A more knowledgeable dining public that eats out more often is also taking advantage of technology, using online reservations, food blogs and dining sites that enable them to view restaurant menus before they have stepped through the door and critique their meals across a variety of social media platforms as soon as they leave. Continue

Pizza Marketplace.com - Mobile, digital, radio, TV, billboards and mailings all have their perks, but restaurant marketing doesn't have to be expensive to be effective. Fox's Pizza franchisee Scott Anthony has been searching for the right balance for the past two decades. He offered some approaches that have worked for his business during a recent educational session titled "Marketing on a Shoestring Budget."

Getting started, he says, means building a "USP." "A 'Universally Selling Position' is a statement that emphasizes your strengths to your community. You have to be more than a generality," Anthony said. Continue

A grease-trap fire started about 10 p.m. and was contained mostly in the restaurant's ventilation system, Fort Bayou Fire Chief Lyle Crandall said.

Customers and employees were evacuated.The interior received mostly smoke and water damage, and the vent system was damaged extensively, he said.

The restaurant will be closed for repairs, he said. No injuries were reported.

If you plan to fully leverage social media as a marketing tool, consider your audience and use Facebook to communicate with the people you hope to attract. There is a definite return on investment, so why waste time or resources when you can directly target your specific audience? Continue

Midpriced, sit-down restaurants — known as casual dining in the industry — have seen on average about 2 percent fewer customer visits each year since 2008. That translates into a total drop of almost 600 million annual visits, to 6.4 billion in 2012. Continue

The WBC started as a one-off challenge between two bartenders, and is now widely recognized as the toughest international bartending competition. Today, the WBC welcomes more than 8,000 bartenders around the world. Aaron has been practicing his flairtending technique for seven years, and part of the Fridays^SM family for 10 years. Continue

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – For those fed up with uppity waiters and cranky waitresses, D-Dog House in Brickell has the solution: cut them out altogether. Customers aren’t greeted by a waiter. Nor do they step up to a counter like in a fast-food restaurant.

Instead, each table is equipped with an iPad, from which customers can order their food with no human intervention, reports CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald. Continue

Foxnews.com - A woman said a Tennessee restaurant tracked her via her license plate number and sent her a bill of $5 for using its restroom.

Patricia Barnes told NBC’s Today Show that she went into a restaurant called The Flood Zone in Erin, Tenn., and, after getting permission to use the bathroom, did her business and left. A few days later, she received a handwritten note in the mail that stated that "posted on our front door is a sign that states restrooms are for Flood Zone customers only," and non-patrons must pay a $5 charge. Continue