ESABA's Guide to Restaurant Support
10 Dec 2020
ESABA’s Guide to Supporting Your Local Restaurants
Posted by Metro State New Media Students
Long Haul Through the Winter
The Holidays are very important for families, merrymakers, and small businesses. As we adapt to COVID-19 and the new changes in place to mitigate the spread, some of our hardest hit businesses in the community are our restaurants. ESABA has continued to host weekly meetings, and recently held an emergency restaurant support meeting. In the last two weeks, we set out to find what restaurants need from the community to survive this shutdown. After listening to the concerns and ideas of our restaurant owners, here is what we discovered…
Increasing Takeout Sales is Key
After the first shutdown, restaurants had to adapt quickly to the new circumstances. The learning experience from that period has carried over to the new restrictions in place. Restaurants have had to painfully let employees go and learn how to manage with business being cut in half.
This season, utilize take-out services from your local restaurant that you would typically dine-in at. They rely on our take-out support to ultimately get back to the old brick-and-mortar dine in experience. Order, Eat, Repeat!
Make Our Restaurants Visible on Social Media
The overarching question our restaurant owners were really emphasizing: How do we create a buzz over the Five Corridors of the East Side. Payne Ave, Arcade, E 7th Street, White Bear Ave. and Sunray to attract new business and bring in our regulars more often?
Share your love for these restaurants when you get take-out. Snap a picture of your food or a selfie, tag #EastSideEats #lovesaintpaul and share on IG @esabasaintpaul. Engage your network in these posts to generate feedback and encourage their business on the East Side!
Engage in our Community Events
Saint Paul BIZ-ingo was live and in motion on Wednesday, December 9th. You could pick up your BIZ-ingo card and join the livestream at 7:30pm.
Angie, Megan, Husband Pat & Boone Doggy for 5 rousing rounds of BIZ-ingo. All 5 rounds will be played on the same BIZ-ingo card. ESABA works hard to make sure East Side Businesses hear about these opportunities and get a chance to participate. One business said, “50% of the business we did on Wednesday was with people from this promotion.”
Our East Side participants included:
Brunson's Pub
https://www.facebook.com/BrunsonsPub
Burnt Chicken Cafe
https://www.facebook.com/burntchkn
Eastside Thai Restaurant
https://www.facebook.com/Eastside-Thai-172844579436963
ESB East Side Bar
https://www.facebook.com/esbstp
Minnesota Music Cafe
https://www.facebook.com/minnesotamusiccafe
Saint Paul Brewing
https://www.facebook.com/saintpaulbrewing/
Yoerg Brewing
https://www.facebook.com/Yoergbeer
East Side Eats
ESABA is following suit with our own East Side Eats campaign to encourage our supporters and members to Eat Out on December 17th, and talk about their East Side Favorites on social media and at our final Member Meeting of the Year: East Side Connect! Thursday Dec 17th all the details at www.esaba.org
IG: @esabasaintpaul
Twitter: @eastsideareabiz
Facebook: East Side Area Business Association