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From clicking a mouse to speaking with a computer
Ontario Restaurant News
The internet can offer a variety of experiences to a person looking for a restaurant - from perusing a menu or ordering a pizza on a computer screen, to standing on a street corner in a strange town talking into a cell phone and receiving directions from a computer how to find the closest Italian restaurant in a specified price range.
Actually the conversation with a computer isn't quite here yet, although it's very close.
But first let's deal with the basics. Why would a restaurant want to put up a web site?
For Jim Cooper the answer is simple. The manager of the Hilltop Grill and Beverage Company, a casual restaurant in Fredericton, N.B., designed mainly for adults, says that if the Hilltop weren't on the Web then people using their browsers to find an eating spot would miss his. They'd simply click on one of his competitors.
The Hilltop is listed on a Web site usually referred to as a "portal" or "e-marketplace", basically a site that groups together listings or links for a whole crowd of businesses or organizations in the same category. The Hilltop's Web pages can be found at DineAid.com, a site operated by former chef and TV personality Wayne Jagoe, which went into operation a little over three years ago and has listings for more than 4,000 restaurants in the eastern part of Canada. Jagoe plans to take the site national, with listings of more than 60,000 restaurants across the country.
While business has continued to increase for the restaurant since it went online about a year ago. Cooper can't say how much of that is due to the Web presence. However, he knows the restaurant is gaining attention. The number of electronic visits made to the site is about 800 a month, which puts the Hilltop in the lead among the group of restaurants on the DineAid site, as far as "hits" are concerned.
The restaurant runs an online contest with a prize of dinner for two every two weeks, and in January, it drew in 126 entries.
In February, the Hilltop started doing Take-out through its Web site. When Cooper was interviewed for this article, the electronic ordering part of the web site had only been in operation for about a week and hasn't been advertised yet. There had been a few orders come in, and everything went smoothly, says Cooper.
Now the restaurant is planning to set up a retail section on the Web site to sell merchandise such as clothing with the Hilltop logo.
The restaurant makes the Web site work harder by including it in all print and radio advertising, as well as listening it on placemats and coupons.
"That's probably why we have the most hits of all the restaurants," comments Cooper.
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