It's Time for TROLLEY TOUR!

Hey Foodies!

It's the last Friday of the month, and that means Trolley Tour! Tonight, Mark from MarksMenus will be bouncing around the South Main district and taking care of our most valued users. We've done this before and had a lot of fun with it. If you've never participated in this before, now is your chance!

Ok - for the newbies, this is how it works: it's kinda like "Where's Waldo", only Mark is Waldo. And instead of wearing a silly hat, he buys beer for people that can follow his clues and find him. In order to get the clues, follow @marksmenus on Twitter.

Tonight there will be 3 stops and 3 clues. The team will be hitting the South Main district around 6pm, so start looking for the first clue then.

C'mon - Trolley Tour is the PERFECT excuse for you to get out and show off those winter clothes you've kept in the back of your closet all summer. Hope to see you all there!

Mark

The NEW Eat-Up Post (This Friday)

Greetings Foodies!

This is NOT simply a reminder of the super cool lunch Eat-Up occurring at Felicia Suzanne's on Friday, October 7th, at 11:30 am (free dessert with meal). This is a new and improved message to announce that there will be a photo-op at the Eat-Up also. Some of the nice folks from the Memphis Daily News are stopping by to do an article on us. So tell your friends and acquaintances to come to the Eat-Up, get some great food, and get into the newspaper.

We can't wait to see everyone and enjoy some well deserved lunch.

The MarksMenus Team

The Third Eat-Up: Felicia Suzanne's Lunch

Hey Foodies!

It is time once again for an Eat-Up! This is our third Eat-up and will be at Felicia Suzanne's for lunch. Yes, you heard me correctly, LUNCH! You didn't know they did lunch? Well they do every Friday and it is fabulous (first hand experience).

So if you don't already have lunch plans for Friday, October 8th, you need to be at Felicia Suzanne's. Those of you that work downtown have the *perfect* excuse to check out this great restaurant during your lunch hour. To sweeten the deal, we have a special offer; Everyone loves dessert, MarksMenus.com and Felicia Suzanne's are gonna make it easy for you. On Friday, October 8th, you get a free dessert with your lunch. You can choose from between White Chocolate and Fresh Coconut Bread Pudding with warm Tennessee Whiskey Sauce and Spiced Cream. Both deserts are exceptional and amazing.

Come on down to downtown and join the MarksMenus team for lunch. Not only do you get to eat at a terrific restaurant for lunch, you get FREE dessert! When you get back to the office, make sure to check out MarksMenus.com and post your review.

You gotta eat, why not enjoy it?

The MarksMenus Team

Foodie Recommendations

Greetings Food-o-philes!

We are pleased to announce a new feature: Foodie recommendations! Foodie recommendations will help you quickly discover the best restaurants and dishes in town. Our power users -- the foodies -- are now able to recommend all of their favorite restaurants and dishes. These recommendations drive search results and are shown on each menu page throughout our site.

Are you a foodie? Let us know by simply writing a couple of recommendations of your own. Just pull up a menu on our site and click the "recommendations" link next to the restaurant or dish name and tell us why you like it. We'll review these personal recommendations periodically and promote new Foodies from among our most active users.

Please let us know what you think of the new system. We love feedback! http://marksmenus.com/contact

Happy eating,

The MarksMenus Team

The Cringely 2010 Start-Up Tour

Greetings Foodies!
We have some exciting news to share. Noted journalist Robert X. Cringely profiled MarksMenus yesterday. We will be featured in the near future in a documentary series, The Cringely 2010 (Not in Silicon Valley) Start-up Tour. This series showcases entrepreneurship in areas of the country generally not considered technology hubs. Twenty-four start-ups from around the country were chosen from hundreds of applicants.

In short, this is a major opportunity for us. We are honored and appreciative.

What does this mean for you, our users and fans? Expect some major developments in the coming months and increased announcements as we achieve new heights.

We'd like to thank Bob (Mr. Cringely to you) for believing in us and including MarksMenus in the series. A huge thank you goes out to Evan and Lerone, Bob's talented and professional film crew.

Onward and upwards.

The MarksMenus Team

5 Online Menu Mistakes

Greetings Foodies and Restaurateurs!

Some observations for restaurateurs today.

Having a great restaurant isn't enough. Consumers need information quickly to make decisions concerning their eating habits. They must be able to obtain restaurant knowledge. Restaurant knowledge isn't limited to just a building; what is served is equally as important as where it is served. If people don't know a great restaurant exists, they can't go there. If they don't know what's served, they may choose to not go there.

So what mistakes can a restaurateur make regarding consumer knowledge? Here are our top five.

5) Illegible Menus - If a menu is online and unreadable it is worse than not having a menu at all. Taunting consumers with the prospect of restaurant knowledge and then providing sub-par content can only anger them. A picture of a menu lacks the intractability of even a list of dishes. It cannot scale. It cannot be searched. It can create distaste, however.

If a restaurateur doesn't care enough to provide legible menus, why should diners gamble on their meal?

4) Non-indexable Online Menus - A menu is of little use if no one can find it. Consumers use search engines to locate their potential meals. If your menu is not indexed by the search engine, it can't be found quickly. Non-indexable menus will appear lower on search results than competing options. Lower listings are missed by casual searchers.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about being found, why should diners care to find them?

3) Lack of Description - Dish names are important to have on menus, but they are not enough. The more that can be said about a dish, the more appealing it can become. Describing the special qualities of a dish distinguish it from all competitors. Likewise, images can entice would-be eaters in ways words cannot. The more description added to a menu, the more people may be persuaded to come eat.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about their dishes, why should diners?

2) Out of Date Menus - Trust is an important factor in eatery selection. When menus are provided for searching, the dishes they contain should be accurate. Eaters who have selected a dish expect THAT dish. Similarly, eaters who have chosen a restaurant based on a dish, expect that dish to be served when they arrive.

If a restaurateur doesn't care about their validity, why should diners trust them?

1) No Online Menus - If consumers can't find your restaurant, they can't eat at your restaurant. This point is not as complex as those previously mentioned. People have computers, cell phones, and mobile devices that they use to plan their lives. The internet gives them life choice options. Not being an option is the fastest way to not being in business.

If restaurateurs don't want to be online, diners can't find them.

Luckily, MarksMenus alleviates all these problems. Menu entry is simple, clean, and indexable. There are optional fields for images and descriptions for each dish. Each field in the menu is a searchable field within the MarksMenus system and from the internet as a whole. We want to ensure that consumers looking for food are able to find it locally with minimal effort. And we do it down to the dish level.

Happy eating,

Mike

Greetings Foodies!

Marksmenus is abuzz with reports of a new launch of the site. A new launch, you ask. Yes, we answer! We are hard at work creating new features to make your menu surfing experience easier, faster, and more accurate. We want your first impulse to be heading for our product when you have any questions about food or restaurants. So we are making some changes and adding some new bits.

I can't give away all our secrets in this single blog post, but I can give you some tidbits. We are:

* modifying search in some interesting ways.

* adding a new component to restaurants that will improve their presentation and overall look.

* adding new functionality that allows you more of a voice about specific dishes.

* adding to the menu structure to accommodate more types of menus.

* redesigning the look and feel of many pages to make them easier to use.

Why are we doing this? For you. We want this system to be easy to use and pleasant to view. It is very important to us that our users (you amazing foodophiles) have the fastest and most enjoyable experience using our system as possible. Thus, we have taken feedback you have provided and tried to make the system better.

We still need your help, though. There are still things that can be changed. If you have ANY suggestions, let us know. We would love to hear form you. Just come over to our Contact Form (http://marksmenus.com/contact) and leave us a message. Or if you catch one of us out and about, let us know. We are always glad to hear from our users.

Keeping eating out!

Sincerely,

Michael Rowe