The Burgerville QSR chain is using a branded YouTube channel, Burgerville TV, to combine its fresh, local, sustainable food brand message with the support of grassroots community efforts that contribute to the accessibility of sustainable food.

The new branded channel is hosted by president/CEO Jeff Harvey, who introduces the brand-posted videos offered.

In an introductory “Meet the president/CEO” video, Harvey talks about Burgerville’s philosophy and explains that Burgerville TV will let customers in on the behind-the-scenes practices and decisions that go into its menu offerings.

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Smartphones have made it simple to find a restaurant at the last minute. The gastronomic triumvirate of Urbanspoon, Yelp and OpenTable each have well-designed mobile apps for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone users, and they’re all free.

For a reservation, though, there once was pretty much just one choice: OpenTable. It can be a lifesaver when you call a restaurant on the road, only to be told that OpenTable is the only way to reserve. (Crazy but true.)

Some restaurants, smaller ones in particular, balk at OpenTable’s equipment and service fees, though, so the selection can sometimes fall short.

More choices are on the horizon. Urbanspoon, which made a name for itself with an ingenious iPhone app that greatly simplified a restaurant search, late last year offered restaurants mobile apps for taking reservations more cheaply than on OpenTable.

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Tony Crolla has won plaudits and prizes for the quality of his log fired pizzeria, La Favorita and for the Italian cuisine on offer Vittoria on Leith Walk and Vittoria on the  Bridge.

Now he is ensuring the dining experience extends well beyond the three venues by become the first Italian restaurants to interact with customers on their favourite online venues.

Tony has launched both Twitter and Facebook pages for La Favorita and Vittoria, giving his customers the chance to keep up to date with the latest restaurant news, events and offers.

The social media sites also give his customers a platform where they can express their views on the restaurant, inviting them to make suggestions and improvements, ensuring that they get the ultimate dining experience.

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Will electronic media eventually eradicate paper products? The transition is eventual, however one restaurant in Australia is taking the digital step early by ditching its paper-based menus and wine lists. Instead, it will offer customers an iPad running a special application designed to not only list the establishment’s menu, but apparently their ingredients. and other useful information.

“The thirst for knowledge from consumers these days is massive,” said Chris Lucas, owner of the Pearl restaurant located in inner-city Richmond. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s ingredients, origins of produce or wine, and particularly Old World wine, this platform can provide as little, or as much, information as each customer wants. This is not a gimmick. I really reckon this is going to set a precedent.”

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Report from the Department of Inevitabilities: Michael McCarty, the 57-year-old owner of the eponymous New York City restaurant that feeds $36 Cobb salads to the expense-account-fortified media elite, is getting into the content generation business.

This year, he launched a blog and a YouTube channel that airs, for instance, videos with the sommelier. Like any who’s who in media, Mr. McCarty has started contributing to the Huffington Post. A recent entry described a dinner party he cooked for his son’s college buddies. (His son called him, said, “Wassup this Saturday?” and Mr. McCarty served wild salmon and white wine to a crew more used to Taco Bell and Budweiser.)

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An Australian restaurant has ditched printed menus and now hands diners the latest tech-craze, Apple’s touch-screen iPad computer, from which to choose and order their meals.

Risking damaging wine spills and customers taking an iPad “to go”, the Global Mundo Tapas eatery at the Rydges Hotel in North Sydney introduced its new menus this week – within a week of the iPad’s Australian release.

“One of the points of difference for our restaurant was to have a unique menu,” the hotel’s general manager Craig Simpson said on Friday. “Everyone’s excited about the iPad and we’re jumping on the back of that.”

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Since it opened in Midtown Miami, Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill has been well known in the local “twitterverse” for its interaction with followers and diners. Responses are so immediate and personalized you have to wonder if someone’s hiding somewhere in the restaurant monitoring it all. No one is. The person behind the tweets, Joanna Cisowska, is based in New York at the corporate offices of SushiSamba and Sugarcane. And she makes it no secret that she’s a little crazy about Twitter, a tool she hadn’t used much before she started tweeting for Sugarcane.

Cisowska credits Lee Schrager with helping popularity on Twitter. “He came to the restaurant the second or third night we were open and he tweeted about the chicken. That started a huge conversation about the chicken on Twitter. So a big thank you to him.”

Here’s what she told Short Order about her Twitter responsibilities and why she won’t give up tweeting for Sugarcane. She made sure to specify that she does have a life.

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“We’re pretty small and nimble. Up until [four] weeks ago, I was a one-man show for our digital marketing efforts,” said Natalie Bass, Houlihan’s digital marketing manager. Last month, it brought in a contract worker to assist.

With 100 restaurants, Houlihan’s competes with the likes of Applebee’s, which has more than 2,000 restaurants, and T.G.I. Friday’s, which has more than 900 restaurants – and presumably bigger marketing budgets.

Developing a digital marketing strategy at Houlihan’s has meant making tough choices. Houlihan’s did not plunge into developing a branded Facebook page or Twitter account – it just launched @houlihans and plans to roll out a national Houlihan’s page on Facebook in the coming week. The company’s initial social efforts centered on an invite-only online community, called HQ, established in January 2008. And a year later, Houlihan’s expanded into mobile promotions with its Foody Call Club.

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With evidence mounting of  flagrant abuses of PCI-DSS security standards, two attorneys are on the verge of announcing the official filing of a national lawsuit against one of the hospitality industry’s biggest point-of-sale (POS) technology providers and one of its system resellers.  The targets of the upcoming legal action will be Restaurant Data Concepts, Inc. of Warwick, Rhode Island – creators of the POSitouch™ system – and CC Productions of Hoboken, New Jersey, the reseller. POSitouch technology is installed in more than 20,000 restaurants nationwide.

According to the attorneys preparing the lawsuit, Charles Hoff (the Law Offices of Charles Y. Hoff, PC, Atlanta) and Shiel Gallagher (Gallagher & Gupta, PC, Chicago), the companies allegedly sold and installed POS systems that contributed to identity thefts at multiple restaurant locations.  Gallagher and Hoff are still being contacted by new plaintiffs who wish to join the lawsuit, and there is hope that RDC and CC Productions will decide to resolve the situation before it goes to court.

“Frankly, I have seen all kinds of abuses of PCI standards in the industry, but this is as flagrant as it gets,” said Hoff.  “POS vendors have a responsibility to do their part to ensure that their customers use only PCI-certified system applications. These systems should never store sensitive customer credit card information that could be stolen by hackers.” In addition to his hospitality law practice, Hoff lectures on PCI-DSS issues to the restaurant industry and is called in by restaurant associations to assist their members when security breaches occur.  

Hoff and Gallagher have issued notification letters about the developing lawsuit to restaurant associations in all 50 states so that they may alert members.

PCI-DSS is a comprehensive set of technological requirements and consumer protections created primarily by the major credit card companies as part of a PCI Security Council to safeguard merchants from internal security breaches and identity theft. POS system vendors must follow these standards, and any businesses accepting credit cards for payments (such as restaurants) are contractually obligated to use equipment and software from PCI-DSS compliant vendors.  The penalties for retailers that have their systems breached can be massive, even if the problems are the fault of the hardware and software vendors.

At the core of the allegations in the developing lawsuit:

1) POSitouch’s POS system failure: The facts emanating from a forensic audit reveal that POSitouch sold a system that was non-compliant with PCI-DSS.

2) CC Productions’ mismanagement: This POSitouch reseller engaged in flagrant violations of PCI standards that gave rise to the security breaches.  When companies such as CC Productions engage in the support and management of a merchants’ POS application system they need to ensure that they are not engaging in suspect actions that open up the ports so that hackers may penetrate the entire system through malware.     
 
“POSitouch and CC Productions have not been responsive to our efforts to resolve this situation on behalf of their customers,” said Gallagher. “We know there are many more restaurants across the country that have used these companies and could potentially be facing similar frustrations. Our goal is to give all of these customers a voice and resolve the issues that are putting diners at risk.”

While the exact amount of the identify theft losses to banks, the financial losses to the restaurants, fines, investigatory costs, fines imposed by the credit card companies and other costs attributed to fixing the computer systems’ security breaches are still being tallied, the lawsuit is seeking compensation to repay the penalties levied by the credit card companies and the massive costs to track down and repair the POS system problems. According to the attorneys, damages “could run well into seven figures.”

“There are many restaurant owners who are not aware that there may be a potential crisis lurking in their systems and that their businesses and customers may be at risk due to these companies,” said Gallagher.

Restaurant owners using POSitouch and/or CC Productions who are concerned about risk exposure can contact Gallagher and Gupta – (312) 841-1141, positouchclaim@gallagherpc.com.

Rare is the restaurant that doesn’t have a website these days. Even rarer is finding a good one. Elegantly designed and / or witty sites that deliver accurate information swiftly are at a premium. Earlier this month I had to gently point out to a Michelin-starred venue that someone had misspelled ‘restaurant’ in 28-point font on their homepage. That is how seriously many restaurants treat their websites.

Precisely what errors, on a website, might put you – the potential customer – off, may well be a matter of taste. Personally, I can tolerate the odd spelling mistake and, even, the occasional out-of-date menu. Neither inspires confidence, but restaurants are hectic places. Peripheral details can be overlooked. Plus, I am not sure there is a direct correlation between someone’s ability to cook my tea and their punctuation. They’re very different skills.

More damaging, to my mind, are websites which whether by omission or clunky design lack basic information. Lee Rosy’s Tea is a nice cafe and Aumbry an interesting restaurant, but how would you know, when neither website carries a menu?

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Domino’s is the latest big brand to incorporate Foursquare as a promotions tool. The Ann Arbor, MI-based company has launched an initiative in the U.K. where customers who use the geo-social application can earn free pizzas by accruing “check-ins” at store locations, according to a report yesterday in New Media Age.

“Check-ins” record how many times people use the mobile app to show they’ve arrived at a retail store, nightclub, restaurant, etc. When patrons check in more than anyone else and become “mayor” of a Domino’s location, they could get a free pizza. The quick-serve giant’s 553 U.K. and Ireland locations will reward a pizza to the current mayors once a week on a designated day.

In addition, every Foursquare user will get a complimentary side dish when spending more than 10 British pounds. Domino’s piloted the program in a group of stores before deciding to roll it out nationwide, according to the NMA article. The pizza brand’s U.K. digital agency, Vexed, reportedly orchestrated the deal.

Whether or not Domino’s plans to roll out similar Foursquare promotions in the U.S. remains to be seen.

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Ask Michael Sangregorio how his restaurant ended up on all the top 10 listings that matter and he’ll tell you getting the word out has been easy. In fact, it costs him only $20 a month.

The owner of Local Kitchen & Wine Bar in Toronto says getting on board with a subscription-based email marketing service to manage his mailing lists, distribute his newsletters and crunch some numbers has proven to be a very smart investment. “We didn’t do much besides sending an email newsletter and opening the door. It’s been hard for customers to get a seat ever since.”

He started his email campaign a few months before the restaurant’s launch just to generate interest. “Every day, people were coming by to ask about us, so we told them to sign up for the newsletter. We got 1,000 subscribers.”

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The nation’s restaurant industry – known for being “high touch and low tech” – must become more tech savvy or lose a future generation of technology-minded customers, industry experts said Sunday.

“We’ve been slow, really slow” to embrace technology, said Wally Doolin, former chief executive of both Dallas-based La Madeleine and Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, the parent of TGI Friday’s. “Now we find ourselves in a situation where technology starts to make a whole lot of sense.”

 In the 1970s and 1980s, with restaurant sales growing and labor plentiful, restaurants didn’t need a lot of technology, Doolin told restaurateurs and technology vendors at the annual trade show of the National Restaurant Association.

Restaurateurs were comfortable with a hands-on business model, and many were wary that too much technology would create distance between them and their customers.

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Social media continues to gain ground for those in the restaurant business during the 91st annual National Restaurant Association (NRA) show running Saturday to Tuesday in Chicago. There were video screens on the show floor with live Twitter feeds, and educational sessions designed to help educate restaurateurs and vendors on capitalizing the different digital marketing options.

Social media isn’t just a marketing strategy for full-service restaurant operators. Quick-serve restaurants are increasingly tapping into new media strategies to drive traffic and loyalty. 24 percent of adults surveyed by the NRA in November 2009 say they would likely sign up for email notifications of daily specials, and 17 percent are likely to sign up for text message notifications.

Quick-serve restaurateurs are listening. More than half of quick-serve operators plan on adding a Facebook page in the next two years, and 38 percent plan on launching blogs about their restaurants, according to the NRA.

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If you make an online reservation at a restaurant these days, chances are you’re using OpenTable.com Inc. The company—with 13,000 participating restaurants—is the market leader by a wide margin.

On Thursday, Urbanspoon, a well-funded competitor, is expected to unveil plans to launch a computerized restaurant reservation tool—one that will compete directly with OpenTable Inc. At the same time, a small start-up, Reservation Genie, is attempting to take a bite of the business in the Southwest.

Urbanspoon, a website that offers dining features including restaurant reviews and receives 7 million unique visitors each month, plans to launch its system, Rezbook, nationwide in early June, says co-founder Ethan Lowry. RezBook is currently being tested by five restaurants in Seattle. Urbanspoon is owned by IAC, a New York-based company that owns high-profile websites includingCitysearch, which lists nearly a million restaurants nationwide.

“A year from now, we should be in multiple major metro areas around the country,” Mr. Lowry says.

The competition comes at a time when OpenTable, like many ubiquitous, much-loved services, is feeling some backlash.

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Restaurant promotion is going high-tech.

Franchise restaurants have long tried to drum up business on the local level with newspaper ads and with mass mailings of coupons and other promotional offers.

But now franchisers have a host of new ways to drive business to individual stores, thanks largely to the explosion in recent years of technologies that recognize a user’s location.

Among others: Burger King Holdings Inc. is test-marketing an iPhone application that helps users find its restaurants and view local deals, and Quizno’s Corp. and Applebee’s International Inc. are readying similar apps.

Mooyah, a regional burger franchise in Texas, is offering location-specific giveaways and specials to its followers on Twitter, while Papa Murphy’s International Inc., a pizza franchise based in Vancouver, Wash., with restaurants across the country, plans to offer location-specific deals to customers nationwide by using technology that recognizes the whereabouts of visitors to the company’s website.

“It’s like modern-day ZIP Code marketing,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic Inc., a food-industry research firm in Chicago.

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Managers can expect workplace issues with social media to become more frequent since employees are spending more time on social media sites.

Employment attorneys say they expect the issue to be confronted in the courts. In a groundbreaking case last year, servers at a Houston’s restaurant launched a password protected MySpace group where they vented about work.

Sometimes the online remarks became offensive and sexual. A manager gained access to the MySpace group and began monitoring the posts. He fired the servers, who responded by filing a privacy lawsuit against the company.

The servers said they were “just joking,” according to court documents. A New Jersey jury sided with the employees and found a company was guilty of violating privacy laws since the group was password protected.

Some companies are writing clearer policies and are cautioning employees about putting work gripes online.

Still, there are some employees who view social media as a personal outlet for complaining.

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The humble 144-character tweet is changing the way we eat–even at lunch trucks.

A plethora of food trucks serving hip and exotic cuisines are rolling into cities and towns across the country, and they’re using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to advertise their gastronomic offerings and provide up-to-the-minute location information.

In the Los Angeles area, Kogi BBQ’s trucks have nearly 63,000 followers on Twitter and more than 10,000 on Facebook who come for short rib tacos and Kimchi in quesadillas.

Seattle’s Skillet Street Food “airstream trailer,” which serves up bacon jam and burgers made from grass-fed beef, has more than 6,000 Twitter and Facebook followers.

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Mobile applications have opened several new doors for restaurant operators looking to extend their reach, but technological advancements over the past two years have left many in the industry trying to catch up to what new mobile marketing opportunities have to offer.
 
“Mobile marketing is very much of a wild west right now,” said Bryce Marshall, director of Strategic Services at Akron, Ohio-based Knotice. “There’s been so much advancement in mobile devices just in the last two years in terms of technology that’s available. And they are morphing very quickly. I don’t think there’s an established game plan for success.”
 
While Foursquare and others easily and inexpensively tap into the native ability of smartphone devices to actively identify the location of a user, geolocation capabilities extend far beyond a user’s ability to ‘check in.’
 
For example, if a user is in a new city or wants to research restaurants in a specific area, their cell phone browser, based on the users location, has the ability pull that information.

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Snapfinger, an online and mobile ordering and e-commerce solution for the $4 billion take-out food market, is available as a mobile application for the Android platform. The Android app joins an already released iPhone app. In addition, the company recently signed new partnerships with Boston Market and Firehouse Subs.

Snapfinger enables users to access more than 28,000 national restaurant chains in its network, find nearby locations, order food, and complete the payment transaction in a matter of minutes. Snapfinger is fully synchronized with the restaurant’s POS system, ensuring order accuracy, real-time menu updates, and accurate prep times.

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Tasti D-Lite hopes to keep customers cool with a summer of social media. The frozen treats chain has set up its loyalty cards program so that customers who use Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter can automatically share when they earn rewards points from in-store purchases.

Foursquare users will be able to simultaneously “check-in” and earn Tasti D-Lite rewards points whenever a cashier scans their loyalty card. As part of Foursquare’s locations-based game, the check-ins will help customers earn badges and become mayor of that particular store. And when their loyalty cards are scanned, the activity feeds of Facebook and Twitter users will reflect new purchases/earned rewards points.

Around 30 of the brand’s 44 locations are taking part in the initiative. B.J. Emerson, social technology officer for the Franklin, TN-based Tasti D-Lite, said his company will also test incorporating coupon links into customer messages that appear in the social streams.

“So the automatically generated post would include a coupon for their friends,” he said. “It’s not just a boring message where their friends are thinking, ‘OK, that’s great. I see you’ve checked in there.’ We are adding value to their feed.”

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Some of the biggest brands — once known for favoring mass over efficiency — are turning the marketing matrix on its head by targeting promos at consumers using social media exclusively.
No TV. No radio. No print ads.

Instead of mixing traditional and non-traditional media, they’re focusing very targeted promotions via Twitter, Facebook or even Foursquare on a small number of consumers who they hope will reward them with social buzz.

American Express is doing it with the cult hit TV show Glee via Twitter. Papa John’s is using its Facebook page to prompt fans to create, name and earn a slice of profits from the sales of a consumer-designed pizza. And Pepsi, which shook Madison Avenue by spurning the Super Bowl for social media, has asked Mountain Dew’s Facebook fans to help it create, name and market a new Dew.

“Social media is the hottest thing out there,” says Janet Fouts, a social-media coach. “The ones who succeed are the ones who will land the tech-savvies, the Gen Y’s and the Gen X’s.”

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Saladworks, the nation’s first and largest fresh-tossed salad franchise concept, today introduced its iPhone application that allows users to locate a Saladworks and create and place an order for pick up or delivery. This is the first iPhone application created by the franchise and is available for free from Apple’s iTunes App Store.

The iPhone application, available for download now, puts Saladworks’ menu of signature salads, soups, Focaccia Fusion sandwiches and wraps right at your fingertips. All salads are made-to-order with produce chopped, sliced, and grated fresh every day in every location. Users can download the app and choose from over 50 fresh ingredients to create or customize orders for pick up or delivery at any Saladworks location.

The Saladworks iPhone app uses the phone’s built-in GPS technology to locate the nearest Saladworks to the user. Users can also enter in zip codes for a coast-to-coast search. Saladworks’ mobile ordering app mirrors the ease of FreshCart, the franchise’s new online ordering system, available on www.saladworks.com.

Compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, the Saladworks app is the latest in a series of technology upgrades for the growing franchise. In the past three months, Saladworks has unveiled FreshCart and MySaladworks 2.0, an improved company intranet designed to facilitate better communication between the Saladworks corporate office, franchisees, and customers.

“Saladworks has made significant strides in technology, and we’re proud to bring our ordering application to iPhone users,” said Founder/CEO, John Scardapane. “Saladworks is constantly researching ways to provide a fanatical customer experience, and we look to make even more fans of America’s Best Salads with this app.”

Saladworks, the nation’s first and largest fresh-tossed salad franchise concept, operates over 100 franchise locations in 11 states. In addition to its existing stores, the chain currently has over 60 units in development across the country. Saladworks locations offer a “fanatic’ly fresh” menu of flavorful salads with signature dressings, proprietary soups, Focaccia Fusion sandwiches and wraps. With the addition of the True Nutrition menu, Saladworks’ varieties of signature salads are all 300 calories or less. Saladworks was voted the nation’s number one salad franchise by Entrepreneur Magazine for 2009 and 2010.

McDonald’s has signed on as an early user of Facebook’s new location feature called the Geolocation  which could launch as early as this month. The new feature will give users the ability to include their location within a status update. The same tool will also  be offered to marketers for advertisement purposes.

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Here’s Dennis Crowley’s ideal way to end the day: At 6 p.m., his iPhone alerts him to the evening’s plans. It has already checked his friends’ calendars and knows who’s free tonight, so it suggests a restaurant they’ve all wanted to try. It notes when a table is available and informs him that three other friends are planning to hang out across the street so they can meet up later. And it all will happen—soon, he says—through Foursquare, the location-based mobile application and Web site Crowley co-founded with Naveen Selvadurai last year. “Every day, we tick off another couple of things that get us closer to being able to do that,” says Crowley, 33.

Harnessing GPS-enabled mobile technology to let users broadcast their location is not a new idea. A service called Loopt has been offering friend-locating apps, and Google’s Latitude feature on its maps can. Foursquare, a 20-person company that operates out of a crowded loft in New York’s East Village, adds a game-like twist. Its 1 million-plus users earn badges by “checking in” at certain bars, restaurants, and other venues by pressing a button on the app upon arrival. A user can earn a “mayor” icon from a bar if he or she has checked in more than anyone else during the previous 60 days. The business model is simple: Generate as big a user base as possible and sell national brands and local merchants on the possibilities of marketing to people as they congregate—ready to eat, shop, or spend.

The service has certainly gotten buzz. On Apr. 16 (that’s four times four—four squared), fans held “Foursquare” parties in more than 150 cities worldwide. The British soccer team Manchester City asked supporters to check-in en masse during the May 5 match at home against Tottenham Hotspur. More than 3,000 restaurants, bars, and other venues use Foursquare to attract customers with promotions.

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California Pizza Kitchen, Inc. a leading casual dining chain featuring an imaginative line of hearth-baked pizzas, today announced the launch of its new free iPhone App that allows customers to conveniently place orders with the use of an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

“At CPK we aim to provide exceptional customer service and convenience for our guests and are excited to extend our brand’s reach with the launch of our iPhone App,” said Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield, co-CEOs of California Pizza Kitchen. “Guests can now use their iPhones to find our closest location and place their order in a simple, fast, and efficient way. As innovative leaders in the specialty pizzas industry, the CPK App has added another level of creativity to our business.”

The new iPhone application provides users with the ability to:

• Point, click and pick up – CPK will even deliver to your car upon arrival
• Locate nearby restaurants
• Search by different menu categories
• View previous order history

The CPK App is available from the App Store on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and iTunes or by clicking here http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/california-pizza-kitchen/id363883551?mt=8. CPK also offers online take-out ordering in most locations through its mobile-friendly website. For more information, log onto www.cpk.com or interact with CPK at http://twitter.com/calpizzakitchen.

California Pizza Kitchen, Inc., founded in 1985, is a leading casual dining chain featuring an imaginative line of hearth-baked pizzas, including the original BBQ Chicken Pizza, and a broad selection of distinctive pastas, salads, appetizers, soups, sandwiches and desserts. Of the chain’s 253 restaurants, 204 are company-owned and 49 operate under franchise or license agreements. CPK premium pizzas are also available to sports and entertainment fans at three Southern California venues including Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium of Anaheim and STAPLES Center. Also included in the Company’s portfolio of concepts is LA Food Show Grill & Bar, which has locations in Manhattan Beach and Beverly Hills, California. The Company also has a licensing arrangement to manufacture and distribute a line of California Pizza Kitchen premium frozen products. For more details, visit www.cpk.com.

OpenTable, Inc. (Nasdaq:OPEN) (www.opentable.com), a leading provider of free online reservations for diners and guest management systems for restaurants, today announced that it has now seated more than three million diners through its mobile applications, marking a 200 percent increase in eight months1. Based on a $50 average check per diner, OpenTable estimates that diners using its mobile applications have generated more than $150 million in revenue for its restaurant partners.

“The significant growth in usage of our mobile applications tells us that they are resonating with people who need a quick and simple way to make reliable restaurant reservations on-the-go,” said Jeff Jordan, CEO of OpenTable. “By integrating the core functionality of OpenTable.com with intuitive mobile applications that take advantage of the geo-location functionality available on most smartphones, we’re giving diners the power to find and book nearby tables from almost anywhere.”

OpenTable allows diners to find and book reservations at more than 13,000 different restaurants in multiple countries from the Web or a smartphone. By using any of the company’s mobile applications, diners can quickly and easily view a list of available tables at nearby restaurants and make reservations right from their phones, allowing people who are away from their computers to still benefit from the convenience and ease of booking their restaurant reservations online.

OpenTable currently offers mobile applications for the iPhone, Palm, BlackBerry and Android operating systems. Other smartphone users can book reservations through OpenTable by pointing their browsers to its mobile-optimized Web site at http://mobile.opentable.com/. For more information about the mobile suite of applications from OpenTable, please visit www.opentable.com/mobile.

Billy Sewell, president and CEO of Platinum Corral (www.platinumcorral.com), a multi-unit franchise operator of Golden Corral Grill/Buffet Restaurants, has announced that the company will be holding a contest at its Cary store, located at 5707 Dillard Drive, for those that follow the business using common social media outlets. The three-month contest will be centered on the use of the location-based social media sites Foursquare (www.foursquare.com), Triangle specific Tri-Out (www.trioutnc.com) and Gowalla (www.gowalla.com). The contest will begin Wednesday, May 12 and run through Saturday, July 31. Aimed at increasing new and repeat business to the Cary location, the contest will offer prizes to those who use the services to “check in” at the restaurant most often, as well as the opportunity to win a 16GB Wi-Fi Apple iPad.

“I’m excited to launch this contest to give back to our Golden Corral customers,” said Sewell. “The Triangle has a vibrant social media community and we hope to get our feet wet in the social space with this contest and giveaway.”

New Media Content:

Golden Corral Cary’s Facebook page
www.facebook.com/GoldenCorralCary

Golden Corral Cary’s Twitter account
twitter.com/GC_Cary

Golden Corral Cary’s Foursquare page
foursquare.com/venue/349958

Details:

- The Foursquare mayor will receive one free meal and drink per day for the duration of his or her time as mayor.

- Every fifth customer to check in using any of the three location-based applications will be given a free meal for that day.

- Throughout the contest customers will be entered into a raffle for a free 16GB Wi-Fi Apple iPad.

Established in 1996 by owner Billy Sewell, Platinum Corral, based in Jacksonville, owns and manages 24 Golden Corral franchises throughout North and South Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio, with locations including Asheboro, Concord, Hickory, Wilmington, Burlington, Jacksonville, Reidsville, Lexington, Wake Forest and four locations in the Triangle. The company has been recognized as one of the Triangle’s top 50 privately held companies and institutions in the Triangle Business Journal’s Book of Lists. Sewell’s family has been involved with Golden Corral since his father became a founding investor when the business first began. A graduate of Campbell University, Sewell worked as a manager trainee and rose through the management ranks. By 1996, he owned two Golden Corral restaurants, one in Burlington, N.C. and the other in Hickory, N.C. Golden Corral restaurants, located nationwide, feature steaks, buffet, and bakery at every location, each offering the highest quality food at reasonable prices in a clean, friendly atmosphere, thereby fulfilling their mission to “make pleasurable dining affordable.”

To help restaurateurs better understand and reduce the costs associated with their credit card processing, the National Restaurant Association announced today the development of an interactive online calculator for use by its members and the restaurant industry at large.

Card processing fees – incurred when a restaurant accepts payment by a charge, credit, or gift card – can be one of the largest expenses for restaurants outside of food purchases and labor.  To help restaurateurs learn what they are paying in card processing fees and to whom, the Association created its Card Processing Rate Calculator, at KnowYourCardRates.com.  A restaurateur can enter a few pieces of data from his or her current card processing statement and learn the true cost of card processing fees in this free, online tool.

“Understanding your credit card processing statement is not always easy,” said David Gilbert, Chief Operating Officer of the National Restaurant Association. ”That is why we created the Card Processing Rate Calculator. With this easy-to-use online tool, a restaurateur can get an estimate of his or her total processing costs, understand who is receiving those fees, and take steps to lower the overall costs.”

The Card Processing Rate Calculator will be a featured solution at the National Restaurant Association/National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation Booth #6300 at the 2010 National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show (May 22-25 in Chicago).  Specialists will be available to help Show attendees use the calculator and understand the fees they are paying. The calculator can also be used any time at KnowYourCardRates.com. 
 
Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 945,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of nearly 13 million employees. Together with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, the Association works to lead America’s restaurant industry into a new era of prosperity, prominence, and participation, enhancing the quality of life for all we serve. For more information, visit our Web site at www.restaurant.org.

Restaurants across the country, along with many other types of businesses, are learning that social media is a quick route to building a customer base. California Tortilla, a quick-casual Mexican restaurant chain, is one of those companies taking advantage of what such new media has to offer. As a result, they enjoy the benefit of learning more about their customers, while also getting the word out about their food.

“Social media works great for restaurants because it can create an immediate call to action,” explains Stacey Kane, Director of Marketing for California Tortilla. “We have long known in marketing that word-of-mouth advertising is the best there is. Social media is an easy-to-use catalyst for accomplishing exactly that!”

Social media, which is essentially the act of spreading information by means of social interaction, include the use of such popular sites as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even blogs and wikis. Restaurants are successfully reaching and staying in touch with their customer base, particularly by using Facebook and Twitter.

For example, California Tortilla uses Facebook to converse with their customer base. They have learned a lot about them and have even allowed one of their fans to name a new menu item, “The No-Meato Burrito,” which is a vegan burrito. They are also using an application on the site that allows site users to send virtual food to their Facebook friends, thereby continuing to spread their company name and product around via word of mouth.

For those who would like their business to take advantage of social media tools, consider these tips:

• First, find out what is already being said about your company. You can do this by signing up for Google alerts, reading message boards and checking out reviews.
• Decide who within your organization is going to be responsible for Social Media. This needs to be someone who can speak in your brand’s voice. An intern who will be there for only a few months is probably not a wise choice.
• Make sure that any offer you put out there is easy for the customers and staff to execute.
• Integrate your campaigns – use brick-and-mortar signage to encourage people in-store to become your online fans and followers.
• Try to be timely about addressing any concerns that come back to you. Customers want to know that you are listening to them, and that you care about their experience in your establishment.

“Social media can really put smaller chains on a par with larger ones,” adds Kane. “With these tools, you don’t need million-dollar advertising budgets. For a small investment of your time, you can reach customers, interact with them and help build your brand.”

California Tortilla is a quick-casual Mexican food restaurant chain that has grown to include 37 locations. Based on the idea of combining high-quality, fresh ingredients with affordable prices, they have been dishing up tasty food since 1995. Their offerings include salsa made from 100 percent Roma tomatoes in small batches throughout the day, handmade guacamole made from whole ripe avocadoes, and a “Wall of Flame” containing more than 75 hot sauces. To learn more about California Tortilla, visit the Web site at http://californiatortilla.com.

There’s no question about it: If you own a restaurant, you want repeat business. Consistently serving good food and providing excellent service is a huge part of fostering customer loyalty. However, it never hurts to stay in touch with your customers and remind them to come back. Restaurant email marketing is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to do just that.

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Now, with free downloads of Urbanspoon’s iPhone app still at “hundreds of thousands” monthly, Urbanspoon co-founder Lowry has a challenge many Apple developers are facing: what to do for an encore for the new Apple iPad.

Urbanspoon’s free iPad app will be out this week, but there won’t be a new gimmick like the iPhone app’s shakable slot machine that suggests restaurant choices. Instead, he’s playing it straight, using the extra real estate of the big, 9.7-inch iPad screen to offer maps showcasing restaurants, with information about local eateries that can be viewed either online or offline.

“We wanted to make it easy to play along and explore without ever having to type a word,” says Lowry, interviewed over lunch (naturally) at a local dining spot here.

Lowry doesn’t expect consumers to take the iPad around town with them and shake it up to find restaurant choices, as they do with the iPhone. But with maps, “You can really explore your neighborhood,” he says. The app shows some 25,000 restaurants in Los Angeles, for instance. “It’s lightning fast,” he says, “and that would be very hard to do on a Web page.”

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The British public is accustomed to the sight of celebrity chefs competing for column inches, TV airtime and prime bookshelf space, but yesterday new battlelines were drawn as domestic goddess Nigella Lawson launched her iPhone app, putting her in direct competition with Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay has also thrown his toque in the ring, confirming he plans to launch his own app in the summer.

The battle to own the culinary digital space is likely to see the launch of several similar apps from top-name chefs, according to William Sitwell, editor of the foodie magazine Waitrose Kitchen.

“There is a massive amount of rivalry in the chef world which is usually battled out in the media, so if it can also be battled out through apps, why not?” he said.

An app is the perfect way for chefs to communicate with fans and develop their brand, he added.

“It’s a way to reach individuals and give them stuff that is really useful while at the same time encouraging them to buy into the other stuff they are selling, from kitchenware to recipe books. I’m sure we will see the sweary chef app from Gordon Ramsay very soon.”

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MonkeyMedia Software, a provider of web-based operations solutions for the foodservice industry, today announced that Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. (ENRG) has successfully deployed both MonkeyOnlineOrdering™ and MonkeyCatering™ 3.0 to enable end-to-end visibility and control over the catering business for its Einstein Bros. Bagels brand. With more than 600 restaurants in 36 states, ENRG is a leading fast casual restaurant group with operations including Einstein Bros. Bagels, Noah’s New York Bagels®, and Manhattan Bagel®.

With the restaurant market more competitive than ever, ENRG needed to find a way to make its popular catering program even more appealing to its customers, and especially more efficient for businesses that regularly place large catering orders. Once ENRG successfully integrated MonkeyOnlineOrdering™ and MonkeyCatering™ into its catering platform, the company introduced www.ebcatering.com, its new catering website, to customers of Einstein Bros. restaurants across the nation. The website was designed to simplify the ordering process by allowing customers to place a pick-up or catering order directly online, instead of calling to place an order with an employee at a local restaurant.

In addition to enabling an efficient online ordering solution for takeout and catering, ENRG experiences further benefits with MonkeyOnlineOrdering™ and MonkeyCatering™, such as:

• Seamless integration of back-of-house and front-of-house operations. The company’s online ordering system has automated the ordering process, which helps increase order accuracy and maximize operational performance. ENRG can easily deliver a seamless catering experience to its customers with front-end and back-end management operations in place, allowing the manager to have more time to engage in higher-level and customer-focused activities.
• Enhanced visibility into all business units. ENRG can run comprehensive reports from the web to track each unit’s performance and better understand customer patterns and behavior.
• Improved customer service. With better reporting and real-time visibility, ENRG is able to improve and speed up the decision-making process, allowing the company to be more responsive to customer needs and the changing business environment.

As a company that has been built on a platform of industry knowledge and experience, MonkeyMedia Software’s offerings go far beyond foodservice software. ENRG took advantage of MonkeyMedia Software’s Catering Education services, which are designed to educate organizations at a strategic, sales and operational level and teach best practices for growth and management of centralized catering operations within a multi-unit environment.

“We’ve found MonkeyMedia Software’s team to be extremely knowledgeable about the catering business,” said Beth Briggs, Vice President, Information Technology with Einstein Noah Restaurant Group. “They’re more than just a catering software provider – they have been a great partner to lean on during our deployment. Our investment in new technology has strengthened our catering business, and MonkeyMedia Software has played a big role in that success.”

“It is a pleasure to work with such a respected brand that has a reputation for quality and customer satisfaction,” said Erle Dardick, CEO, MonkeyMedia Software. “We’re proud of the success Einstein Noah Restaurant Group has experienced thus far with the help of our team and our technology, and we look forward to our partnership of continually striving to improve ENRG’s catering business in 2010 and beyond.”

About MonkeyMedia Software

MonkeyMedia Software specializes in web-based operations solutions for the foodservice industry. The company’s applications are meticulously designed to fit the way you work – whether you’re a small business, a medium-sized regional company, or an enterprise-class organization with coast-to-coast operations. With strong roots in catering and food production and their flexible, scalable web-based platform, MonkeyMedia Software delivers the next generation of enterprise-class management solutions for foodservice companies. MonkeyMedia Software solutions feature a complete front-to-back system to manage sales, production and supply chain, powerful reporting for real-time visibility and results-based decision-making, a 100% web-based platform that is configured to fit a unique business process and easy integration with current web and accounting systems. For more information on MonkeyMedia Software, visit www.monkeymediasoftware.com.

About Einstein Noah Restaurant Group

Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. is a leading company in the quick casual restaurant industry that operates and licenses locations primarily under the Einstein Bros.® and Noah’s New York Bagels® brands and primarily franchises locations under the Manhattan Bagel® brand. The company’s retail system consists of more than 600 restaurants in 36 states and the District of Columbia. It also operates a dough production facility. The company’s stock is traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol BAGL. Visit www.einsteinnoah.com for additional information.

PizzaHut.com is announcing a re-launch, dubbed the “Virtual Flagship.”  The site features updates that make the consumer ordering experience faster, easier and more intuitive than the previous site.  Additionally, Pizza Hut announced that thanks to the success of the site, the company expects to hit $2 billion in online sales this year.

“The additions to the website provide an enhanced level of order customization that allows us to get customers’ favorites to them faster,” said Brian Niccol, Pizza Hut Chief Marketing Officer. “We’re excited about the new improvements to our largest and most successful storefront.”

The upgraded website functionality showcases the fun and ease of ordering online and includes the following features:

• Iconic Ordering: Visual cues guide customers throughout the ordering process, allowing them to see crust types and toppings as they customize their pizzas. Images of your items are added to your cart, ensuring there are no ordering mistakes.
• Intuitive Design: The site remembers who you are, allowing for two-click reordering. Returning customers will see their last order when first accessing the site, great for ordering your favorites each time with just a couple of clicks.
• En Espanol:  A new Spanish-ordering site is launching concurrently.  The Spanish site features the same great functions that the English site does, allowing our customers to order in their preferred language.

To celebrate the website launch, Pizza Hut gave one of its customers free pizza for a year.  The customer logged on the new PizzaHut.com and was later surprised with pizza for a year (in the form of Pizza Hut gift cards).  With free pizza for a year, this lucky customer will continue to be able to enjoy the new Pizza Hut online ordering experience.

Customers looking for a reason to check out the new website can also enjoy a great deal. Right now, Pizza Hut is offering any pizza for just $10. That means customers can order any size pizza, with any crust and any toppings for just $10.

For more information on Pizza Hut, log onto PizzaHut.com or interact with Pizza Hut at facebook.com/pizzahut and twitter.com/pizzahut. Ordering is also available through the Pizza Hut App, available from the App Store on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore, and a video demoing the application’s features and functionality can be found at pizzahut.com/iphone.

Pizza Hut, America’s Favorite Pizza, delivers more pizza, pasta and wings than any other restaurant. The only pizza company to be named a top ten franchise in 2009 by Entrepreneur Magazine, Pizza Hut began 50 years ago in Wichita, Kansas and today operates nearly 10,000 restaurants in more than 90 countries. Pizza Hut, Inc. is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. ( YUM). To check out what’s new at Pizza Hut visit pizzahut.com.

We first wrote about Bricker’s intriguing iPhone app, Order Pizza, after it launched late last year. At the time, we questioned why anyone would decide to order a pizza through an iPhone app as opposed to simply making a phone call.

But Bricker tells us that things are chugging along quite nicely, noting in a follow-up that more than 50,000 people have downloaded the app since its debut last December. It also has consistently ranked in the top 100 apps in the lifestyle category in Apple’s App store.

To date, he says the company has processed about 25,000 pizza orders across the country. And he noted that the company has already sent pizza orders to one in eight Pizza Hut’s in the U.S., a solid achievement given that the pizza chain has its own popular iPhone app.

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When deployed strategically, social media can increase sales and bring more customers through the door of a small business.

There’s now hard evidence that affirms social media isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies. And it was a small business in Long Beach that proved it.

The Kreisler Group (TKG), a full service advertising agency with three employees, had been specializing in telling the stories of large companies for more than two years when the economy started taking its toll in 2009 and the agency’s national accounts began shrinking.

Julie Kreisler, founder and CEO of TKG, said at the end of 2008, companies’ advertising budgets were cut and there was an urgency to receive more exposure with less money. Kreisler was facing a similar situation within her agency and needed to leverage her own resources to remain afloat.

“The goal was to develop multi-platform (public relations) campaigns by using social media to grow a business’s audience,” Kreisler said. “We had started to do some social media campaigns on a national level for our clients, but to really market it as a viable service, we needed more facts and evidence to show that (social media) was worth the investment.”

TKG didn’t have to travel far to find a willing participant for their social media case study. Alegria Cocina Latina restaurant, 115 Pine Ave., the restaurant on the ground floor of TKG’s office building, was the model for the 10-week study from Aug. 30, 2009, to Nov. 7, 2009. In exchange for the possibility of increasing business, Alegria’s management agreed to provide TKG with sales data from 2008 and 2009 while the study was conducted.

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A crowd that showed up at a restaurant in south Corvallis on Thursday gave new meaning to the term “lunch rush.”

About 40 people converged on the newly opened Iovino’s location at 1835 S.E. Third St. between noon and 1 p.m. The gathering was a “flash mob,” advertised mainly by online social media.

The product of a loosely knit group calling itself the Corvallis Social Media Brigade, the date and time for the sudden gathering of people was announced several days in advance, but the location wasn’t revealed until Thursday morning.

Employees at Iovino’s didn’t know in advance either, offering customers in the packed restaurant bewildered smiles as they scrambled to fill orders.

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SUBWAY® restaurants have engaged a host of Famous Fans, who bring their love of SUBWAY® sandwiches to life on the court, in their racecars, in the pool and on TV. This month, a new advertising campaign gathers many of these Famous Fans together to tout the everyday value of $5 Footlongs™. In fun, playful montages viewers see this diverse roster of talent together.

Why is each of these Famous Fans a great fit for SUBWAY® restaurants? SUBWAY® restaurants are asking Twitter followers to share their thoughts. From April 14 through April 27, followers are encouraged to tweet to @subwayfreshbuzz and describe why the Famous Fan of the day is a great fit for SUBWAY® restaurants. Each day’s contest will be focused on a different Famous Fan including Laila Ali, Carl Edwards, Jared Fogle, Jay Glazer, Blake Griffin, Ryan Howard, Nastia Liukin, Michael Phelps, CC Sabathia and Michael Strahan.

Just by sharing their views, followers will be entered into the chance to win one of five $10 gift cards per day. People are also encouraged to follow the Famous Fans on Twitter who will be weighing in with their feedback on what makes them a great fit for the brand. To participate, visit http://twitter.com/subwayfreshbuzz from April 14 through April 27.

With more than 32,000 locations in 91 countries, the SUBWAY® restaurant chain is the world’s largest submarine sandwich franchise and famous for its made-to-order footlong and 6-inch submarine sandwiches and salads. The SUBWAY® restaurant chain was founded in 1965 by Fred DeLuca and Dr. Peter Buck as a means for then 17-year-old DeLuca to earn enough money to pay for college tuition. That partnership, which continues today, marked the beginning of a remarkable journey — one that made it possible for thousands of individuals to build and succeed in their own business. The SUBWAY® brand has been named as the number one franchise opportunity in Entrepreneur magazine’s “Annual Franchise 500®” listing 17 times in the past 23 years, and was also ranked by the magazine as “America’s Top Global Franchise” for 2009. For more information about the SUBWAY® chain, visit www.subway.com or www.subwayfreshbuzz.com. SUBWAY® is a registered trademark of Doctor’s Associates Inc.

Restaurants are finding that text messaging is the most cost effective way to reach local customers, topping other methods such as digital coupons, social media networks and traditional email marketing. One example is Scotty P’s Hamburgers in Dallas, which has been using a text message platform for the past month and already reports redemption rates of 12% for its seven restaurants, according to Restaurant News.

Other advertising options are too expensive, says founder and president, Scott Pontikes. “The smart-phone apps and even mobile ordering would be cost-prohibitive for us,” he said. “Texting is low-tech, simple and quick, and the response rate is probably three times what it is for e-mailing. Our e-mail program has a larger list, but we’ve seen a 12-percent adoption rate on 25-word messages that take a few minutes to prepare.”

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McDonald’s is ramping up its social-media efforts in the U.S., naming its first director-social media, Rick Wion.

Mr. Wion, who hails from GolinHarris, Chicago, has handled social-media projects for McDonald’s since 2006. He was a founding member of the McDonald’s Digital Task Force, which established the company’s digital strategy.

In an interview, Mr. Wion said his marching orders are three-fold: using social media to build the business, manage customer problems, and beef up outreach to target groups such as mommy bloggers. Mr. Wion will work with the fast feeder’s U.S. media relations team, and will soon have support staff. Mr. Wion will report to Heather Oldani, director-external communications and public relations.

Ms. Oldani said Mr. Wion’s hire is the capstone to a full year spent devising a dedicated social-media strategy, assessing opportunities and establishing a method of determining ROI in the space. “Now it’s time to have [someone] dedicated 100% of the time, rather than someone who’s got a day job on top of a day job.”

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NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of maps, traffic and location data enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising around the world, has released results of its first location targeted campaign in Europe by a global brand advertiser, McDonald’s.

The campaign, powered by NAVTEQ LocationPoint™ Advertising, enabled McDonald’s to deliver location-relevant mobile ads to users of Nokia Ovi Maps when they were within a certain distance of McDonald’s 82 restaurants in Finland. The ad campaign promoted a McDonald’s cheese burger for 1 euro, resulting in a solid, measureable ROI, a 7.0% click-thru rate. Consumers clicked on the ads to see promotion details and receive driving or walking directions to the nearest store location. Of users who clicked through, 39% selected the click-to-navigate option which offered  ”drive to” or “walk to” navigation to the nearest McDonald’s location using Nokia’s Ovi Maps navigation.

“Targeting consumers when they are near our locations and then navigating them right into our stores is powerful marketing for McDonald’s,” said Tomi Wirtanen, head of marketing, McDonald’s Finland.  ”We are thrilled with the results from this campaign.  NAVTEQ LocationPoint proved that location targeted mobile advertising does indeed drive foot traffic into our restaurants.”

Gartner predicts that worldwide sales of mobile phones will overtake PCs for web surfing by 2013, with a 1.82 billion install base of smart phones and browser-equipped feature phones.* NAVTEQ is uniquely positioned to deliver and manage a turnkey advertising solution to smart phones given its role as a leader in location content and services, its relationships with hundreds of hundreds of affiliate partners and its ability to distribute attractive dynamic advertising inventory.  

“NAVTEQ is uniquely positioned to bridge the digital and physical worlds by combining the location assets from NAVTEQ and the consumer reach of Nokia,” said Tuula Rytila-Uotila, Vice President Location, Nokia.  ”As consumers turn to their mobile devices for more services, such as music, maps, and entertainment, contextually relevant advertising can enhance the consumer experience while minimizing costs of the services to users.”

“McDonald’s is among the first advertisers in Europe to provide insight into the growing location based advertising market,” said Christopher Rothey, vice president market development and advertising for NAVTEQ.  ”The outstanding performance of the McDonald’s campaign validates the promise that location-based ads are more relevant to the consumer and greater relevance means higher impact.”

*Source: Mobile Entertainment

About McDonald’s Europe

McDonald’s Europe is the region’s leading food service retailer with more than 6,600 restaurants in 40 countries serving 12 million customers a day.  More than 60% of McDonald’s restaurants in Europe are owned and operated by independent local business men and women. Please visit our website at www.mcdpressoffice.eu to learn more about the company.

About NAVTEQ

NAVTEQ is the leading global provider of maps, traffic and location data (digital location content) enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising around the world.  NAVTEQ supplies comprehensive digital location content to power automotive navigation systems, portable and wireless devices, Internet-based mapping applications and government and business solutions.  The Chicago-based company was founded in 1985 and has approximately 4600 employees located in 203 offices in 45 countries.

The best way to learn about the Sioux Falls dining scene is still probably word of mouth.

Your neighbor loved a recent lunch out. Your co-worker had a great date at a bar.

People love to share good food stories. And just like everything else now, they share a ton of them online.

Sioux Falls is no different. In addition to traditional advertising, businesses are using everything from Facebook to Twitter to a variety of local online dining guides to drum up business, spread the word and offer freebies.

Sanaa Abourezk of Sanaa’s 8th Street Gourmet regularly posts her menus on Facebook. Become a fan and you can find out if that day’s lunch is vegan or gluten-free.

The Phillips Avenue Diner runs occasional contests – recently asking for fans to share a photo of their kid eating at the diner.

Queen City Bakery lets Twitter followers know what freshly baked cupcakes, scones and muffins are on the day’s menu.

Woody’s text messages specials and deals to fans.

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