A Restaurant on Capel St.

crianp

Hey guys, well first of let me state I am not a marketer/advertiser... I just have some general knowledge and what I learnt from school. A friend of mine recently became a manager of a new asian restaurant in that part of dublin. The place has been open for the last two days and attendance has been minimal to say the least after the initial opening day promotion. Now I have suggested the following to her:

She needs to draw the people from O'Connel St and Henry st to come all the way to Capel...

Maybe take out an advert in a newspaper like the Metro

The restaurant is a buffet restaurant and I think the food is pretty good, the place is neat and the decor is colorful but simple.

My question to you guys is what do you think is the best way to promote this restaurant?

Dub-Dub

crianp wrote: »

My question to you guys is what do you think is the best way to promote this restaurant?

What's on the menu ?

Huggles

Not open at Christmas time.

Its a bad part of the city to attract people, but last two days were part of christmas break, not may people meeting in town after work to go for a meal. Will probably pick up in the new year.

The Hacker

I'd say the same. What a time to open the restaurant like.. I might check it out myself in the new year anyway.

crianp

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, my friend figures the new year will pick up anyway but she is still wanting to increase the numbers, the menu consists of (I don't know the official names):

Lo-Mein (Noodles)
Different styles of rice
Prawn Toast
Orange/Sweet and Sour Chicken
Spicy Peanut Chicken
BBQ Spare Ribs
French Fries

*There is more on the menu Dub-Dub, however thinking back to it, I don't think I mentioned that it is a Buffet style restaurant, you pay 12 euro and eat as much as you want

*There is more on the menu however since my friend's english is not the best, the descriptions are all from my visual descriptions

I was thinking of recommending mass mailing with an-post to the dublin city area, the costs are fairly low and I imagine it would be fairly effective? What do you guys think?

eth0_

Hrmm not exactly the best area to have opened a chinese restaurant, there is a LOT of competition around Capel St/Moore St!

I would go with your idea of advertising through An Post, and also in that Chinese newspaper for the Dublin area that i've seen being sold in town, i'm sure your friend knows about it.

crianp

I know the newspaper you speak off, she does know about it, thanks for the tips

fintan

If its all you can eat buffett, maybe some fliers in the colleges around the city centre?

Dub-Dub

Lo-Mein (Noodles)
Different styles of rice
Prawn Toast
Orange/Sweet and Sour Chicken
Spicy Peanut Chicken
BBQ Spare Ribs

Tuc Tuc , a three wheel vehicle ( rickshaw) that will bring the hordes in, 4 persons at a time plus self advertising on the vehicle. BTW I live in Japan .

crianp

The restaurant has distributed fliers but I think the next step is to hit all the colleges and then go with the an post process. Thanks for the tip dub dub, didn't realize you live in Japan, so give me a bit more details on the rickshaw, I know the owner of the restaurant has given my friend a fairly tight budget but I will be pitching all of this to her tomorrow.

Tails142

if its a self service buffet - your target market is lunch and young people (e.g. poor). If people are heading out for dinner most will go to a restaurant with waitress service.

You cant really compete with a proper chinese in terms of speed - as they often have lightning fast service anyway. Your main competitive edge would I presume be price.

Students are mad into all you can eat - I know me and the lads often went to pizza hut and other chinese all you can eat buffets for lunch. The only thing is that you might get eaten out of house and home by them. I can't think of any other time I've went to an all you can eat except for when I was in college... probably would be unlikely to bring the girlfriend to one these days.

If you sell beers, offer free or cheaper beer with a meal, or some sort of promotion on your quiet nights to drag in people - works for captain america's. (They have 3 euro drinks on wednesdays I think). Possibly some sort of two for one deal. DIT Bolton Street should be a great source of business for you, its full of country lads living away from home that just want to get drunk and stuff themeselves.

Bottom line is you're fighting an uphill battle. I can think of a few places on Capel Street; that People's Cafe being the nicest chinese around. But with the right draw you can become no.1

antoinolachtnai

PR. PR is good for restaurants. Reviews, journalists, mentions, all that sort of thing. I would get someone involved on the PR side if your friend can manage it.

I don't know about all this downmarket student stuff. It's ok if you're stuck or if that's your positoning, but I don't see it really being viable. Depends on the rent and all the rest.

Selling chinese food to chinese people is unlikely to be particularly profitable in itself.


Getting into the local network is important. I would give free meals to all the barmen on Capel St. who will come. These are the people who can deliver referrals.

Advertising is just not going to help much.

Fliers at the right time of the evening offering a free glass of wine or something might help.

crianp

Nice tips tails and antoin.... I understand what you mean about the student market... I was speaking to my friend the other day and I gave her a print out of what everyone has been saying. She was telling me that her boss was looking to advertise in the Polska Gazeta, now I have been trying to figure it out, but the only advantage I can see in advertising there is that it probably costs alot less than say the metro or the herald am (€1800 for a half page color ad) I like the network idea though, that has alot of possibilites.

stepbar

crianp wrote: »

Hey guys, well first of let me state I am not a marketer/advertiser... I just have some general knowledge and what I learnt from school. A friend of mine recently became a manager of a new asian restaurant in that part of dublin. The place has been open for the last two days and attendance has been minimal to say the least after the initial opening day promotion. Now I have suggested the following to her:

She needs to draw the people from O'Connel St and Henry st to come all the way to Capel...

Maybe take out an advert in a newspaper like the Metro

The restaurant is a buffet restaurant and I think the food is pretty good, the place is neat and the decor is colorful but simple.

My question to you guys is what do you think is the best way to promote this restaurant?

Just my 2c on all this.

I work on O'Connell St and I can't say I've seen any advertising from your friends restaurant in the past 2 days. How in ever........

To be brutally honest, if you are looking to attract people from O'Connell St / Henry St you will have an uphill struggle. There is already one lovely Chinese Buffet on Middle Abbey St which does Chinese "all you can eat" for 7 eur takeaway or 8.80eur sit down. The Epicurean Food Hall on Middle Abbey St has an Italian "all you can eat" also.

Put yourself in my shoes (and a lot of the people who work in the general area) ...... I have an hour for lunch..... I have about 10+ different places I could visit within 1 minute walk and at varying cost. Would I walk to Capel St? Not unless there was something special to bring me there. I simply don't have the time / don't want to spend the time farting down to Capel St.

My advice would be to forget about the Metro / Herald AM / An Post for the time being. Your friend needs to devise a special lunch time offer to attract punters, an offer that stands out e.g. Meal for 2 people (All you can eat for 15 eur plus free drinks). 12 eur for an "all you can eat" at lunch time is a ridiculus price. Maybe as an evening price you could get away with it.

Then she needs to get flyers printed up and get people up to Busaras, Connolly / Heuston / Tara / Pearse Station / St Stephen's Green Luas (in the morning) and O' Connell / Henry / Abbey / Capel / Bolton St (for lunchtime) to hand same out. Could be the best investment she ever made. I'm sure that she could get a few students / friends to hand out flyers.

MB74

I know some people see them as annoying but maybe a fax 'mailshot' not as expensive as other forms of advertising.

antoinolachtnai

You might be interested to hear that I was recently barred from a bus stop on Abbey St. for giving out fliers. But that's another story.

12 euros at lunchtime is probably not going to work. That's a positioning issue.

The thing to remember is that the business has to be profitable as well as being attractive for customers. 'Bait and switch' where you do a promotion for a while, then drop it is not necessarily a good strategy.

a.

stepbar

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You might be interested to hear that I was recently barred from a bus stop on Abbey St. for giving out fliers. But that's another story.

12 euros at lunchtime is probably not going to work. That's a positioning issue.

The thing to remember is that the business has to be profitable as well as being attractive for customers. 'Bait and switch' where you do a promotion for a while, then drop it is not necessarily a good strategy.

a.

Banned by whom That's madness.....

The offer would be a "permanent" special. Just like Unique's (Clothes shops in the city) sale prices Perhaps an additional extra added in every so often e.g. free drink / fries etc might keep the interest going. TBH I think it might be the only strategy that might work. Ok, not a brillant strategy but its a decent enough strategy bearing in mind the problems that the restaurant faces attracting customers. I couldn't see people walking all the way to Capel St from O'Connell St / Henry St for food that could be got elsewhere cheaper and faster.

Perhaps the OP would let us know where this restaurant is on Capel St. I might walk down just to give a verdict on it

antoinolachtnai

Yep, the appearance of a restaurant is very important. It is worth getting a few people to give a view. Investing five grand in the shopfront could well be a better investment than advertising in freesheets.

The biggest problem with discounting or giving something for 'free' is that the business becomes unprofitable. (Other problems are that it can set off a hopeless price war and that it can devalue the product in the minds of the customers.) In general you do anything to avoid dropping prices.

The margins in a restaurant are nothing like the margins in Unique!

(I was barred by the chief inspector of Dublin Bus if you must know.)

stepbar

True, but they need something to entice customers all the way to Capel St. As it stands, at 12 eur a pop I won't be going there and I would know plenty who would think along my lines. Look at the competition that I've mentioned already.

Some sort of lunchtime and / or evening special (a set menu deal with cheap ingredients if needs be or something comparable) if needed, whether it be 2 "all you can eats" for 15eur or whatever. Something different. Maybe price the individual meals at 9eur and takeaways slightly cheaper. I'm not advocating giving food away for free but something has to give. Essentially, it will take something for people to bait.

I would imagine that the profit margins would be healthy enough due to the fact that the ingredients are no way complicated to cook and (in theory) the price of ingredients should fall in accordance with the amount purchased. Again, in theory, there should not be large amounts of wastage either. In order to maximise profit, it should be possible to employ staff on a split shift basis, whilst keeping a skeleton service available during non peak hours. Granted the location is not the best but some smart advertising would help. And it shouldn't have to cost a fortune. There's any amount of students who would give their right hand to earn a few handy quid handing out flyers.

BTW, I didn't think it was illegal to hand out flyers at a bus stop. Wait..... it isn't!!!!!!!!!

Dub-Dub

MB74 wrote: »

a fax 'mailshot'

Somebody shoot this spammmmmmmmers idea of advertising. The original electronic mail paper waster.

antoinolachtnai

The price of the ingredients will really only drop significantly if you reduce the quality level. Good ingredients cost a lot of money. Reducing the costs may or may not be what you really want.

Good staff just aren't easy to get. Hard work alone won't do it, you need a (small) bit of panache to do front of house in even the most basic restaurant.

You can't always overcome the location problem. Sometimes the location is just wrong. You are right that if you can offer something special you may be able to overcome this.

It's all about positioning.