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2) Out of Date Menus - Trust is an important factor in eatery selection.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

Developers Needed!

Hello Foodies,

I have some exciting new this week. We are HIRING! Here's the flyer you may be seeing around town:

We're Hiring

MarksMenus, the hot memphis tech startup, is looking for more talent. If you are in school or fresh out of school, we want to talk to you.

We need a designer with some web programming skill (html/css) and/or programmer with design skill (photoshop/GUI)

Part-Time or Full-Time

Up to $35,000/year depending on skills, experience, and availability.

If you are interested in learning more contact jobs@marksmenus.com with your resume and portfolio.

If you or someone you know is interested, let us know!

Thanks for your time,

Mike

Let's Do It Again!

Our first "Eat-Up" was a huge success! Let's do it again. We are heading to South of Beale in Downtown Memphis this coming Monday, August 16th, from 5:30-7:30pm.

South of Beale is still on their summer menu and we look forward to "eating it up" with you. Since South of Beale loves us, they are offering the following Special Deals:

--You can enjoy 50% off the "Bites" Menu when you show your MarksMenus App.
--Everyone will enjoy extended Happy Hour prices on drinks.

Be sure to download the latest versions of our mobile app for either the Android (@ Android Market) or the iPhone (@ App Store).

Hope to see you at South of Beale.

Have a great weekend,
Mark

PS: There is a Facebook invite here for the event.

Finding exactly what you want, when you want it.

Happy Friday everyone!

Before I get into today's post, I'd like to thank everyone for coming to our Eat-Up at South of Beale earlier this week. We gave away t-shirts, showed off our mobile apps, met our fabulous users and generally had a blast. We've got more events like that planned for the future so be sure to watch this space!

I'd also like to remind you that it's not to late to enter this week's "Make Mark Eat It" contest. This week's contenders are listed here.

Today I'd like to spotlight one of the most interesting features of MarksMenus and how it helps set us apart from other similar services. Most places will let you search for restaurants by a genre, like "Italian" or "Tex-Mex". One of the problems with this manner of searching is that it's not very specific.

Right now I want for you, the reader, to think of the first dish that comes to mind when I say "Italian Food". Some of you are thinking about a dish like Linguini and some of you are thinking about a big ol' Meatball Sub.

Both of these dishes fall under the category of Italian food, but they are representative of two totally different dining experiences. One of them is something that you can grab during your lunch break, the other will probably involve a nice bottle of wine and a date.

Have you ever noticed that you can tell a lot about a restaurant by their menu? If you see that a restaurant has their wine list on their menu, it's a good bet that you should probably ditch the jeans and the Ed Hardy shirt and throw on some Dockers. The ability to check out a menu *before* you arrive is a great way to know whether or not that great "Italian Restaurant" you're taking your first date to is a place with cloth tablecloths or a pizza shack with a wide-screen TV and a Galaga machine in front of the restrooms.

This is just one of the ways in which we separate ourselves from other search engines. By allowing you to search at the dish level, we can help you find not only the food that you want but set your expectation of the dining experience.

South of Beale TONIGHT!

Before I go into the details on our party tonight, I want to send out a big congrats to our winner of last week's "Make Mark Eat It" contest - memknitmafia! I'll announce the next contest in a bit.

Tonight we will be hitting the south main district and rolling into South of Beale a little after 5pm. If you've always wondered what a gastropub is like, tonight is the night to check it out. Why, you ask? Here's why:

• Tonight they are running an extended happy hour until 7:30. That means that happy hour drink prices will be in effect.
• For those of you that have downloaded our mobile app, you will receive 50% off any item on the "Bites" menu.
• The first 5 people that show up with a friend will get a MarksMenus t-shirt.

Come on down and say hello!

Based on last week's Make Mark Eat It contest, I've decided to alter the rules just slightly. Our first winner pointed out that maybe giving them a week's notice for the lunch meet might be better, so I'm gonna give the people what they want. The two dishes in this week's competition are as follows:

• "The Shag" - I absolutely LOVE bananas, so I'm really eager to check this one out.
• Tamales - I have been looking for an excuse to visit this place.

The winning dish will be decided by the number of comments that each dish receives between now and Friday, July 16 at midnight. I will pick two users from the comments on the winning dish and take them out to lunch on Saturday, July 24.

So that's it! Add you comments and I hope to see a bunch of you tonight at South of Beale!

Make Mark EAT IT!

First, I would like to thank everyone that said hello to me during the Trolley Tour. I bought a bunch of free beer for people and got to meet some of our best fans.

Today I would like to announce another contest - Make Mark Eat It!

Here's how it works: I'll list 2 dishes that I have never tried before. The dish that gets the best reviews between now and Friday, July 9 will be the dish that I order on Saturday, July 10 and post my review on MarksMenus.com. In addition, 2 lucky users that posted a review of the winning dish will join me for lunch. The only stipulation is that you have to order the same dish.

Dish 1: BBQ Beef Bologna from The BBQ Shop
Dish 2: The Maximus from Republic Coffee

Ok - so get to commenting!

Be sure that you have a valid email address listed in your profile, because that is how we will be contacting you.

If you miss out on this one, be sure to join us on Monday, July 12 at South of Beale for our tweetup!