They say, "So goes California, so goes the rest of the country." This article, from the Silicon Valley Mercury News, addresses the growing regulation of food trucks that are quickly becoming a large part of the dining scene in Los Angeles.

Unlike traditional food trucks that cater to workers while on break, this new wave of trucks park in high-traffic areas and serve a higher quality of food, often with their own specialties. According to this article, some counties have received complaints by restaurant owners that these trucks steal business. Consequently, some cities, such as Rancho Palos Verdes and Palos Verdes Estates, have enacted zoning restrictions on when and where the trucks can operate.

Thankfully, by the end of the year, food truck customers in California can expect to see the same health quality ratings they see at normal brick and mortar restaurants. This doesn’t necessarily “level the playing field” for regular restaurants to compete with food trucks, but will help educate customers about their health quality.

So, how do restaurants compete with this food truck invasion? Some have actually decided to join them – and launched their own food trucks. Others have focused on convenience factors and their communication tactics. For instance, many food trucks rely heavily on Twitter to communicate their daily whereabouts. Brick and mortar restaurants that are inundated by food trucks should step up their Twitter communication and takeout business. Ordering takeout online in advance is definitely a way customers can capitalize on your restaurant’s convenience.

Do food trucks affect your restaurant? Let us know how. Email us at mailto:[email protected]. Does your restaurant operate a food truck? We want to hear your story. Email us at [email protected].

Do you have promotions you only offer to certain customers and others you want to share with the world?

NetWaiter now offers the ability to set promotions as public or private. When creating a new promotion, restaurants can choose to display it on their NetWaiter site. If a new promotion is made public, it will show in the “Available Promotions” section on the restaurant’s site. If the promotion expires, it is automatically removed from the site.

For private promotions, restaurants can simply choose not to display them on their site. For instance, if a restaurant wants to generate a promotion for a select group of customers, they can prevent it from displaying on their site and email it directly to the intended customers using NetWaiter’s Email Marketing System.`

It's common for restaurant employees to be familiar with the daily specials or a new dessert that hasn’t yet made it to the menu, but are you using your wait staff to their fullest when it comes to promoting your online ordering system?

Maybe not.

Make sure that your waiters and waitresses can inform customers about your online menu and ordering site.  Talk about how convenient it is for customers - reduced wait time, greater accuracy, and easy accessibility.  You can even demonstrate it to them at a staff meeting.

Also, make sure your employees are well versed on all of the latest features.  For instance, in the last few months, NetWaiter has added an ordering interface with Facebook, and more recently, the easy ability for customers to order from their mobile phones.  Your employees can help spread the word about new capabilities.

Some employees may be concerned that referring customers to your online menu will reduce their ability to make tips.  This is certainly not an issue.  Tipping is part of the ordering and dining experience.  If they help to create happy customers, they are going to get tips, and online ordering definitely makes for happier customers.

Opportunities are abound with social media. It is truly a fantastic platform to build your restaurant’s brand and communicate with customers. While doing that, however, it is important not to do a couple of things. Here are 3 simple things NOT to do with social media:

1) Don’t Ask For Favors
If you don’t know someone well enough to ask for a cup of sugar, then you don’t know them well enough to ask them to write about or promote your restaurant. Don’t publicly ask for a review. Instead, you can publicly recognize the customers that do review your restaurant with a “Thank You” and a link to the review. Ask them to introduce themselves to the manager the next time they visit. You might be able to provide them a complimentary dessert, or at least, an in-person “Thank You”.

2) Don’t Ignore Your Customers / Be a Jerk
This may sound too simple, but it’s worth saying. You’re using social media to establish relationships and build awareness for your restaurant, right? So – get social! Respond to messages, get involved in conversations, and don’t miss opportunities to communicate with some of your most valuable customers. It is certainly better NOT to use social media than to use it and NOT engage with customers. If customers send you tweets and you ignore them, they will think you’re a jerk, especially while sending out other tweets.

3) Don’t Send Auto-Direct Messages
Using auto direct-messages on Twitter is essentially Spam. Don’t bother someone with a generic direct-message that says: “Thanks for the follow!” or something similar. It’s a very hollow way of thanking someone. If you’re doing this, stop. Don’t take the “social” out of social media. You can lose followers and relationships when they forget why they’re there. People want to interact with you and your restaurant. They are interested in news, updates, and deals – not meaningless auto-direct messages.