August2008

With the 2008 Beijing games getting underway today, we thought that it would be interesting to tell the story of what happened 12 years ago in Atlanta with a local restaurant chain, and a pin that infuriated some and intrigued many.

If you’ve never been to an Olympics, one of the traditions is that people come to buy, sell, and trade pins that have various things from participating countries, sporting events, or sometimes promotional materials for companies. In 1996, an enterprising local restaurant, The Varsity, decided to make a pin to promote their “world famous onion rings.” Perhaps at the time the onion rings were made that was just a marketing phrase, but now The Varsity really does have world famous onion rings.

So what’s the big deal? As it turned out the onion rings were displayed in such a way that … Read More »

Last night I saw a hilarious ad in which a guy comes running from off camera to smash a hanging light with a sledge hammer, and then says, “imagine that, times a zillion.” (see below)

The ad was for Ruby Tuesday which is trying to relaunch themselves, and to show they mean it they are going to demolish their last old store tomorrow at 3pm eastern time (on Tuesday) live on www.rubytuesday.com.

Frankly, this is the best ad campaign I’ve ever seen from a restaurant chain to try to do something like this. Not only is this funny (just watch the commercial below) but it really drives home the point that they are making big changes. The question is then do they need to change? Our data says yes.

We did a quick check of some of their competitors, and they only come … Read More »

Throughout the month of July each restaurant review earned you 1 raffle ticket that at the end of the month would put you in the drawing for $54 and t-shirts.

Well, we randomly selected the winners, and here is the list:

Grand Prize ($54 and a Foodio54 t-shirt):

utmikelee

Foodio54 Runners Up (t-shirt)

Beno
boog99
christian
gizzledos
jeffpoltisxx
jester
joel
mejane3825
missamichelle
nosnander

We contacted the winners, if this is you and you don’t have an email from us, let us know. If you gave us a bogus email and don’t respond we will pick someone else after a week or so.

We are going to take a break from the rewards for reviews in August, but we are putting the money we would have spent to buy a Mac for development purposes, however this contest will definitely resume in the future. Even without t-shirts to give away, by reviewing restaurants you like, and those you … Read More »