restaurants Archives

Our Japanese & Sushi Restaurant Ran Its First Instagram Ads

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:54 am

On January 6, 2019, I ran the first of two tests on our Shogun Albany Instagram account, as part of my efforts to run marketing for one of the family restaurants.

Test 1 : An Instagram contest where participants had to follow the Shogun account, tag 2 friends, and guess the type of fish in a photo. One winner would win a $10 gift card to Shogun.

Test 2 : I ran 2 ads to drive people to this contest, against two different Audiences: Mothers living in Albany and surrounding areas and Students living in Albany and surrounding areas.

career

Marketing Lessons From A Small Family-Owned Restaurant

Last updated on January 15th, 2022 at 06:19 am

I thought if I sold more sushi, I’d earn my dad’s respect.

On paper, offering to help with marketing for one of the family restaurants made sense: I knew the food. I knew marketing. And I was a millennial, so obviously I knew Instagram, #natch.

The upside potential was high. It was also a good way to give back to the family.

However, if I peel back all the layers of resume speak, the naked truth was much simpler:

I wanted to impress my dad. I wanted his approval. So I spent a lot of 2019 working on this, on the side.

If you have a family business, you can learn from my approach to marketing our family restaurant, what I experimented with, and why I failed.

marketing

Listen to Your (Worst) Customers

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 07:56 am

When my family goes out to dinner, we’re the worst kind of customer. You don’t want us to have a bad experience. Here’s why:

restaurants

How to Get Your Restaurant Removed From DoorDash

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:35 am

Summary – Doordash: You need to call 650-681-9470. Dial 1 (for restaurants) then 3 (for removing your account). Tell the customer service rep you’d like your menu removed or account deactivated. They say the menu will be removed within 24 hours, but double-check to make sure. If it’s still not removed (which happened to us) call back and try again.

Summary – Grubhub: Email them at [email protected] and ask to have your restaurant listing removed.

Interested in a deeper dive into the world of restaurant marketing, operations, and food delivery services? Keep reading below.

career

Restaurant Reservations: Returning to the Family Business

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 07:41 am

In my favorite half-hour comedy, How I Met Your Mother, the characters Lily and Marshall had a series of long-term bets about the future.

“Barney will watch the sex tape.”

“Marshall will go bald.”

“Ted and Robin will end up together.”

This inspired me to keep track of my own bets for certain decisions in my life. I’d record the decision, write down a few sentences about my reasoning, and revisit it a year (or more) later.

career

How I Taught Myself to Bartend

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 07:42 am

I saved the empty liquor bottles and filled them with water.

When the restaurant was quiet (we opened winter of ’08), the start of the Recession — it was quiet often) I took the rail liquors out. Placed them on the ground. Replaced them with the dummy bottles.

Then I practiced making cocktails. Over and over again. For hours, six days a week. That first week, I only made 4 cocktails, our most popular ones (Raspberry Saketini (it was a Japanese restaurant), Dirty Martini (for Tom, that’s all he drank), Cosmo, Mai Tai).

I learned with the jigger pour first, then free pour, measuring my portions against the jigger pours, testing my accuracy.

We kept a bartender’s book behind the bar. I don’t know who brought it, Jason maybe, our first bartender. Tall, lanky, a junkie. He made it through training but no-showed on the second day and no one saw him again. I started with the simple stuff, two-ingredient mixes college students and alcoholics drank to mask the taste of cheap liquor: Screwdriver, Cape Codder, Greyhound.

Then I learned the drinks I’ve heard from movies or weddings: Sex on the Beach, Tequila Sunrise, Sea breeze, Madras, White Russian.

Everyday. When there weren’t napkins to fold or salads to prep, I stood at the bar and poured water. Every step of the dance, from pulling printer tape and slapping it on the rail, icing glasses, different combinations of drinks. I wanted muscle memory, not knowledge.

That’s how I taught myself to bartend.

How I Learned About Hollywood

In 2010, I moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood. At my first internship interview, the assistant, Jeanie Wong, asked me how my coverage was. Great, I lied. I went home and my roommate showed me what coverage was.

restaurants

Eating at Din Tai Fung

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:21 pm

Before going to Taiwan, my friend prepared a document of recommendations. She wrote:

“Soup Dumplings: Din Tai Fung is big in Taiwan, but I say it’s overrated. A soup dumpling is a soup dumpling, and we get great ones stateside.”

We went to Din Tai Fung, and I couldn’t disagree more. The hype is well-deserved. This was probably my favorite meal (out of many good meals) in Taiwan. Of course, it wasn’t just about the soup dumplings — which were good.

Here are some other things I loved about our meal at Din Tai Fung.

notes

Lessons from The Founder (aka “that McDonald’s movie”)

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 03:58 pm

On the plane ride back from Taiwan, one of the movies I watched was The Founder (2016), the Ray Kroc and McDonald’s story. I highly recommend it.

Here are random lessons I took away from the movie:

restaurants

My notes from Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant

Last updated on March 12th, 2017 at 09:25 am

Went to the Museum of Food and Drink in Williamsburg last week! It was awesome!

The exhibit was called Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant.

At nearly every panel I felt a visceral connection. Here are some of the pieces that resonated, and why:

In my opinion, this sums up the Chinese mentality, pride, and way of life: “They did what no one else would do.”

More fun times.

career

The Importance of Pre-Meal

Last updated on May 28th, 2018 at 04:54 pm

On January 13, 2009, we opened our restaurant, Shogun, in Delmar, NY and my father held our first pre-meal inside the kitchen. As the first of the soft-opening customers trickled through the front door, he shared this nugget of instruction:

“This is how you pour miso soup.”

We were about to open a Japanese restaurant — and we didn’t know how to serve the soup.

This is like asking for garlic bread at The Olive Garden and your server saying, “Garlic what?”

Case Studies: The Difference Pre-Meal Makes

I always thought pre-meal was the best part of a shift. Our pre-meals improved steadily: my father eventually moved past the soup, and instead, he’d remind us what was ’86ed, what the specials were, and what we should push that evening.

But it wasn’t my favorite part because I learned anything new, or made me feel more prepared.

I’ll get to what made pre-meal special in a moment. First, it’s worth noting how seriously other restaurants take their pre-meal.

At Eleven Madison Park, for example, the maitre d will Google the name of every guest that evening. If he finds out a guest is from say, Detroit, and he knows a server is from there, he’ll put them together. If it’s a couple’s anniversary, he’ll figure out which anniversary

Before guests even step foot into Eleven Madison Park, they’re looking for ways to blow their minds.

This is part of the reason why Eleven Madison Park dominates — even though they only offer a $195 pre-fixe meal.

In a paper titled Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance, published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, researchers applied principles similar to the pre-meal to the fundraising process.

At the University of Michigan, researchers arranged for one group of call center works to interact with scholarship students who benefited from the school’s fundraising — a five-minute, informal chat where they discussed the students’ studies.

How much of a difference did it make?