From The Laux Agency To HotOperator®
Meet Mark and Kelly Laux, an expert team in restaurant menu design, menu engineering and foodservice marketing.
Mark & Kelly Laux started The Laux Agency in 1986. Back then, The Laux Agency was an advertising agency specializing in Foodservice marketing. HotOperator Restaurant Menu Marketing was launched in 1988 to help foodservice brands connect with their restaurant customers. The HotOperator business is built around a simple idea: selling food is all about reaching consumers.
The Launch Of HotOperator
Mark and Kelly launched HotOperator specifically to help Anchor Food Products, when the Anchor Appetizer business was still under a million dollars in sales. Over the next 15 years, Mark and Kelly helped Anchor Food Products grow to become a food marketing juggernaut. Under their guidance, Anchor Food Products dominated the appetizer industry. Together, The Laux Agency and Anchor Food Products came up with new products like jalapeño Poppers. Mark and Kelly also built two foodservice training trucks that are legendary to this day.
The Launch Of Jalapeño Poppers
When Laux launched jalapeño Poppers, the product was slow to get started. The solution Laux came up with was to develop a menu marketing program for Anchor Food Products. The program allowed restaurant operators to make their own appetizer menus on a web page. When Laux launched the appetizer menu program, they used the latest restaurant menu design and engineering techniques available. And it worked! At their peak, Anchor Food Products stuffed jalapeño Poppers became a $150 million brand within a $550+ million business. The result was Anchor Food Products sold more than 2 billion Poppers per year!
During this process, Mark and Kelly learned a lot about restaurant marketing, menu design engineering and the foodservice business. Together they have made HotOperator the most respected brand in restaurant menu design in the country.
Contact Mark & Kelly, an expert team now!
“Nobody understands our brand better than Mark and Kelly. Which is why we’ve relied on their expertise for more than a decade.”
“We sold more than 15,000 of the new item you recommended in the first month on the new menu!”
“We worked with the HotOperator team to create the best menu we have done in over 25 years of business. I would recommend them to anyone except my competitors!”