6 Things Your Restaurant Should Already Be Blogging About

As a follow up to yesterday’s Why Every Small Business Should Have a Blog post, we’re going to get more specific in a series of posts that gathers ideas that every type of business can use when they decide to start blogging.

If you’re a chef or restaurateur, you’ll be happy to know that restaurant blogs are more popular than ever, with customers actually seeking out blogs from their favorite chefs. Whoever possesses the personality that’s at the front of your business, they should be the one blogging.

Recipes & Ideas

One of the most popular (but not over-used) restaurant blogging methods is to post recipes. They may be restaurant recipes, or just favorite family recipes. In terms of search engine optimization, recipes are a great way for people to find you on the web. Almost every restaurant we’re about to showcase posts recipes on their blog, so definitely check them out.

Shopping and Foraging Escapades

Forage in Los Angeles posts stunning photographs of their trips to the farmers market, making customers hungry one blog post at a time. Most posts aren’t all that wordy, but they don’t need to be when you have mouth-watering photos front and center.

Just as a small note though, Google requires 300 characters (or 50 words) to index a page, so you may want to stick to the minimum. To combat this, Forage simply has a blog that looks like a blog, but in reality, it’s a page of updates, formatted to look like a blog. No titles link to individual posts, and all content is on that one page.

Forage also highlights their local producers with brilliant photographs and blog posts that simply say, “Early August harvests home-grown in Pasadena by Malika and Donny: Peppers, cherry tomatoes, and figs. Thanks for sharing your summer produce with Forage!”

Cooking Supplies & Education

Caminito Agentinean Steakhouse in Northhampton, MA is now dubbed the “social media steakhouse” because of the fine job that General Manager Justin Levy did when starting the Prime Cuts blog. “We wanted a primary focus of our content to be on proteins, and specifically, steak, as well as the dishes, sauces, beverages and techniques associated with them,” says Levy.

While Prime Cuts features recipes like many other restaurant blogs, it also offers great tips for the at-home cook:

Staff Bios & Restaurant Updates

Manresa in Los Gatos, CA loves their staff, their restaurant and their food. They’re not shy about it on their blog, either. Updates about new chefs, guest chefs and restaurant updates are always complimented by a great photograph:

• Cheers! & Our New Gem
• Our Website Refresh
• Welcome Pastry Chef Belinda Leong
• Alexandre Gauthier to Join David Kinch
• Manresa Welcomes Australian Chef Dan Hunter for “Cooking with Friends” Series
• Dan Hunter to Cook at Manresa
• Manresa on Newsstands Now

Food Love

You wouldn’t be a chef if you didn’t love food, and every chef deserves a soapbox to talk about their favorite ingredients and rant about over-hyped condiments. And that’s exactly what Chef Matthew Jennings does on the Farmstead/La Laiterie Bistro blog. Jennings writes thoughtfully articulated blog posts that can’t help but drive the most passionate foodies in his doors:

• Ricotta: The Not-Really-A-Cheese Cheese
• Let’s Talk Condiments
• You Say Salumi, I Say Salame
• The Sweetness Of Goat’s Milk

Promotions

Blogging gives you a great way to encourage people to come in for events, without telling them to. Ronnarong Thai Tapas Bar in Somerville, MA does a great job of balancing promotion with entertainment. They have a lot of events, so they really need to keep it fun and interesting – which they do. Event promotions are supplemented with photos from past events, pictures with staff and even more photos of ingredients:

• Thai Me Down with “Phantom Chicken”
• Upcoming Thai Tapas Tuesday Events
• Ronnarong’s Thai Classics Paired w/Dry Sherries

They also inject doses of real life with blog posts like “Why is Chef Grinning?”, which tells all about Ronnarong getting married and the 30 months it took for his new wife to get her visa.

If you have any additional ideas to add, drop them in the comments!