According to the Michigan Restaurant Association the Foodservice Industry is a Ladder of Opportunity

According to the Michigan Restaurant Association, the foodservice industry has a wealth of opportunities available to the Michigan workforce.  Did you know that 9 out of 10 salaried employees at tableservice restaurants started out as hourly employees?  In fact, the average restauranteur started out at the bottom of the restaurant ladder as dishwasher, bussers or servers, dispelling the myth that entry level restaurant careers are dead-end jobs for the average restaurant industry worker.  Approximately three out of five salaried employees in the Michigan restaurant industry started out as hourly workers in foodservice.

The Michigan foodservice industry also hires more women and minority managers than any other industry in the state.  That statistic coupled with the fact that 58 percent of employees in foodservice operations are women and 12 percent of food industry supervisors are people of Hispanic origin, bodes well for the career advancement opportunities for women and minorities in the Michigan restaurant industry.

Given the current state of unemployment in Michigan, these statistics from the Michigan Retaurant Associaton are highly encouraging.  Total restaurant industry employment is expected to reach 12 million people this year, and, just like other business executives, restaurant industry executives can earn six or seven figure salaries annually, including health benefits and vacation time.

So what's the moral of the story?  When jobs are hard to come by as they currently are in Michigan, the restaurant industry jobs may be among the best choices for the unemployed.  Studies show that workers who start in entry level restaurant jobs have many advancement opportunities and may be able to parlay an entry level job into a highly successful career. 

This is good news for both employer and employee.  Employers should be able to draw from a larger pool of interested and capable job candidates.  Employees can now choose the Michigan restaurant industry as a career path instead of just a means to an end.  In the end, this all leads to more stability for this popular service industry.  The jobs are out there and these jobs are leading to careers, strengthening the Michigan economy.

If you are a Michigan restaurant owner or manager who is interested in learning more about new ways to market your product and promote your service, contact Michigan Flavor at 248.302.2738.  An enhanced listing for your establishment on http://www.miflavor.com/ will not only drive customers to you, but that listing can also help attract skilled workers with an interest in a foodservice industry career.  Your listing on Michigan Flavor will help optimize your Michigan Restaurant or Bar's website for search engine queries.  Partnering with Michigan Flavor may be one of the best marketing/PR investments you'll ever make.

*source: http://www.michiganrestaurant.org

How Michigan Bars and Restaurants Can Retain Current Customers and Attract New Diners with Their Daily Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Drink Specials

So you've put together a collection of fantastic daily breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink specials.  Your chef has worked ceaselessly on his or her signature dishes to highlight on the dinner specials menu.  You've decided which drinks to feature for your happy hour.  You have a fantastic breakfast special that rivals any morning fare available.  My question to you?   How can you use these specials to bring in new diners and retain your current customers?  And perhaps more importantly how do diners find out about these specials? 

I've asked this question of restaurant after restaurant.  Answers vary from "we post them on the board in the entryway" to "we put them up on our sign" to my favorite "we post them on table toppers".  Those are all fine answers.  The problem?  No one is going to know about your specials unless they were either already walking through your door or just happen to be driving by your establishment slowly enough to read your sign.  You're definitely not getting the most out of your specials.  Your specials should be attracting new business.  Your specials should be drawing diners back into your Michigan restaurant for repeat business.

The only way a restaurant in Michigan can use its breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink specials to attract new business or draw repeat business is if potential diners know about these specials ahead of time.  Wouldn't it be great if customers could search the web specifically for such specials?  Wouldn't it be great if diners could search for a type of special in a specific city or area and get a full list of establishments that match that diners search?  Guess what?  Now, they can.


Michigan Flavor is a fully interactive, online Michigan restaurant and bar directory that allows users to search for establishments by location, cuisine, features, specials and events.  Each restaurant or bar with an enhanced listing on the website has a dedicated page complete with photo gallery, contact information, map and directions, hours of operation, a description of your establishment, links to your website and social media sites, your menus and perhaps most importantly, your breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink specials.  So how can you use this enhanced listing of your specials and events to attract new diners and retain current customers?


If a Michigan restaurant or bar has an enhanced listing on miflavor.com, potential diners can browse that establishment's daily breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink specials or events.  If a user is looking for a happy hour in a specific city and your Michigan bar has listed your happy hour, chances are that user may walk through your door and become a valued customer.  If a user is looking for a place to hold a breakfast meeting and your restaurant's breakfast specials are listed, chances are, that breakfast meeting will take place in your establishment.  If a couple is looking for a new place to have a date night and your dinner specials are listed, that couple will probably end up with a reservation at your restaurant.


The point is this, if your establishment has great daily specials and exciting weekly events, you should be shouting them from the rooftops instead of hoping customers will happen upon your establishment by chance. Given that according to a recent Google study 90% of Americans use the internet to search for information about Michigan bars and restaurants, listing your specials and events online increases the chances of your specials and events being found by potential customers exponentially.  Michigan Flavor offers your establishment the opportunity to take full advantage of the power of your fantastic specials and popular events.  When users go to the site, they can search specifically for the kinds of things that your restaurant or bar specializes in.  It's time you started capitalizing on this phenomenal opportunity.

To learn more about Michigan Flavor, visit the website at http://www.miflavor.com or call 248.302.2738 to speak with an account representative.  An enhanced listing on Michigan Flavor restaurant and bar directory offers your Michigan restaurant or bar the chance to attract new customers and to turn your current diners into regulars.  With our mobile version up and running and our I-phone application in development, the opportunities for your establishment to be seen are endless.  Don't miss out on this one of a kind opportunity to become a part of our directory of Michigan bars and restaurants.

Your Restaurant Invested in a Beautiful Website - Now What?

You know your restaurant needs a website.  You know that diners choose places to eat by searching the web.  You know all this, so you went ahead and invested a significant amount of capital into having a beautiful website designed.  You picked out and purchased a domain name, probably the name of your restaurant.  So how do you drive traffic to this beautiful new website?  How do you get diners to find your beautiful website, click on your carefully chosen domain name and eventually walk through your door?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard the words, "I am ranked #1 in google when you search for the name of my restaurant".  That's wonderful, but what if diners don't know the name of your restaurant?  Diners search for restaurants and bars by typing keywords into a google, yahoo, bing, etc. search.  They're not typing the name of your restaurant into these search engines unless they've already been to your restaurant or they have heard by word of mouth that they should dine at your establishment.  

Diners are much more likely to type in searches that look something like this "restaurants in Any City, Michigan" or "Michigan Asian Restaurants".  How does your restaurant website rank in searches like that?  If you have a website and a website alone, I'm guessing you don't rank as high as you'd like.

There are services all over the internet promising to get you ranked high in search engine results.  You can pay consultant after consultant to ensure that diners are finding you on the web.  You can invest countless capital trying to buy adwords or pay for sponsored advertising in these search engines.  You can do all that and chances are, you'll be pretty successful in driving customers to your site; but you're going to have to invest a significant amount of money to make these strategies work for you.

The key to ranking high in search engines in content.  Search engines browse the web for relevant, keyword-heavy content about your restaurant, your city and your industry.  Content, content, content is the key to inexpensively driving traffic to your website.  So how do you build content?  Social media (facebook.com, twitter.com, myspace.com, etc), videos (youtube.com, dailymotion.com), articles (digg.com, ezine.com), press releases, social bookmarking (delicious.com) and blogging (blogger.com, wordpress.com).

Creating a combination of all of the aforementioned media will no doubt increase the amount of content related to your website spread throughout the web just waiting for search engines to find it and direct diners to your site.  Seems pretty simple right?  What's the problem then? Time!  Anyone who has tried his/her hand at social networking and internet marketing knows that it becomes a full time job.  You end up with dozens of sites to keep track of while making sure you update your social media pages and writing blog posts.  Even then, there are articles to write, press releases to submit, photos to upload, videos to produce and the list goes on and on.

So what if you could partner with a website who did all this hard work for you?  With an enhanced listing on http://www.miflavor.com/, you essentially receive the benefits of all of our hard work.  Your restaurant will essentially receive a mini-website inside Michigan Flavor's directory of Michigan Restaurants.  Once there, your restaurant reaps the benefits of all the behind the scenes search engine optimization that is going on at Michigan Flavor.  We'll worry about getting Michigan Flavor ranked in the search engines.

When diners find our Michigan Restaurant directory, they'll find your restaurant page, complete with photo gallery, downloadable menus, a listing of your specials and events, a map and directions, a listing of your hours of operation and a description of your establishment.  Your restaurant page on Michigan Flavor has a direct link to your restaurant's website and social networking pages, automatically boosting your website's organic search engine listing, leaving you, the restaurant owner/manager, the time to do what it is that you do best, run your establishment.

To learn more about our fully searchable, interactive online directory of Michigan Restaurants, visit our website at http://www.miflavor.com/ or call 248.302.2738.  If you have search engine optimization questions you'd like to email, direct your questions tomailto:jodi@miflavor.com.  To learn more about getting your restaurant listed on Michigan Flavor, email dennis@miflavor.com.