Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

You don't need a catchy tag line: you need a starving crowd.

In terms of backsides on seats and covers per table, focus your efforts on the needs of a starving crowd, and on giving people a superior experience. There's a huge difference between eating and dining, YOU must BE that difference, and to be so, you do not need a catchy tag line.

What DO you need?

Attentive and professional wait and bar staff, people who can read minds, people who are there when needed and invisible when they're not needed. This rule applies EVEN IF your eatery is the greasiest spoon place in town. I've eaten in tiny, hole in the wall-style restaurants hidden away down back alleys where only the locals will go and in such places I have dined like a king (for not a lot of money) and been treated like royalty into the bargain.

Proper linens (napkins and table cloths), clean silverware, spotless floors, gleaming tables, clean glassware, a glass of ice water and fresh bread with oil or butter on the table the moment people sit down, these things will ALL make a far stronger, longer lasting impression than any tag line: I guarantee it.

Wrap all of this around great food, well cooked and attractively presented and that's well priced and people will beat a path to your door.

Gary said it.

Why do you feel you need a tagline? What would you want the tagline to communicate? How would that help your business? And how would you ever be able to measure the impact of a tagline anyway?

Let delighted customers say what they want to friends and family. Just make sure every customer has a great experience and a great meal when they enter your restaurant.

I agree with Goodman and Bloomer.

Are you targeted for tourists where you need gimmickry? Or are you focused mostly on return visits from local diners? There might be a difference in what you do....but your preference should be usually trying to maintain a recurring stream of food fanatics than having to seek new customers each day.

If you are still stuck on a tagline, decide your vision of what you want the place to be and then link it to that. If you are considering being a very friendly chatty place with simple solid food, you could have "Just Like Home." If you are trying to be a little kitschy, you could have "Pleasantries fit for a King."

Old-Fashioned Service. Delicious Food.