A new discussion in Tipping…

With Group buying being all the rage. I’ve seen alot of forum discussions on how to tip when using these coupons.

Theres one group that says that you should always tip on the full amount BEFORE discount. I’m in this group…

And theres another group that says that people should tip ONLY on the amount of the bill AFTER discount. I think this is ridiculous.

If you use coupons or a group buy deal for restaurants, How do you tip and why?

To Fight back or Not to Fight Back

With all these restaurant review sites going up I’ve noticed more and more stories on Foodie blogs and news sites where we see Chefs and restaurateurs alike fighting back against a bad review or personally outing a notoriously negative reviewer and refusing them service. And with all this going on, I wanted to get everyones view on this practice.

Here are my personal thoughts:

I think that all these review sites are a great thing for the average diner just looking for advice on what to eat. Getting a real, raw review of what a restaurant (or any place for that matter) feels like is one of only things we need when deciding what we want to hear and with these sites, now hearing many different peoples opinion further helps our decision making process. This is word of mouth marketing at its finest and at the very core how we recommended places to our friends to try before they even existed, except now we reach thousands instead of ten’s!

Now, some people might argue that it is unfair that some of these customers are coming in just once and saying all these bad things from one negative experience, but before these sites existed, isn’t that how we explained a place to a friend? Restaurants need to understand that the first experience is always the most important because that is the deciding factor whether a customer will come back or not.

Actually to think about it, it kind of evens the playing field and the old adage, “If I have a good experience I will tell one person, If i have a bad experience I will tell 10 people,” doesn’t really mean anything anymore because now if I have a good experience I’m telling the same amount of people as if I had a bad experience.

Another thing that pops to mind is this, my understanding is this, no matter how great a product we provide, no matter how amazing a service we put out there, there will always be people who either love it or hate it. And with the culture being brewed up in the Social Media front we hope that both these people will be out their either fighting for or against your brand or product. And if your product or service is really that great, there will definitely be more people who love it rather than hate it and it will show in how they engage with you. Basically I think, most of the time, fighting back against bad reviews only makes things worse in the situation. You have an army out there who is willing to stick out there (sometimes anonymous) neck to stand up for what THEY like.

Basically I think my argument is this, personally I feel like if you believe that you have a good product then focus on just that. People are always gonna love or hate what you make, your not gonna please everyone. So just focus on what you do and let your “fans” deal with you “enemies”.

Here is a great example of when doing to much hurts, Doesn’t really relate to reviews or anything but you kind of get the idea after reading it:

http://www.sogoodblog.com/2010/12/14/chipotle-social-media/

 

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you think there is a case for chef’s and restaurateurs to be able to stand up for their product? Let me know!

Go!

-Mack

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to say Happy holidays to all of our friends!

2010 has been an amazing year for us as we’ve met a lot of AMAZING people and are really starting to get everything started.

In the new year you’ll be seeing and hearing more from us as we push forward with our current project.

So to all the new people we’ve met, THANK YOU for an amazing year and we look forward to seeing you more in the future.

And to all the people we haven’t met yet, We look forward to meeting and connecting with you in the new year!

Have a VERY VERY happy and safe holiday season and an Amazing new years this year and we’ll see you in the NEW year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY HOLIDAYS! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mack and Mike @ M3 Foods

It starts with a box…..

For those of you that heard all about the secret Stella party heres a quick walk through of the party…

Turned out to be a very cool party! Thats all I feel like saying about that.

Thanks for a great time Stella!

-Mack

Finally got to Guu

We finally got to Guu Izakaya tonight… The food was delicious, but what got me more was the experience they create in there. I have no pictures from the experience, I was too busy losing myself in the environment that Guu has created. Everything about that place just makes you want to eat more and drink more… It’s great!

All I got was this video… Which I think illustrates that experience quite perfectly.

Why can’t ALL restaurants in Toronto show this much genuine energy?

Sandwiches for Days!

So I was parusing twitter the other day and came across a new sandwich shop opening up in the Queen and Bathurst area. Since we’re deciding to forray into the Toronto sandwich scene, we decided to check out our competition.

Here’s what we saw:

Heres the joint... pretty standard.

Heres the menu, we ordered the BLT and the Grilled Cheese.

My BLT or as Murray calls it, The BLTizzy. A lot of delicious bacon, tomatoes, Spinach and a guacamole spread. Really it should be called a BST because there is no lettuce at all. The Grill cheese was a triple decker, not sure what type of cheese it was but it was also very tasty. (No GC pic cause it was gone before I could snap one)

On the way down to the washrooms they have all the walls painted with some crazyness.. pretty cool stuff!

The Art

More....

And the washroom doors... All the art was done by We Kill you and you can connect with them at http://www.wekillyou.net

We also got the fries, but they were a little soggy and over salted. All in All, Murray’s has pretty tasty sandwiches and I would definitely go back there if I was in the area. Would definitely like to try their other sandwiches.

So if your in the area… definitely make sure that you stop in and check out this spot. You can follow them on twitter @Ilovemurrays

Murray’s, Good luck and congrats on the spot!

-Mack

Hello Again

First off we’d like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a dear friend of ours… Happy Birthday Aprille! If any of you need a bomb hair cut, Make sure you go check her out at Mankind Grooming Studio for Men on Adelaide west of Spadina.

Now on to the business, Since the last time we’ve updated you on the business, well I didn’t really say much except that we have locked down an idea. That being said, that idea has changed, not once, but numerous times! Now we’ve finally settled on a quick service joint focusing on hot sandwiches. Its all very exciting stuff and we are hard to work on putting together a menu. So far we’ve had a small tasting of a couple of our sandwiches with close friends and the response has been very favorable!

Once we get all the ideas down and tested we’re gonna have a little tasting party and hopefully get a lot of you guys out to sample and see what you guys think, because after all its you that we’re doing this all for.

Anyways, thats all we got for now. If any of you are in the commercial real estate game and are willing to take us around and show us some properties we’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to keep up with all our antics on twitter @m3foods

Anyways, thanks for stopping by! Back to the cooking!

-Mack