The 2016 NRA Show in Chiacgo was attended by over 45,000 people.
We spent 3 packed days looking for the best products, ideas and inspiration to help you grow your business. There was so much to see - but here are some of the edited highlights.
We visit 2 great Chicago restaurants - Nick's Pizza and Pub and Au Cheval with Eric Cacciatore from Restaurant Unstoppable.
We finally get to experience the amazing In n Out Burger - the iconic Burger business.
What was the surprising thing about Bubba Gump?
We discuss some of the reason YOU should go to the NRA show and how it will help you grow your business.
There are a lot of suppliers who have a great story - that story can and should become part of your story. It helps create the experience and where there is experience there's margin!
We discuss Kimbal Musk from The Kitchen and the way he creates a great story about his suppliers, Denny Post and the importance of a Signature meal- even if it isn't that popular, as well as a great discussion between Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue and Robert Irvine from Restaurant Impossible.
Are you doing coffee in your Restaurant? Is it great coffee? What impact would making your restaurant someone's regular coffee spot make to revenue? We talked to the team from Vittoria coffee. (It was easily the best coffee at the show!)
The Urban Cultivators look great and if you are creating a fresh and green brand, these are perfect for really highlighting what it is that you are doing for your customers (and how much of a difference would cheap, fresh herbs make?)
Why was it we visited the Aussie Pie Kitchen in LA?
We also look at Torta Bianca - a great ingredient for your cocktail list.
We finish of with esoteric wine varietals and how they can help you with your wine list and profits and lastly a warning about spending the wrong way with your social media marketing.
These are ujust some of the examples of what we picked up from the show. If you have an idea for a restaurant in mind, or already have a concept, there are hundreds of ideas and products there that you can find to help to tell a better story, find productivity gains or increase margin with better and more interesting menu items.
I have focused too much on productivity, because I am not very good in the kitchen, but I think there was just as many interesting products for HOW you do in the kitchen as there was for WHAT you do in the kitchen.
Hope to see you at #NRA 2017 and hope you have a busy night tonight!
For many Restaurants, the website is the central part
We talk about how to compare the traffic for your website against other Restaurant's websites, so you know how well your online marketing is performing.
Find out how to make sure that the website is optimised for mobile.
How often you are updating the website? You should be able to make changes on your website yourself, so you can do it frequently without being charged by your web developer every time you make a change.
A quick and easy way to grow your email marketing database and how that works with your website traffic.
How integrating with Facebook can help drive traffic and customers to your website.
Using www.canva.com to create great content.
What can Instagram do for your website traffic?
Making sure you capitalise on all of the great Public Relations mentions that you get.
Have a listen to the podcast and find more ways for how to increase traffic to your Restaurant Website. For most Restaurants, your website is the hub of your online marketing and the start to building a really powerful marketing database. Some Restaurants have databases that generate hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. This can be the start of it for you! Have a listen now, because if your website is working for you, someone else's website will be working for them and they will be getter all of the traffic, all of the leads and all of the customers!
**This WAS meant to go out before the NRA Show in Chicago. Oops sorry. We didn't get a chance to upload it. However, we are going to do a Show special ep covering what we saw, learnt and did along with an ep on a very exciting Restaurant visit that we did and the session with Jon Taffer and Robert Irvine from Bar Rescue and Restaurant Impossible. Stay tuned. We will get these ones out as soon as possible (I am still on the road in Taipei, looking at what tech is going to change Restaurants.) Back on deck next week.