A Foodservice Distributor Partnership Is Built Around A Simple Idea:

If you help your restaurant customers grow their business, your distribution business will grow, too.

Build A Restaurant Marketing Program For Your Foodservice Business

If your restaurant customers grow their business, your foodservice distribution business will grow, too. HotOperator is offers exclusive partnerships with distributors to help grow the restaurant business. 

Proven Business Results

These processes are proven to work through HotOperator’s 30+ years of foodservice marketing. The goal is to grow your market by more than 15% per year by building the restaurant’s business. Let HotOperator make your company offer your restaurant customers an advantage in your market

Menu Development Programs

We’ve spent time in your market (no seriously, we’ve made menus in every state in the US including Alaska and Hawaii). So, HotOperator can tell you first hand that the menus in your area suck. In fact, with the exception of just a couple of menus, there is room for significant growth.

We estimate there is about 7% being left in the pockets of restaurant consumers in your market.

This is money that could mean the difference between a restaurant going out of business and one that is healthy. The results of a healthy restaurant is they are able to pay their bills on time.

When you’re ready to grow your business by helping your restaurant operators grow their business, partner with HotOperator®

Click here to get started!

“HotOperator has been the right partnership for Brown Foodservice. They do great work.” -Wayne Brown, President, Brown Foodservice

HotOperator Expertise

We help restaurant owners, operators and marketers make communications and menus that produce a high return on investment. The results are an increase revenue through building powerful brands.

The HotOperator Process

We engineer marketing materials to direct consumers to make better purchase decisions. The result is a higher spend average, better plate contribution and more satisfying experience overall. We do this by getting the right people with the right focus to create a better, more powerful brand.

Said About Us: “Hey Mark – Just a note to say thanks and to let you know that we just sold our 1000th order of the shrimp recipe you recommended on the 25th day of menu implementation. Thanks for all your help, and be well!” – Rip Reynolds, Laguna Grill & Rum Bar

“Mark, you understand our business better than any marketer we’ve ever worked with. You get us and you get the brand, right down to the era we’re trying to emulate.” –Don Yakel, The Original Mels

Our Perfect Clients

 Since we started our business in 1986 we’ve worked with thousands of restaurant operators and many food service brands. Our perfect client is looking for a mutually beneficial relationship. One where we can both learn, grow and become more profitable.

Get a Free Consultation

The next step is to have a phone conversation to see if we’re a good fit for each other. There’s no cost in asking, and all you can lose is a half hour of your time. On the other hand, maybe we see things in a new way and work together. Then you become the most successful foodservice company in the country.

How We Got Here

We started in the food business working with a small, Midwestern appetizer company. Together we helped them grow the business from less than a million dollars in sales to over half a billion. During that time, we were recruited to work with Wells Dairy, Blue Bunny Ice Cream, Farmland Foods, General Mills, ConAgra and Otis Spunkmeyer among others. We started building menus and restaurant promotions in the late 1980’s and since then have become the leading experts in restaurant marketing.

Asian Restaurant Menu Design

Developing a menu for an Asian restaurant is similar to any other menu. A great menu should enhance the brand. Also, a great menu design needs to promote items that can become stars in the restaurant. A fabulous menu needs to be easy to read, but it also needs to be nice to look at. Good design is good business.

A great menu design needs to promote items that can become stars in the restaurant.

The HotOperator® relationship with GingeRootz Asian Grill started with a simple phone call. One of the founding members of the restaurant called and asked if we would take a look at their menu.

We started the process with an initial consultation and then got started with a Restaurant Menu Matrix.  A menu matrix outlines the direction for a restaurant menu design. It also helps us with menu engineering.

When you’re ready for a new menu, contact HotOperator here!

GingeRootz® Promotions & Social Media

After HotOperator completed the menu  for GingeRootz, we were asked to help their promotions and social media. These projects have included developing restaurant promotions and events to bring in new people. Every restaurant needs to be working on introducing themselves to new people. It’s the best way to grow.

Some of the events included:

A Ladies Wine Event, that included a special menu with wine tasting flights GingeRootz

Dining in the Dark – fundraising event and an annual Wine vs. Beer charity event that offered donations

Nyotaimori – The Art of Body Sushi, a 100 guest fundraising event to support breast cancer awareness Korean BBQ – a limited event with a special

Korean BBQ menu and portable Korean grills

Contact HotOperator for help with your next Restaurant Promotion!

How Freddie Paul’s Steakhouse Became A P.H.A.N. With HotOperator®

The HotOperator restaurant menu design and engineering process uses an exclusive system we call P.H.A.N. Positioning, Highlighting, Anchoring and Numbers. These are the four segments that change ordering behavior in a restaurant using a restaurant menu.

Highlighting

Many restaurant operators don’t highlight anything on their menus. This is a mistake. When a restaurant guest goes into your restaurant, they want to know what you think they should order. And restaurant product highlights give your guests the answer they are looking for. HotOperator restaurant menu designers use exclusive restaurant menu highlighting. Techniques that call attention to the products that will make you more higher profits, and  enhance your restaurant brand.

After

Highlighting

Pricing a menu can be difficult, especially in a competitive market. While you want to get as much money as you can for everything you sell, you also don’t want to upset your guests. That’s because angry guests often leave and never come back. When pricing out your menu, keep a couple of things in mind. First, consumers don’t seem to care or remember if you used 9s or 5s or just single dollar amounts on your menu. So take advantage when you price an item. Allow HotOperator to strategically price position your restaurant menu. When you do, you will make more money while not upsetting any of your restaurant guests in the process.

Building A Branded Pine Mountain Grill & Gifts

HotOperator helped Pine Mountain Grill & Gifts build a branded presence for their large volume, independent restaurant. We started with a new restaurant menu system. In addition to the dinner menu, HotOperator made lunch, dessert and carryout menus. From there, we worked on classic advertising, direct mail, an eClub, social media and a new web presence.

Everything a Restaurant Customer Sees Should Romance the Brand

In the restaurant business, consistency is key. Consistency in products, customer service and in your restaurant brand presentation. A mistake many restaurant operators make is having work done on their dinner menu, and then neglecting the restaurant bookend and day part menus. Sometimes restaurant operators ask a staff member or their beverage company design the additional menus. They think this is saving them money, but it’s really being penny wise and dollar foolish.

HotOperator doesn’t just make restaurant menus, we make restaurant menu systems that enhance and express your restaurant brand. The result is every point of guest contact romances the brand.

Restaurant Advertising

Restaurant classic advertising works well, but only if it is prepared well. Many restaurant operators don’t think restaurant advertising and marketing is effective. What many never realize is that it may not be advertising, but it might be the creative approach.

When you work with HotOperator, you’re working with a team of restaurant marketing experts. We have real-world experience so we know what works and what doesn’t. Plus, HotOperator has some of the best creative people working in the foodservice industry in the country.

Want proof? Contact HotOperator now and spend 15 minutes on the phone with a consultant.

Restaurant Social Media & Websites

HotOperator has a team of web developers and creative experts who can bring your brand to life. Put them to work on your website, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. HotOperator can connect the dots from posting to butts in seats.

Plus, HotOperator can watch over your comments on Yelp, Trip Advisor and other review (bitch) sites. Because sometimes it’s better to have an objective answer that won’t escalate.

HotOperator will make you look good. But we can only do that if you contact us and allow us to help you.

Customers are likely to spend 21% more if they receive good customer service via social media. (Source: Ambassador)

Bubba’s Eastern North Carolina Barbecue

Connecting Your Customers with Local Customers with Branded Marketing

Bubba’s Restaurant Marketing Support

For a while our agency represented Orville Redenbacher popping corn for foodservice. We helped introduce the brand to movie theaters across the United States and Canada. When we were awarded the business we were sent to popcorn school to learn about Orville Redenbacher popcorn. As it turns out, Orville and Bubba are not that different. At the base of Bubba’s Eastern North Carolina Barbecue lie some real, tangible differences. Like the absence of any tomatoes and the 18 hours of slow cooking. Further, the whole-hog approach to pork barbecue and the hickory smoking. Like Orville, Bubba spent years perfecting his process. HotOperator is great for refined products that need the right marketing to get them off the ground. To find out more, set up an introduction.

Better Menu Design will Make Your Food Taste Better and Make You More Money

Better Art, Better Food

Better Menu Design will Make Your Food Taste Better and Make You More Money. There are basic areas that design has an important role to play in on a restaurant menu. The most important is making the food taste better.

When a consumer eats at a restaurant, it’s like a mini vacation. That’s why the menu needs to enhance the experience in a way that offers your guest a feeling of excitement. With descriptions and design, customers will like the food better. They will also like your restaurant more.

The design needs to be developed in a way that holds a person’s interest. Further, a good menu will help consumers navigate the menu.

Menu descriptions need to be poetic yet descriptive. This will help romance the product. For that reason, we write for women (men scan menus, women read them). This is because we want customers to love the food and come back.

Write Your Menu For Women. They Pay More Attention.

Design Engineering For Better Happy Customers

Not everything you sell makes the same profit margins. At HotOperator we care more about income to the bank. That’s why HotOperator uses design-engineering techniques. We position, highlight, mental anchor and strategically price everything in your restaurant advertising and sales literature. When you hire HotOperator, we help you sell more of the products that grow your business more quickly.

Contact HotOperator Now

Start with a Menu Matrix

A menu matrix puts each item on your menu into four categories: Stars, Puzzles, Plow Horses and Dogs. Stars are items with higher than average sales and profits. Puzzles are items with higher than average profits but slow sales. Plow Horses (sometimes called cash cows) are items with above-average sales but below-average profits. Dogs are items that are below average in both sales and profits.

A menu matrix puts each item on your menu into four categories: Stars, Puzzles, Plow Horses and Dogs.

We start with a menu matrix to better understand how your restaurant customers view your restaurant and food. Each day people are deciding if they will eat at your restaurant. And when they choose you, they are deciding what looks good to them. The matrix breaks those decisions into a format that provides insights into what customers are thinking.

“This is good stuff … we can talk more about this when we connect on the menu today or tomorrow.” -Amy Goddard, Director of Marketing, Biaggi’s

Good Design Is Essential Today

There are two parts to any great menu. There is the science part, which is the engineering process, and there is the art side of the menu, which is more subjective.  In making over the Biaggi’s menu, we wanted to introduce more levels of color and texture along with design elements and details to help their consumers navigate the menu. The final design gives Biaggi’s a stylish look that is more upscale than their original menu. At the same time, it is still very casual, which is what they wanted.

Do what Biaggi’s did. Contact HotOperator for your Menu Matrix!