Archives for all posts by Maureen McKendry

As a restaurant owner you will be fully aware that running anything less than a tight ship results in chaos, missed potential and loss of profits. Clearing the tables and setting them for the next guests, the peeled and chopped ingredients ready to hand to the chef, the speed at which the bill can be...

Here on the simpleERB blog, we never stop stressing the importance of restaurant reviews to your business. We have discussed how negative restaurant reviews can help your business, how negative reviews can hurt your restaurant’s valuation, how to get a good review of your restaurant published on Yelp...

It’s an important stipulant for many restaurants: that tables must be given back after a certain period of time, usually 90 minutes or two hours. From the restaurant’s perspective this is a reasonable request: it gives customers more than enough time to enjoy several courses and a bottle of wine while...

Reviews are important: this isn’t so much old news to a restaurateur than the equivalent of the first book of Genesis to a restaurateur. Still, reviews are becoming increasingly important to restaurants in new ways as traditional review websites like Trip Advisor and Yelp make way for Google restaurant...

2018 is the year email marketing will become essential for restaurants, says industry media company, The Rail. They believe this year email will overtake Facebook as the marketing tool every restaurant will need to utilise. Facebook organic reach In 2017, as every restaurant with a Facebook page will...

As we hope you all know by now, in 2017 the importance of Instagram to restaurants cannot be underestimated. In recent years, the craze for taking photos of your food and posting them on the social media platform has snowballed, and Instagram now plays a powerful role in influencing where diners choose...

Did you know your restaurant could be saving money on taxes simply by experimenting with new recipes and cooking techniques? According to research by Catax, 60% of restaurant owners and managers in the UK have never heard of R&D tax credits. R&D tax credits R&D tax credits are government tax relief ...

Use Mailchimp to manage your email marketing? Now you can use it to manage your Facebook Ads too. Mailchimp Facebook Ad Campaigns, launched this week, allows Mailchimp users to create Facebook ads and track their performance within their Mailchimp account. Image from http://blog.mailchimp.com/ The email...

This blog post intends to look at the one night stand trap: restaurant diners customer lifetime value. Restaurant diners can vaguely be split into two categories: one night stands and long term relationships. The one night stands are only interested in their meal that night. They come along to your ...

What’s your favourite acronym? Here on the simpleERB blog we’re still partial to a WTF. ROFL and LMAO feel pretty dated now, and don’t get us started on YOLO. Incidentally, we just found out the ubiquitous BAE stands for Before Anyone Else. You learn something new every day. Restaurant acronyms Of course...

Our simpleERB pre ordering feature was designed to save time for our restaurants and make their lives a little easier. But one inventive restaurateur has concocted a way to use our pre ordering feature to launch a food delivery service. The restaurateur in question realised he was paying a fortune to...

Two of our Iceland partners are using simpleERB to manage their restaurant while they take part in a popular food festival. APÓTEK and Grillið are both participating in the Food is Fun festival, a one week celebration of Reykjavík’s best restaurants. Food is Fun involves world renowned chefs teaming...

Happy New Year! At almost two weeks into 2016, how are you coming along with your resolutions? Lost a stone yet? Gone to the gym every day? Saved a thousand pounds? In all seriousness, January is the ideal time for a restaurateur to make changes. The madness of Christmas has died down and it’s probably...

Save time in your restaurant by signing up to our pre ordering service. Allow your customers to pick their dishes online so the food is ready for when they arrive. Save time Free up time, maximise efficiency and make life easier for your kitchen and waiting staff with our simpleERb mechanism for pre...

How much easier would managing your restaurant be if you had access to all your restaurant data? If you could see where exactly your covers come from? How many of your customers are new or returning? If you had all your customer’s likes, dislikes and feedback all in the one place? simpleERB offers all...

Good restaurant service is an art. In fact, it has even been compared to theatre. Just ask Lady Gaga who worked as a waitress in New York before she hit the big time. “I was really good at it,” she told Elle magazine. “I always got big tips. I told everybody stories, and for customers on dates, I kept...

So you want to open a second restaurant? Good for you. Your current restaurant is a roaring success, customers are queuing to get in and you’re the critics’ darling. All you need to do now is duplicate what made you successful, sit back with your feet on a desk, and count the pennies. Not so fast. As...

Restaurant tips have been big news in the previous months. The revelation that big chains such as Bill’s, Cote and Giraffe keep the 10% service charge with none of it going to the waiting staff, sparked a chain of stories on the ethics and guidelines of tipping.It’s a subject we have covered on this...

Type “the best time to post on social media” into a Google image search and this is what you are faced with. The business world loves their Best Time To Post infographics. It’s understandable. The world of social media marketing is overwhelming; it’s not enough now to have Facebook and Twitter, Instagram...

We’ve all seen those loudspeaker/magnet graphics. How traditional marketing represents the loudspeaker: print and broadcast media ads, leafleting, trade shows and telemarketing. And how the magnet is digital marketing: SEO, social media, blogging and content. In case you haven’t seen one (taken from...

Are you a restaurant owner who obsesses over your TripAdvisor reviews and rankings? Well, you’re in luck (or not, if you’re trying to wean yourself off it). The daddy of restaurant review websites is launching an analytics dashboard which will feature insights and trend data on reviews, ranking and ...

There’s nothing that makes a restaurateur’s blood run cold than the sight of a negative review. Scathing words from some punk who thinks they’re a restaurant critic. Swanning into the business you built with your own hands and tearing it to shreds with no regard for your livelihood. To any restaurateurs...

There are few acts as culturally divisive than restaurant tipping. In the UK 10% is considered good manners (if the service is good). In the USA anything less than 20% is unacceptable. In Japan tips are not left at all and the server may even try to return your tip if you choose to leave one. Dining...

As any restauranteur will know, diners today are perhaps 100 times more discerning than previous generations. And, as any restauranteur will know, there is pretty much one culprit to blame for this – the internet. Today, diners wouldn’t dream of just rocking up to a neighbourhood bistro to try it out...

New York raw fish fans you have approximately two weeks to gobble as much fresh sushi and sashimi as you can handle – from August, new regulations mean all fish served raw must be frozen first, reports The New York Times. The regulation, published this week by the New York City Department of Health ...

Every wondered why Coke tastes better from a glass bottle than a plastic bottle? Why a neat swirl of spaghetti is more delicious than a heap dumped on your plate? Turns out it’s science. Gastrophysics if you want to use the fancy word. The term has been coined by Oxford experimental psychologist Charles...

Man plans, God laughs. Nothing as much as owning a small business (save from perhaps having your own child) exemplifies this phrase more. You can try to forecast potential problems and solutions all you want, owning a small business will still result in head spinning moments and sleepless nights you...

Negative online reviews of your restaurant can affect your reputation, deter customers from coming through your door and cause a few nights crying in to your pillow. Making light of bad reviews may have more consequences than you think This, we are all aware of. But have you ever thought about how negative...

When Google decides to put a lot of effort into something, it rarely fails to be a huge success (apart from Google+. Let’s just forget about Google+) So when whispers around the net begin to surface that Google are planning another stab at the social media landscape, this time with a social network ...

We have all had traumatic dining experiences. Meals out so bad we logged online afterwards to leave the most scathing insult of all – a one star review. The memory of a limp pasta and rude waiter may make you shudder with horror, but according to a report from linguists at Stanford University, diners...

Us restaurateurs are a rather puffed up lot – when we get a good review we want it seen by as many people as possible. In this day and age an integral part of this is ensuring said review is published on Yelp. Which as many restaurateurs know, is as easy as digging a ditch with a teaspoon. Or you could...

We all know how restaurant design can influence diners ’ eating habits. Now research reported in New Scientist* has uncovered a wealth of information on how much factors such as lighting, windows and the size and shape of a wine glass can affect how much a customer eats and drinks. From visiting 27 ...

They’re both north of the border, both have had tussles with their bigger southern neighbour and have both made the news an awful lot in the last year. But is there really going to be a North Korean restaurant in Scotland? Kim Jonh Un. A man who looks like he likes a good meal. According to newspaper...

Restaurant menu pricing can be something of a minefield. There’s food and staff costs to consider, all while manoeuvring the tricky balancing act of attracting customers vs satisfying the bottom line. Tried and tested pricing strategies such as supplements on dishes and lower priced lunch and pre theatre...

Fancy making a mint? Try handing out some mints. Let us backtrack. A study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found waiters increased their tips by 23% just by offering their customers mints after the meal. What relevance does this have for customer service for online businesses? ...

Restaurateurs are known to be wee bit snippy about online reviews. The reply function on Trip Advisor has made for some entertaining back and forth spars, with customers complaining of poor restaurant and hotel experiences. Just look at the restaurant who fined one couple £100 for describing their hotel...

What does your Back to the Future II style vision of the future feature? Electric cars which drive themselves? Floating hoverboards? Pizzas that top themselves just by reading your mind? The third one may not be that far off. Pizza Hut have announced they are launching a digital menu that prepares orders...

What’s the difference between the two photos listed above? One shows a left breast, the other is a right t…… A comment made by UKIP leader Nigel Farage on a radio show has caused an uproar and reopened the debate about the appropriateness of breastfeeding in public places. In case you have been living...

It’s easy to understand why restaurateurs are wary of an open kitchen. Every move from their chefs are exposed, available to be scrutinised by the waiting diners who are paying to eat the food. This means no chatting, no checking of mobiles, and certainly no dropping the ingredients and slyly putting...