Operations
This week’s 5 head-spinning moments: Strange sales remedies
Tough times can push restaurateurs to extremes in their pursuit of sales. Here are some examples of that unconventional behavior.
David Zebny's non-chain chain Z Square
David Zebny, the man behind Z Square, may have discovered an underserved niche between the bakery-cafes (read: Panera) and the casual dinnerhouses (Applebee’s, et al).
Culver’s, famous for its Butter Burgers and frozen custard, is heavily franchised—only nine of its 427 stores are company-owned. But to keep messaging consistent and response time short, Culver’s centralizes its social media efforts, monitoring Twitter and Facebook from its home base 24/7. Tweets and posts fall on the agile fingers of the internal marketing team with help from an outside agency.