Free Day - History Part 2


When we did our strategic planning for 2002, we asked ourselves what we had been doing well. Advertising?  No. Marketing?  Not really?  Food quality?  Very high. Giving away free stuff?  Ah, yes.  We’re really good at that!  By this time we had become the “go-to” restaurant in town for people looking for help with fundraising, silent auctions, those types of things. And we had given away a bucket load of free lunches at Free Day.  Hmmm.  Let’s give away more free stuff!   So, we added the phrase “and dinner” to our banner we hang out front for free lunch day, and in 2002 started serving both free lunch and dinner.

  Results?  1,388 lunches (we love beating previous year results).  1,586 free dinners. We thought we might be on to something, and evidently that year 2,974 folks agreed.

  I won’t bore you with all the numbers, but suffice it to say we kept raising the bar, kept making sure it was fun, and people kept coming.  We steadily grew the Customer Appreciation Day crowd up over the 5,000 mark.  We passed 5,000 for the first time in 2007.

  Along the way, we had to make some changes to be sure the experience was pleasurable for everyone who came out.  In year one, we tried (with little success) to pour everyone a fountain drink.  It was like throwing a stick in the spokes of a bicycle humming down the road.  Screech.  Hurry up and wait for your drink!  We tried.  We had 6 people doing nothing but pumping out drinks.  The mess took a a few days to clean up.  We had to ditch our noble efforts, suck it up, and serve canned sodas and bottled waters.  And so we have, ever since.  It was critical, though, that all the food we served was exactly what was served here every day. We’ve stayed true to that, and tomorrow when you come you will get a Pulled Pork or Chicken Breast Sandwich with the same bakery-fresh bun as always.  Served with homemade Cole Slaw and BBQ Pit Beans.  

  The photo with this post shows the banner we fly over Gilbert Road prior to the event. The Town is kind enough to put it up (for a mere $200 a week) when we remember to get our name on the waiting list for the banner spot.  90 days before you want a banner hung, you had better get your request in, or some school wanting to advertise enrollments will beat you to the punch! Sign-A-Rama does an awesome job of making our banners, and we’ve been very happy with their work over the years.

  Hopefully more coming later today about the behind-the-scenes stuff leading up to the big day.  Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow.  Tad

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Free Day.... History Part 1

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As Customer Appreciation Day 2010 is upon us, I thought it timely to share some of the history, the reasoning, and some behind-the-scenes operational workings.  

  Most common question posed tomorrow?  Why in the world do you guys offer everyone a free meal?  Good question.  Short answer… to thank our customers in a tangible way for their patronage throughout the year.  

  Longer answer… good thing we have a blog!

  History

  Tim, Joe and I sit down frequently to talk about how things are going at the restaurants.  We are constantly challenging ourselves to move the bar higher, and to raise the expectations.  When we sat down one Friday in early 2000, we wanted to do something for our customers that was a) outlandish b) generous and c) not already being done better by someone else.

  Tim and Joe had come up with just such a promotion at The Coffee Plantation on Mill Avenue. There, they gave away free coffee and the results were amazing.  Thousands of people came out.  They all found it rather odd.  Most found the free gift to be generous.  Nobody was in the habit of giving away free stuff to thank their customers.  It was at CP, therefore, a very successful promotion.

  But would people come out for a free meal?  Hmmm.  We thought we would come up with a clever promotional tag line “There is such a thing as a free lunch” and give it a try in 2000.  But when?  May is, as certainly all of you recall (alright, 3 of you) National BBQ Month.  We thought Free Lunch Day might attract a few hundred folks, and we embarked on planning the first Free Lunch for Wednesday, May 17, 2000.   I think we opened at 11am as usual, and planned to serve a few hundred freebies, close up to stock for dinner, and open again at 4pm.  A few hundred quickly passed a thousand, and the final number came in at 1,248 free meals served.  Wow!  We were wiped out, but we had established the fact people will come out if you give them something worth coming for.  The goal the next year was to beat the number.  We did.  By 17.  We served 1,265 free lunches in 2001, and we started thinking about how we could amp up what was becoming a really cool social event in downtown Gilbert.

  The photo with this post is of our kids at Free Lunch 2003.  Many of our children have worked at the restaurants since the beginning, and the ones who still live in town still look forward to Customer Appreciation Day.

  More on the history later today.  Tad

Back2theBlog

I took some time off blogging to focus on other aspects of life and business.  There’s so much going on in our industry and our businesses, I just wanted to get back at it and get some things in print.

We have always felt long term planning by the partners made great sense for the businesses.  I am blessed with two awesome biz partners.  Tim (my brother and the keeper of Joe’s Farm Grill), Joe (ya’ll know him as @realjoe) and I meet often to pray, plan and produce.  We like to have “summit” type meetings a few times a year to look at big-picture stuff.  We also meet frequently to make sure we’re giving our managers the tools they need to put the vision into practice.  Lately we’ve met more than usual, as there is a great deal going on.  Our planning early in the year produced even more customer-friendly changes than some past years.

Some things that have come to fruition of late...

BBQTV – as I had blogged about earlier, we sought a way of displaying important, useful and fun info.  BBQTV made its debut recently and by all accounts is doing what we had hoped. We showcase some great photos by local fans (send me yours for consideration any time).  We throw in some Gilbert trivia.  We let folks know about some of the amazing history of our 1929 building.  And we let people know the specials as they are walking in to help make ordering a snap.

Early Diners – We responded to the requests of folks who like to eat early 2-430pm Monday-Thursday.  We came up with offerings that made sense – scaling down portions and prices.  We even created an amazing smoked meat loaf I think will be talked about for a while.  Coming up with offerings of our caliber food for as little as $5.49, we think we’re on to something for folks looking to save some coin in this whacky economy.

In the works...

Customer Appreciation Day 2010.  May 5 we do it again.  We open our doors 11a-3p, catch our breath and do it again 4-8pm.  Free food for everyone.  This year should prove to be the biggest yet, when over 6,000 people are expected.  Aside from the parade, which has folks lining Gilbert Road, it is likely the biggest social gathering in Gilbert.  It’s a blast.  Yes, there’s a line.  Bring a friend and a bottle of water and enjoy meeting new folks while you move quickly (very quickly, actually) along towards the free meal.  We’ll again have sandwiches, homemade sides and a drink for all who come out.

We’ll have an announcement late this month about something we think will help cement downtown Gilbert’s place as an awesome place to go for great food any time of day.

Social media on steroids.  We love getting to know our customers.  Really KNOW them.  By name.  This year more than any previous year, we’re working to make sure we put the “social” in social media. A really cool tie-in to the Ford Fiesta Movement is going on right now, which should appeal to those of you using Foursquare to check in places and let people know where you are hanging out.  There is an awesome Phoenix Hot Spots mural along the south side of the building, with its own Foursquare location (Phoenix Hot Spots Mural).   You can be part of making the Valley a vibrant part of a national ad campaign.  Of the 20 cities across the country taking part in the movement, the ones with the most Foursquare check-ins will be featured in national ad spots.  

There will be more to announce, and I hope to make this blog one of the ways we keep our faithful customers in the loop.

@bbqtad @joesrealbbq

Electronic Menu Board - Retro Style!

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At Joe's Farm Grill we have made use of the video screen for our menu since
we opened 3 years ago. We think it looks great and customers often tell us
it helps them quickly decide what they'd like to eat. So much so, in fact,
that we're going to add more video screens so no matter where you are in the
line you can get a visual on the menu.

At Joe's Real BBQ, we have refrained from going with much use of newer
technology in the dining room. Behind the scenes there is a lot going on in
terms of music (Ipod), computing (Mac) and point of sale systems
(unfortunately not Apple).

We're taking a leap and responding to our customer requests. We are adding
a digital menu board in the line. We hope you will agree the design we came
up with addresses both of our goals. We wanted to give people a good idea
of what we offer while at the same time not going so "high tech" that we
conflicted with the 1940's theme of the place.

We hope to have the menu screen up in the next 6 weeks or so. Here's a
sneak peak of the monitor we came up with. Kinda hip, kinda retro, yet very
much the latest technology available. Of course, we'll power the video with
a Mac Mini! We'll have menu suggestions, specials, and some other surprises on the
monitor. If you have specific things you like to see when visiting
restaurants, or creative uses we haven't likely thought of, let me know!

Tie one on - the BOLO experience

Many thanks to agencyside for putting on a great conference, BOLO 2009, at
the Valley Ho this week. I attended just the keynote addresses, as the
conference is intended for small independent PR and marketing agencies. I am
not small. I am rather independent. I am neither a PR nor marketing guy.
I sell food.

Attending=good decision. Highlight=Guy Kawasaki.

I paid $159 for the ability to attend just the 3 keynote addresses. To say
money well spent would be an understatement. Those who attended the full
2.5 day conference paid somewhere around $999 for the full monty. The value
of hearing Guy speak for about 90 minutes far outweighed the cost of
admission. http://bolo2009.com/

Why did I go to a PR and marketing conference? To see how social media can
be better used by my businesses. Social media is not a passing fad. Like
food, I think it will be around for a while. It is a tool that enables us
to better connect with more customers. To build relationships. No
narcissism. No ulterior motives. We love our customers, want more of them,
and want them to come enjoy the experience at our places more often. Along
the way, we hope these customers enjoy getting to know us, getting to learn
about what we do and why we do it. To share your passion is an entirely
fulfilling thing.

Thanks for a tad of your day.

Late night thoughts on catering...

I sell food for a living. It is a blast. We have an awesome time at Joe's
Real BBQ in Gilbert, Arizona selling food. Terrific customers. Awesome
longtime employees. Fantastic atmosphere. We get lots of "buzz" via social
media, traditional press, and, perhaps most importantly, word of mouth.

It surprises me we still find myriad folks who don't know we cater.
Catering is a huge part of what we do, and one of the most exciting.

What is catering? For us, it is providing food for groups of 10 or more.
That doesn't mean we don't love groups of 6 folks picking up food for their
gathering. That is wonderful. We do it all day every day. We just had to
draw the line somewhere when creating our original catering menu back in
1998, and we drew that line at 10 guests or more.

Who do we cater to? Just about every group you can imagine. Households.
Churches. Businesses. Weddings. Parties. You have a hungry group? We've
got the food, and an easy way to feed your group a complete meal, for as
little as $8 per person.

How long does this catered food last? Well, it is food, and it has no
kryptonite in it (though it is super). Therefore it lasts just as long as
any food you would serve your guests. While impossible to put a stopwatch
to, if you are going to be serving your guests over the course of 2 or 3
hours, you can't keep our food, or any food, out that long without taking
some precautions. Keep it hot. Keep it cold. But keep it! Generally
speaking, if we deliver food to your event we will deliver it piping hot
(meats, hot sides) and icy cold (cold side dishes). We always suggest
serving the food right away, as you would if you made the food in your
kitchen and had some guests over. Otherwise think about chafing dishes or
perhaps keeping foods at proper temperatures in your oven. Another hint is
to use a basic cooler to keep hot foods safe until they are going to be
served. I am amazed food stored in a cooler can burn my hand after spending
an hour or so in the empty cooler.

How do I find more info on your catering? Our website has everything you
need, including the ability to get a no-obligation quote online. Check out
www.joesrealbbq.com and go to the Catering section for all the details.

Thanks for reading. I'll gladly provide more catering info if interest
warrants.

@bbqtad

A Tad more information

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Web sites are awesome, and are a great source of information. Facebook and
Twitter likewise have their place and have proven to be a great means of
fostering relationships with friends and customers alike.

I think a blog may prove to be an ideal place to share rather random
thoughts as they enter my little mind.

It is my hope that this blog will be a place that makes you smile, laugh,
and on occasion stop and think.

@bbqtad

About

Gilbert guy who walks with Christ, sells BBQ, and appreciates those who care enough about his random musings to occasionally read his blog.