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Marketing for restaurants, bars, and pubs in Iowa.

You are 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 is nothing.

Marketing Main Street was started by someone who owned a pub in Stuart for ten years. This is not an industry we studied. It is the one we came from.

6 food & drink clients 10 years owning a pub in Stuart Restaurants · Bars · Pubs · Golf clubs · Culinary

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. Two years later, people were still walking in and saying, "I didn't know you served food."

These were not strangers. These were regulars. I saw them every week, and the kitchen still had not reached them, because I assumed the town already knew. That assumption cost me two years of food sales, and it is the same assumption killing your weekend right now.

"Everybody already knows" is the most expensive assumption in small business.

The prime rib special nobody hears about until they are already eating somewhere else. The band announced the day of the show. The Facebook page run from behind the bar at midnight, when there is finally a minute to type. The Google listing that still shows last winter's hours, telling Friday's customers you are 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.

Seven food and drink clients, from small town pubs to indoor golf bars, including the pub our founder used to own.

Stuart

Stuart Bowl / Traditions Sports Bar

Bowling and the Traditions Sports Bar under one roof in Stuart.

stuartbowl.com
Stuart

Ruby's Pub & Grill

The pub our founder owned from 2007 to 2017. Today it is a client, which says something about both sides.

rubyspubonline.com
Menlo

5x80 Golf and Country Club

Golf and country club in Menlo.

5by80.com
Grimes

McDivot's Indoor Golf Pub

Indoor golf and a pub in Grimes.

mcdivotspub.com

Chef's Edge Culinary

Culinary services under the Chef's Edge banner.

chefsedgeculinary.com
Earlham

West Side Bar and Grille

Website and menu design. The menu is the most-read page a restaurant has; we design it that way.

westsideearlham.com
Clive

The Down Under

Bar and hangout in Clive. Website and online presence work.

greatestbar.com

What 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 is 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 is the reference that matters.

Restaurants & Bars, Marketing Main Street
See our Google profile. 5.0 stars across 19 reviews.

The special is great. Make sure anyone hears about it.

Tell us what your week looks like and we will tell you where we would start. Call or text (515) 422-6208. The first conversation is free and useful either way.

Let's talk

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