Urbanspoon

In late 2012, I was commissioned to write 30 articles for Foodstart on the impact of technology on the food business. Here is one article I wrote about Urbanspoon What Every Restaurant Owner Ought to Know About Urbanspoon By April Brewster Smythe The restaurant owner of the 21st century who is seeking to stand out in the brutally competitive food business must place Urbanspoon on their to-do list! Why? Because Urbanspoon utilizes trending methods of marketing that have shown to compel customers to become fans of their food. Here are five significant ways to use Urbanspoon to localize a restaurant business, and to do it in a cost-effective way. 1) Add your restaurant to Urbanspoon. It isn’t hard to do, and best of all, it’s free. Many old school restaurants have yet to add their food establishments to Urbanspoon to their own detriment. That’s why food truck owners like Jerry Perez of the Getaway Grill, out of northeast Indiana are taking away customers from these franchises. “I signed Getaway Grill up on Urbanspoon as soon I put the Getaway Grill on the streets, and customers have already reviewed my tamales as something to write home about!” A restaurant owner merely has to add their restaurant to the site. There is one primary rule on Urbanspoon. The restaurant must be a public facility. 2) Be aware that Urbanspoon reviews all new listings so it may take a few days for a new restaurant to appear and be available for reviews, and other neat features. 3) Urbanspoon is a local marketing dream for restaurant owners. First of all, listings can only take place in the local area. Residents and those traveling to a city location will use Urbanspoon to get a quick overview of the best, cheapest, and most elegant restaurants and food places in town. 4) Urbanspoon provides the capacity to add photos of the restaurant, food, and employees that are involved in the day to day offerings of the business. This capability enables the restaurant owner to optimize the content of their offerings by placing colorful descriptions of their food and patrons all in one place. 5) Food fans and bloggers also have the option to tie their reviews of the food establishment to Urbanspoon, spreading more news about all those good tamales to hungry people in the city, and those who are coming into town for the first time.

Urbanspoon is not unique. Other review sites like Yelp, also provide similar information and Yelp includes robust social networking and millions of customer reviews along with over 26 million visitors. Yelp also has a mobile app and a few other techie type advances that Urbanspoon hasn’t happened upon yet. But, the sweetest feature of Urbanspoon is its simplicity. Urbanspoon asks each customer if they like the food and or the restaurant. It is up to them to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.