Marketing for restaurants, bars, and pubs in Iowa.
You're prepping food at eight in the morning and closing out the register at two the next one. The Facebook page gets whatever is left of you, and most nights that's nothing.
Marketing Main Street was started by someone who owned a pub in Stuart for ten years. This isn't an industry we studied. It's the one we came from.
The most expensive assumption in small business: everybody already knows.
I owned a bar in this town for ten years. Ruby's Pub, Stuart, Iowa, 2007 to 2017. In 2016 we put in a kitchen. Real food, a real menu, in a building that had been a bar and only a bar since the 1940s. Years later, people were still walking in and saying, "I didn't know you served food."
These weren't strangers. These were regulars. I saw them every week, and the kitchen still hadn't reached them, because I assumed the town already knew. That assumption cost real food sales, and it's the same assumption killing your weekend right now.
The prime rib special nobody hears about until they're already eating somewhere else. The band announced the day of the show. The Facebook page run from behind the bar at midnight, when there's finally a minute to type. The Google listing that still shows last winter's hours, telling Friday's customers you're closed while your lights are on.
We take all of that off the bar top. The specials go out early in the week, the events get real lead time, the hours stay right, and you get to run the room.
The restaurants and bars we work with.
Six food and drink clients, from small town pubs to indoor golf bars, including the pub our founder used to own.
Stuart Bowl / Traditions Sports Bar
Bowling and the Traditions Sports Bar under one roof in Stuart.
stuartbowl.comRuby's Pub & Grill
The pub our founder owned from 2007 to 2017. Today it's a client, which says something about both sides.
rubyspubonline.comWest Side Bar and Grille
Website and menu design. The menu is the most-read page a restaurant has; we design it that way. Our Madison County client; see the Winterset & Madison County page.
westsideearlham.comWhat a restaurant or bar actually gets.
Not a package grid. The specific work that fills seats and stools.
Specials that go out on Tuesday, not Saturday night
The weekend push is planned and scheduled early in the week, when people are deciding where Friday happens. Not posted from behind the bar at midnight.
A Google listing with the right hours
Hours, menu links, photos, and reviews kept current. Nothing kills a Friday like "Closed" showing on Google while your kitchen is open.
Events promoted before the day of
The band, the trivia night, the watch party. Announced with real lead time, repeated so it lands, and put in front of the people who go out.
A website that answers the only three questions
What do you serve, when are you open, where are you. Answered fast, readable on a phone, and found by Google.
Proof from the roster.
Ruby's Pub in Stuart is the bar our founder owned for ten years. Today it's on our client roster, along with Stuart Bowl and its Traditions Sports Bar a few blocks away, McDivot's Indoor Golf Pub in Grimes, and the 5x80 Golf and Country Club in Menlo. When the people who ran the room trust you with the marketing, that's the reference that matters.
The special is great. Make sure anyone hears about it.
Marketing Main Street runs the marketing for restaurants, bars, and pubs across central Iowa from Stuart. Tell us what your week looks like and we'll tell you where we'd start. Call or text (515) 422-6208. The first conversation is free and useful either way.
Let's talk