Brett: Look at the younger generation and how they make decisions — searching for things on TikTok, searching for things on Instagram. They're making that buying decision solely based on the content they're watching on their phone. So if you're not playing that game, you're going to find yourself in a tough position over the next few years. All these things are more important than ever. And these are like the gold stamp of approval that we help any customer with as soon as they come into our business.

Brett: Hi, my name is Brett Linkletter, CEO and co-founder of Dineline, a restaurant growth agency. We help restaurant brands of all sizes grow and scale to new heights, whether that means opening new stores or increasing revenue at existing locations. We have a done-for-you model where we take care of all the work for our clients on the marketing front. And we also have a unique software solution called Dishio, which allows owners to showcase their restaurant in the best light possible online while also turning guest interactions into data to increase profits.

Brett: Right now you're listening to our podcast, Restaurant Misfits, where we'll discuss all things related to restaurant marketing, management, and everything else in between growing a restaurant business. Scaling a restaurant today takes much more than having grit and hustle in this age. It's about utilizing the newest technology, educating yourself on new platforms and trends, and having a deep understanding of how this industry is changing. This podcast is dedicated to keeping you up to speed with the latest and the greatest through interviewing the biggest and the best in the restaurant industry. As always, we appreciate you for being here and we hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Opening

Brett: Alright, guys — welcome back to Restaurant Misfits. In today's episode, I wanted to bring on my partner, Jace. Jace and I have been business partners for over 10 years. We've helped thousands of restaurants. Every once in a while, I think it's good to talk about what we're specifically doing at our company. Obviously, we love interviewing restaurant owners, but hey — let's talk about what we've actually done within our business today.

Brett: We get a lot of topics from restaurant owners asking us questions online about marketing versus advertising, what kind of results they should be looking for, and how they can approach restaurant marketing to begin with. Some people have never tried it. Some people have done a lot of restaurant marketing and haven't had success. So today we compiled a lot of questions I think you guys are going to find useful. Without further ado — Jace, how you doing, by the way?

Jace: I'm doing great. I'm excited to get into everything we're going to talk about today. What a lot of people will find is that some of the same marketing principles still ring true. Some of the principles are still the principles — but as you know, marketing changes every single year. So it'll be good for people to understand the mindset of how we think about marketing, advertising, and growing restaurants. I think it's going to be really beneficial for everybody watching today.

Brett: 100%. And — I don't know why I'm just thinking about this — but it's funny, guys: Jace and I actually also wrote a book about restaurant marketing. What's that, five years old now?

Jace: We wrote it in 2019. I think we actually published it during COVID.

Brett: Yeah — unfortunately we published it during COVID, which was probably tough for a lot of restaurant owners to get the book and then not be able to do anything with it. But Jace was talking about some of the marketing principles we've been doing for years and years. A lot, though, has changed. There are still some things in that book that would be very valuable today, but as technology changes, so does digital marketing specifically. So we'll be talking about a lot of new things today. If you guys ever want to check out an old-school book on restaurant marketing, you know where to go — we'll put a link below. Without further ado, let's dive into some of the newer marketing tactics we're pursuing for our clients.

Chapter 1: The New Rules of Restaurant Discovery

Brett and Jace open the conversation on why an online presence is no longer optional — and why the "if we build it, they will come" mindset is dead.

Brett: First topic for today, Jace — let's talk about the importance of advertising online and building an online presence. This isn't 2005 anymore. A lot of things have changed.

Jace: Each year this message gets louder and louder. The restaurant that operates under "if we build it, they will come" — the person who wants to start a restaurant with the clients we support is passionate about the food, passionate about creating the service. But what you need in an environment that's so distracting now — everybody's on their phone — is to make sure you stay top of mind. You're constantly having to fight for that attention on people's cell phones.

Brett: It's interesting too, because believe it or not — and we still hear it all the time on the sales front — people are still trying to run ads on radio and television. It still happens.

Jace: Yeah, and we're biased because I think there's more new-school ways to approach your marketing. But just look at the younger generation and how they make decisions — searching for things on TikTok, searching on Instagram. They're making that buying decision solely based on the content they're watching on their phone. If you're not playing that game, you're going to find yourself in a tough position over the next few years. And it's not even just content — it's how your brand looks online. Your Google My Business profile is like a resume.

Brett: Mhm.

Jace: Or the first judgment of how that person is going to decide whether they're coming in or not. So all these things are more important than ever — and these are like the gold stamp of approval that we help any customer with as soon as they come into our business.

Brett: What I always tell people is: just like you said, your Google My Business is your resume. If you're running ads on Google, the first thing someone's going to see is your Google My Business profile. They're literally seeing an ad, looking at your Google profile, and deciding: do I want to go to this restaurant or not? And they're evaluating it based on what that profile looks like — your reviews, how long you've been in business, whether there are photos they can quickly and easily see. Same thing for Instagram. If we're running ads on Instagram or Facebook, how do your profiles look there? If someone sees an Instagram ad and then goes to your profile, is it something interesting that makes them want to visit your restaurant? Or does it look like you started your Instagram yesterday and haven't posted in three years?

Jace: Can I give an example of someone that does this really well? One of my favorite restaurants — actually very underrated in Miami — Osobuco. It's a steakhouse. I was just there last week for dinner, and they have 4,200 Google reviews at 4.9 stars. What the waiter did — I watched it on every single table — is when they gave you the bill, they asked, "Hey, is there anything we could do to make our experience better?" And on top of the checkbook, they had a little card with an NFC to leave a Google review. I watched all the servers around the table executing that. That's how they got to 4,200 reviews and a 4.9-star rating. Incredible. But like you said, the Google My Business profile is what people need when they're making a decision about you — but it's not going to take you on the offense to go get customers. That's where you use some of the advertising techniques we'll talk about later in the episode.

Brett: 100%. And what Jace just mentioned, you can also do in our product Dishio. So if you like that strategy, also consider looking into Dishio.

Chapter 2: The Hidden Dangers of Over-Discounting

Why "buy one, get one" isn't the growth strategy it looks like — and how customers can end up training themselves out of full-price behavior.

Brett: Second topic — discounting. How do we feel about discounting?

Jace: One thing our clients like about working with us is that we use discounting as a last resort. If you already have a Taco Tuesday that's going off, great — we're happy to promote that. But in my opinion, discounting is the laziest option when it comes to why you would get help with any type of marketing service. I could go into any business right now and say "buy one, get one" — and yeah, you're going to get customers. But how does that build brand equity? How does that build lifetime value? It doesn't. It creates more of that Groupon-type customer.

Jace: So I look at: what are strategies we can do to build the brand and grow your exposure on Google? Simple lowest-hanging fruit — if people search, do you pop up? Those are the things people want to do, and then discounting later. Now, if a brand does want to run a discount, there are different ways to frame it. You could say BOGO, or you could frame it in a way that makes it cool and supports the brand.

Brett: It's interesting. I was just thinking as you were talking about Groupon customers — I don't want to name the brand, but there's a QSR in Miami in the park near our place. It's an expensive QSR — a health-food QSR — and I'm used to seeing their buy-one-get-one deal on Uber Eats. I walked in, and I stopped for a second and realized: wait — if I order this right now on Uber Eats for pickup, am I going to get a buy-one-get-one? So I actually walked out the restaurant with my wife and said, "Hold up, let me just do this for a sec." I checked, and sure enough it was still live. So I got the deal, then picked up my food and left.

Brett: It literally created this buying behavior and habit for me. I was so used to seeing the deal that I walked out the restaurant, got the deal online, and walked back in.

Jace: You have restaurants watching this right now going, "Here's the customer trying to hack my system." But in all seriousness — that's kind of the nature of trying to grow your business that way. You're having to BOGO plus the delivery fee on Uber Eats. If that's your way to acquire customers, it's going to be tough. And now they're training you that you can do that — so you don't want to actually pay full price. Don't train your customers to be like Brett.

Chapter 3: Branding vs. Local Strategy — What Works Best

The tension every multi-location operator faces: pour spend into brand awareness, or laser-focus on hyper-local acquisition per store.

Brett: Next topic — branding vs. local marketing strategy.

Jace: This is the constant debate. When you have your marketing budget, do you put it toward a branding strategy or focus more on customer acquisition? Every restaurant initially has more of a local strategy, but when we work with restaurant groups that are five-plus locations, they start to put a blanket market strategy across all locations. As a result, they come to us frustrated — the strategy helps two out of five locations, but three are saying, "What the heck? This didn't do anything for me."

Jace: That's because what we do for our clients is help on an individual level. One location might be in an urban area, one might be near a college, one might be in a city, one might be in a family neighborhood. Each of those locations needs a local marketing strategy — versus a branding strategy, which is something you'd see on a billboard for McDonald's where you're just growing the brand overall.

Brett: The thing we've seen too — some brands (and I don't recommend this, but some brands have reservations at one restaurant and not the other). You can run a reservation campaign for the reservation restaurant, but you can't for the other. So you have to also consider what's actually available at each restaurant. We call them revenue channels — what are the ways we can drive traffic? What type of conversion campaigns can be run? Looking at each individual store level differently and creating a marketing strategy based on each store — that's just the best way.

Jace: A branding campaign is more like: do people know our name? Just getting the general word out. A local campaign is: I'm going to use advertising, target everyone within a three-mile radius, and then use creative messaging tailored to people who live in that area or specific locations. Every restaurant is different. I've found personally that the clients we're most successful with are when we create an individual strategy that supports each location — versus putting a blanket marketing budget across all of them.

Chapter 4: Marketing vs. Advertising — Understanding the Math

Marketing tells your story. Advertising is trackable, measurable, and — as Brett puts it — just math.

Brett: A nice segue into this next topic: advertising specifically vs. marketing. What's the difference? You talk about this one all the time.

Brett: I love this definition — I read it years ago and it always stuck with me. Marketing is the articulation of what makes your brand good. Advertising is specifically the paid route to reach customers, acquire customers, and track that they actually came through. In our sales script, I don't believe we even have the word "marketing" literally in our script — because even though people look at us as a marketing agency, we're really paid-ad specialists, customer-acquisition specialists.

Jace: Exactly. A lot of people put us in a bucket with other marketing agencies, but other marketing agencies can't actually tell you that someone walked through your doors. Other marketing agencies can create a cool logo or branding design — that's showing up and how your brand looks online. But the next step is: did someone who saw your brand online actually show up?

Brett: On this topic, I want to show you guys on the screen behind us — these are updates we made inside of Dishio. Jace, you've been working more on the product than me, so I'm curious.

Jace: This is from a client of ours — they have one location in Miami and five others across New York and other regions. This is in our software — one of the advertising dashboards you get if you work with us. I can see my total budget spent — $11,000 — and down here I can see a campaign breakdown of each location, which platform, what was spent, and my cost per conversion or acquisition.

Jace: The first four campaigns are on Meta and the rest are on Google. I can see my cost per acquisition. So — this is a pretty good campaign. This is decent, depending on the brand. If you had an $11 cost per acquisition and your average ticket was $25, maybe that's not ideal. This brand's average ticket is about $85, so I'd still say pretty good. And these Google campaigns in particular are crushing it. This campaign right here had 811 customers for an average cost of a dollar. So for every dollar this brand spent, they got a customer to walk through the door — and their average order value is $85.

Brett: It's just math.

Jace: Exactly.

Brett: That's a great way to distinguish marketing vs. advertising too: it's math versus general awareness. I tell people that all the time. When you're evaluating working with someone — or evaluating your advertising campaign — number one: can I actually see that what I did worked? Can I see I spent a dollar, $10, $5,000 online, and see that someone actually walked through the door? Can I see someone made a reservation, placed an order online? Does the math math?

Chapter 5: Meta vs. Google — Where Should You Start?

The mall vs. the library analogy: how buyer intent differs across the two dominant ad platforms, and how AI search is reshaping discovery.

Brett: Follow-up question: let's say you're watching this and you're like, "I'm not doing any of this." Do you start on Google? Do you start on Meta?

Brett: Speaking of Meta vs. Google — a great way I distinguish the two: Meta is like going to the local mall. You don't have a real agenda of what you want to do or buy, but it's Sunday and you're going to go with the wifey and walk around and have a day. You're walking through the mall, something looks interesting. If I'm with my wife and she sees Sephora, she's walking in there. All of a sudden I'm hungry — I'm hungry every couple hours, I eat a lot. What restaurant looks good? Let's just pop in there. What do you want to do after? Maybe get an ice cream. You're kind of just moving around. That's Instagram — you're on your feed, kind of just there for dopamine hits. You don't really have a true agenda, but "whatever seems good, I'll tap on it."

Brett: Google is like going to the local library. Maybe you have a book in mind you want to get — a book on marketing. So you go to the section for business and marketing. You have the book title in mind: "Best Marketing Techniques." You go to the aisle with books starting with B, get your book, and leave. What I like about Google versus Meta is the intent on purchasing is much higher. You might be reaching someone on an Instagram ad while they're sitting on the toilet or really not in the buying mode — or not hungry whatsoever. But on Google, someone's literally searching: "Where is the best cheeseburger near me?" or "What's the best Italian near me?" They're telling the internet — telling you, the advertiser — that they're interested in that thing. So the intent is much higher. And clearly, across the board on our campaigns, Google is outperforming Meta.

Jace: Yeah — Google is more transactional. Click on this, come to the restaurant. Meta, Instagram, Facebook have some side benefits in that they do a better job of building your brand while you're doing those conversions, because you can tell a better story. Not all conversions are made the same. Instagram has a place in it — building your follow, someone consistently getting content from that account. Both are good; they just serve different purposes.

Brett: 100%. We love both platforms probably equally. In this campaign, Google is slightly outperforming, but to Jace's point, they all play a part in growing the business. And Instagram lets you show awesome visuals — you can't quite do the same on Google.

On Ranking in AI Search

Brett: Something a lot of people have been asking us on the sales team is running ads or ranking on these AI platforms. What are your thoughts?

Jace: Traditionally, this is what people call SEO — search engine optimization — where you'd pay someone to show up on the first page of Google. What's interesting with AI is that the situation is changing. Rather than being on page one, Gemini (Google's AI search engine now) or ChatGPT or whichever one you use is looking across the whole internet and saying: what are people saying about this brand? Let's say you have 4.8 or 4.9 stars, or you have things mentioned about you in press releases — all of that gets funneled. If I go to ChatGPT or Gemini and type "What do people think about this restaurant?" — the three-or-four-sentence summary is what people are going to make their judgment call on. You're going to get more people making decisions that way. It's a newer trend, but it's going to keep growing.

Brett: It's interesting too — these AI searches are pulling a lot based on the content being pushed out regularly. What people are saying about you, but also what you're saying about your own brand. So it's important to keep that up.

Chapter 6: Authentic Content That Drives Real Traffic

Three real-client stories — Meta glasses, a steak sandwich, a fisherman — that prove authentic, unpolished founder content beats a professional shoot every time.

Jace: Next topic: content that actually works for restaurants. This is the hardest thing for people to take that step forward on. People think that to do content, you have to have a bunch of fancy equipment or be in a studio like this. But the name of the game for any restaurant shooting content is: find a creative way that helps you stick to it. Let me share a few examples of clients I've recently worked with — because most owners are like, "I don't want to be on camera, I don't have time to shoot content."

Brett: Real quick before we get into it, guys — pay attention. Don't do two or three things at once. Listen to what Jace is going to say. I know this story and it's really cool.

Story 1 — The Pasta Chef in Meta Glasses

Jace: We work with this brand — a pasta Italian place — and they needed more consistent content. It was always a problem to get content. The owner is a famous pasta chef, and he gets a pair of Meta glasses. All he's doing is recording videos from his point of view of making all these different pasta dishes — and they're absolutely crushing online.

Brett: For anyone who doesn't know — Meta has these glasses where you can literally record your point of view from the glasses. I have a pair. They're so cool because you can be completely hands-free. You can say, "Hey Meta, take a video," and they start recording — up to about three minutes, and really high quality, just as good as the iPhone.

Jace: The content he's getting just making the pasta is doing better than anything they tried to do with a professional photo shoot — because it just feels real, straight from the owner.

Brett: Anyone listening or watching — have you ever seen someone do this? Have you seen another restaurant doing this? Probably not.

Story 2 — TC Lando's Steak Sandwich

Jace: Another client of ours — TC Lando's — has really amazing steak sandwiches. The owner has probably made the steak sandwich a thousand times. They're kind of known in their local area. So we said, "Hey, get on camera, talk about making the steak sandwich." He gets recorded with an iPhone. It's a three-minute video, not even edited. And it gets hundreds of thousands of views — because people know him. They know TC Lando's. When they see that authenticness of the owner talking about his craft, people love it.

Brett: People were walking into his restaurant saying, "Oh, you're the guy I saw online."

Story 3 — Derek at Simply Fish

Jace: Derek — one of our clients — is the owner of Simply Fish. He's a fisherman by trade and is able to make all these great dishes. He has a video guy who's local and shoots him making all these dishes. We're promoting it through advertising. When I did the interview with him a couple weeks ago, he told me people come in and say, "You're the guy from the video. You're the guy from the Instagram reels." He's a local celebrity.

Brett: That's so cool. It's interesting to think about taking some of your best, most popular items and showing the person behind making them. Showing the visionary behind it.

The Mindset Shift

Jace: Here's the mindset I think would be helpful. When you have your concept, a big joy people get is watching someone experience the food and dining experience. When you're shooting a video just explaining what you do, you're creating almost the same experience virtually. Just as passionate as you get talking about the food and the restaurant — all you have to do is get used to saying that to a camera, and you can amplify your message. Anyone who knows your restaurant loves it — I know when I go out to eat and the owner comes by, "How's it going?" — it makes you feel good. Same thing, but you're communicating with tens of thousands more people through a video. The more you can get comfortable with that, the more it'll do well for your brand.

Brett: It's really cool because I've experienced this and I'm sure you have too. We work with some clients and they're like, "It feels like I already know you." They've consumed so much of our video content. They say, "I feel like I've known you for the last year because I've been watching all your videos." Same for Jace. People feel like they know us — and we love that. That's why we do these things. We practice what we preach. To create that same experience in the restaurant space is super unique. There's not enough people doing it. If you're willing to be on camera — if you're considering it — we highly recommend it. I shot a YouTube video about a month ago breaking down how each of these people executed their content. I'll leave a link pinned so people can check it out.

Chapter 7: Creative Upselling — The Espresso Martini Tree

The closing story: how one item on a Miami menu became a free promotion machine — and what every restaurant can learn from it.

Brett: The last topic — creative upselling. Jace, I know you had an experience recently at a restaurant we both love. We'll name-drop them because they're an awesome brand, not just here in Miami but nationwide. We both went to Maple and Ash a couple weeks ago and had the best things to say. Maple and Ash — if you're watching this, shout out to you guys. Their food — nothing's cheap in Miami, but the steak I got had great value. And I learned some things from them based on how they had their menu constructed.

Jace: One of the things I sent you was their espresso martini tree. Literally right under the espresso martini on the menu: "Why not get six espresso martinis and I'll bring it out in a tree?" All jokes aside, people might think that's insane — but while I was eating, I saw at least three or four of those come out. Every single person starts going like this with their phone.

Brett: Oh my god. How much is it?

Jace: It's $145. For Miami prices, guys.

Brett: And Maple and Ash — both of us went on separate occasions and had the best experience ever. Not only was the food incredible, their entire staff is incredible. The moment you walk in and get greeted by the host and hostess, the moment you sit at the bar for a drink before you get sat, everything they do — we love them. Maple and Ash, you guys are awesome. And this upsell is incredible. We both love espresso martinis — it's probably my wife's go-to drink. It's a brilliant upsell. Like Jace just said, he saw three or four people already getting it and taking out their phones, taking pictures on Instagram. That's free promotion. That's incredible.

Jace: It was just me and my wife, so I'd like to get it in the future — but I think I'd be on the floor if we took it down. I needed more manpower there.

Brett: Better luck next time. Well, Jace — thanks for the insight today. That was super cool. We should do this some more. This is good.

Jace: For sure. This was fun. Anything we're learning internally at our company, the more we can share it for people for free just to help them — that's what we do.

Brett: 100%, guys. Hope you got some great value today. We'll see you in the next one.