probably, list all your best food items on the backside of the receipt along with a take-away number. This means even if they are not able to visit the store, they have a menu card and number to order right from their homes.

Another thing, produce a guest book everytime you produce the bill. While asking for food they liked, suggestions, etc. also get their mobile number. Now, you may periodically call people who didn't visit for two months and ask them if you would like a Sunday treat delivered to their homes or SMS them when there is a new item on your store...