Every once in awhile, I run across a new(er) restaurant resource that I’m really excited about.
I have to tell you about this one for several reasons that I’ll get to in just a minute. But first, let me introduce you to:
There are a multitude of things I like about The Rail.
It’s a site created by restaurant people for restaurant people. It features marketing ideas, operational “hacks,” important news (the real stuff, not the fluffy press releases you see elsewhere), weird news, interesting and hilarious quizzes, videos under 60 seconds, and more.
All from the perspective of a team that KNOWS the restaurant industry because a) They’ve been it, and b) They talk to restaurant operators every single day.
Here’s a sampling of recent articles and other content at The Rail
- Cash-Only is Hurting Your Restaurant’s Reputation
- Determine Your Overtime Rules by Knowing Your Staff’s Effective Hourly Rate
- Why Buyer Personas are Essential Restaurant Marketing Tools
- 5 Ways to Use Music to Make More Money
What separates a good resource website vs. an okay one are these things:
- There’s a respect for your time. As a restaurant owner, operator, or marketer, The Rail’s content is very quickly and easily digested.
- There’s a respect for your smarts. Their content doesn’t talk down to you, like some outsiders’ restaurant content does.
- There’s a real-world element to the resources provided. Many (most?) content providers are more focused on pitching their wares at you than providing actual, free resources. The Rail delivers here.
And here’s big news about The Rail that I’m really excited about
I’ve known the founders of The Rail for a few years now, Andrew Jaffee and David Weinfeld. They know what we’ve delivered with NextRestaurants in terms of marketing ideas, our Directory, our roundups of service providers, everything we’ve done here.
We recently reached an agreement where The Rail team will take over getting NextRestaurants to a whole new level of practical content, specifically related to marketing ideas. They can do things with it, given their staff and expertise, that we’ve always wanted to do.
More how-to content. More tools to help you get and calculate your marketing ROI. Many more introductions to REALLY COOL restaurant tech providers — including more time and effort thrown at that Directory I just mentioned.
As we pondered the future of NextRestaurants we realized something honest: We don’t have the ability to get it where it needs to be for the restaurant industry. But we didn’t want it to die, and we didn’t want it to be absorbed into a restaurant provider’s blog. We wanted the independent voice to live on.
And now, it will. And will grow even faster.
We’re excited about the future of NextRestaurants, powered by The Rail.
