Tag Archives: Foodie

March 15, 2013 · 8:32 am

The Charcoal Experience

Foodie Friday Fun time! With the start of daylight saving time last weekend, my thoughts turn to a food-related topic: grilling. It’s hard to go outside in the winter to fire up the grill when it’s dark by the time you need to cook dinner. While I own a little miner’s lamp I can wear to see the grill surface in the dim light, it’s certainly not as easy as when the sun is till shining. Then there is the fact that it’s 35 degrees…

English: Preparing grill for grilling, grill w...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have an indoor gas grill and we put it to use over the winter, but there’s nothing like grilling over hot coals. Which spurred a thought about technology, of course.

Lots of people I know own gas grills they use outdoors. There’s no question that this little bit of technology has made their lives easier, just as the high-powered vents that allow us to use our indoor gas grill do. But the technology hasn’t made the food any better. In fact, I think most things cooked on a gas grill taste flat – they lack the grilled flavor that charcoal imparts. Or worse – they have an artificial taste that comes from the gas.  Better technology but a worse experience.

Think about how that same principle translates into other things. There’s no question email has made communication easier in business but I think the “flavor” of the communication is worse. It lacks nuance and a personal touch.  Like the gas grill it’s faster, easier, and more convenient.  But better?  I don’t think so.

Getting lost in the “newness” of something can blind us to the fact that it’s delivering a lesser experience.   There’s new technology every day, it seems, and I worry that a good deal of it will just pull us further apart from reality even as it enhances our ability to communicate what’s going on around us.  The next time you’re at a concert or a school play, take note of how many people are “experiencing” the moment through a video screen instead of paying attention to the reality that’s in front of them.   They’re keeping a better record of the experience thanks to the technology but do they have a better memory?

Give me charcoal – a technology that’s been around for centuries – any time.  You?

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March 8, 2013 · 11:39 am

Tips

The end of a snowy, wet week here in the Northeastern US and it makes me glad we can have a little Foodie Friday Fun.  We usually go out to eat on Friday nights and as we did so last week I got to thinking about how servers get paid.  That, in turn, lead to a broader thought about restaurants in general and how their business has changed with the growth of social.  Let me explain.

Servers work primarily for tips.  There’s usually some sort of minimum wage paid but their livelihood depends on the instant feedback a tip provides.  Bad service can mean a couple of hours working for not much money.  Doing a great job can mean extra cash.  Oh sure – in some places  tips are pooled and a good server gets shafted while the lazy ones and the owner take an equal share.  For the most part, however, how much you earn is tied to how well you do your job.  As an aside, that’s why I rarely leave a bad tip – unless there was no service or it was an absolute disaster the server did some work for me and they should be paid.

It’s an interesting dynamic.  The server can be perfectly competent but if the kitchen is badly run the service seems to be a mess as well.  The difference is the cooks are all on salary in most places while the servers can suffer the consequences.  Where the overall operation feels the pain is in the magnifying effect of social media.  A bad experience used to be a secret.  Today they’re aggregated, searched, and considered as people make their dining decisions.  It can kill a business or it can help everyone involved to do very well.  Why do I bring this up?

We should all operate as if we’re servers.  While for some of us compensation can be tied directly to how well or poorly we do our jobs, for most people in corporate life we make what we make – compensation is something we negotiate when we’re hired even if some of it might be tied to a bonus or to stock holdings.  We don’t go home most days with a paycheck that mirrors how well we performed.  Too bad – it might force a lot of people to consider the performance more often.

What would you earn if everyone with whom you came in contact had the option to tip you for the job you did?  What kind of tips would you give out to those with whom you’ve chosen to do business?   Something I’m thinking about as the week comes to an end.  You?

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March 1, 2013 · 11:53 am

Mobile meals

I’m delinquent in sharing today’s bit of Foodie Friday Fun since it revolves around a study done in January.  The IAB  and Viddle looked into how people are using their mobile devices to order food and the results are instructive for most businesses, not just restaurants.

English: This is actually Tom's Restaurant, NY...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the “Mealtime Goes Mobile” survey, 60% of us order takeout food or delivery once a week (yes, even those of us who love to cook sometimes can’t make the time!).  In fact, 2% identify themselves as doing so every day, although I’m sure I good portion of that involves lunch.  As one might expect, pizza, chinese food, and sandwiches and burgers head the list of the types of food ordered most often.

This is where it gets instructive   44% of people use mobile devices to check phone numbers (“mobile devices” includes tablets and we know most tablet use is in the home).  Significant numbers also use them to find locations, check menus, and to find coupons.  Obviously, incentives such as coupons are a big driver of business, but so is ease of use.  In fact, over a third expressed an interest in an app that remembered past orders.

What’s instructive is this – any restaurant that hasn’t done a few things is clearly missing out on a huge potential market.  A website not optimized for mobile is a big problem.  Since half of consumers have installed at least one restaurant app and 15% have three or more installed, investing in app development is another factor that restaurants should be planning as part of their marketing budgets.  The same points probably apply to your business, but unless you’ve taken the time to check your analytics, how would you know?  Using the segmentation ability to check bounce rates and user habits within the mobile segment and comparing it to the web segment makes sense.  Integrating non-digital behaviors with those report is possible, although harder (and a much longer explanation than you or I would like on a Friday!).

As we all know, consumer behaviors are changing a lot.  Are we changing our businesses along with them?

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