Logging on at lunchtime

Published in The Post-Star (D1)
10/18/06

For many restaurants, paper menus and chalkboard specials are no longer enough to lure customers inside — appetites are whetted online.

"People expect restaurants to have a Web site. They don’t say, ‘Do you have a Web site?’ They say, ‘What’s the address of your Web site?’" said Sara Mannix.

She owns Mannix Marketing, a Glens Falls firm that specializes in designing Web sites for restaurants and other hospitality-related businesses.

"I think the Internet is the new Yellow Pages," she said. "For a long time, I’ve been saying I think it’s becoming that. But I think it finally is."

When Mannix founded her business 10 years ago, it had just a handful of restaurant clients. Now, it has designed sites for about 100 restaurants in the Capital Region and beyond.

"There’s been more and more traffic to the sites every year," she said.

In the last five years or so, both locals and tourists have increasingly turned to search engines like Google to check out dining and catering options, she said, sometimes just typing in "Glens Falls restaurants" and clicking on the most prominently displayed results.

This trend has forced many local restaurants to either launch a Web site or spiff up their existing one.

Developing a more sophisticated Web site was one of Colleen Holmes’ first goals when she and her husband bought Wheatfields restaurant in Saratoga Springs two years ago.

"It’s a very powerful marketing tool, and a great source of information for our guests and potential guests," Colleen explained. "Many people today go to Web sites to get purchasing information and make decisions, and just because we’re a restaurant doesn’t make it any different."

It took almost two years to find a designer whose work matched her vision of what the site should be, but she finally settled on Pete Brandenstein’s Schoolhouse Designs.

"I needed someone who could convey the energy and excitement of a busy restaurant," Colleen said. "A Web site could potentially be very boring, so how do you make it fun and upbeat?"

Apparently, with artful photographs, elegant fonts and high-tech tricks like scrolling animation.
The site has definitely generated business, Colleen added.

"I’ve received phone calls from people saying, ‘I’m on your Web site right now, can you tell me more about this or that?’" she said. "People e-mail us their reservation requests, or request more information about catering, on a regular basis."

Other local restaurants have taken a more casual approach, but almost all have some sort of online presence.

The Log Jam in Queensbury started out with a very basic page, but upgraded to its more comprehensive current site about four years ago, said manager Tony Grecco.

"It’s definitely a big help," he said. "People that don’t know us find us, and people that do know us can see what’s on the menu this week."

Rick Davidson, co-owner of Davidson Brothers’ restaurant and brewery in Glens Falls, rarely uses computers, and didn’t even know what Google was until his teenage son explained it to him recently. But even he sees the benefits of tangling with the Web.

"It’s done a great deal for our business," he said. "The longer we’ve been around, the more tourists we get, and a lot of them tell me they found us by Googling restaurants in the area ... Five years ago, you wouldn’t have heard one party a month mention a Web site."

Mannix Marketing designed the site, and Davidson’s 17-year-old son, A.J., keeps it updated. It’s very basic and text-heavy, but Davidson said that’s OK.

"It’s not snazzy, and that’s Davidson’s. We’re just a family-owned, small, independent restaurant," he said. "We’re not that slick."

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An abridged look at what a few local eateries have put online:

The Log Jam Restaurant in Queensbury has a Mannix-designed site, www.logjamrestaurant.com. It is easy to navigate and includes everything from menus with prices to directions to the men's room.

Davidson Brothers' Restaurant and Brewery in Glens Falls has www.davidsonbrothers.com, a which focuses more on content than style. It includes menus (without prices), merchandise (with prices) and an up-to-date calendar of events. The "Our Story" section offers an interesting look at the origin of this family-run local business.

Jake's Round-Up in South Glens Falls has rounded up a useful collection of menus and pricing information at www.jakesroundup.com, which has over 3,800 visitors, according to the hit counter. Unfortunately, it's hard to find directions or a phone number for this self-proclaimed "not hard to figure, not hard to get to" place, and the event listings are out of date.

Chianti Il Ristorante, an Italian fine dining restaurant in Saratoga Springs, has www.chiantiristorante.com, a seductively sleek site that gives a sense of the place's ambience through artsy, low-light photos. The comprehensive site even includes instructions on applying for a job at the restaurant. The only thing it doesn't include? Prices.

dine, an upscale American/Asian/French fusion restaurant in Saratoga Springs, has a fun, snazzy site at www.dinesaratoga.com
Visitors will need Flash software and a bit of Web-savvy to navigate this clever page, which includes animation and hidden text that pops up as the mouse scrolls across an image. It needs an update, though -- the "happenings" page lists events for Nov. 2005.

Then there's www.menumart.com, owned by Mannix Marketing, which dishes the basic info -- menu and location -- for most restaurants in the Capital Region, and links to the restaurants' own Web sites where one is available.
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