How to Ensure that Your Restaurant Will Stand Out Among Your Competitors

When it comes to running a food service business, one of the most difficult tasks that you will encounter is trying to make your business stand out from the crowd. There is a lot of competition among food establishments and it is easy to get lost in the sea of competitors. Therefore it is important to create a unique brand that will tell customers what your restaurant is all about, and set your establishment apart from the rest.

What is Branding?

The basic aspect of branding your restaurant is to consider what your restaurant is all about. Think about the theme that you would like to convey to your customers. Is your restaurant family oriented; or does it cater to the business crowd? Is it a fine dining establishment; a gourmet restaurant; or a nouveaux trendy place? Once you have decided what you are all about, then you can work towards creating a logo and an entrance sign that will convey the core idea of your restaurant to the outside world. In designing your logo and creating an entrance sign, you will want to create something entirely unique, yet easily recognizable to customers as being yours. This will immediately set you apart from the crowd as your brand becomes known.

Create a Marketing Message

In addition to your logo and entrance sign, it is also important to create a marketing message that briefly describes what your brand is all about. Some restaurants choose to create short, catchy slogans for their brands that describe their eatery. Either way, these words will be printed on your promotional ads, your website and will be the focus of all your marketing efforts. Your marketing message or slogan will become synonymous with what your food establishment is all about.

Promote your Uniqueness

You will also need to consider what it is that is so unique and special about your restaurant that makes it stand out from the crowd. Is it the location, the service, the variety of foods, the atmosphere, or something else? Your goal should be to decide upon something unique about your restaurant that makes it stand out from your competitors that your customers will remember, and this unique specialty will become synonymous with your brand.

Bringing your Brand Indoors

As you design the interior of your establishment you will also want to bring your brand indoors. There are many ways to do this. First, you can incorporate the same color scheme for the interior of your restaurant as the color scheme of your logo. Take advantage of any opportunity that you have to place your logo design indoors as well.

You can even take the interior design far beyond the color scheme. You can take your unique specialty and build an entire theme around it that will keep it ingrained in your customers minds long after they have left. For example, for your romantic Italian restaurant, always have a different colored rose on the table and some type of romantic background music playing. For your kid-friendly pizza restaurant, always have a clown or some other type of entertainment happening at certain hours. Your customers will begin to associate your eatery and brand with whatever they find that is unique and special about your presentation.

Staff Uniforms

Another way to get your brand across to your customers and to make your restaurant stand out from the competition is through your staff uniforms. There are many ways to do this including coordinating the colors of the uniform to your business logo and embroidering your logo on all the uniforms. Sometimes this can be enough to showcase your brand, especially if the uniforms are crisp, clean and attractive. For some brands you may want to introduce more gimmicks such as specialty hats and other unique additions to the standard uniform to promote your brand and its unique qualities.