Thriller Theatre Tickets
what shall I call my new restaurant?
the restaurant is based around our stage. There will be theatre and dinner tickets sold for shows including bands, singers, choirs, big bands, dramas, musicals, thrillers, farces, comedies.
Decor will be warm colourful and rustic, a bit like a cave or grotto. With huge warped copper lighting
Food will be unpretentious, wholesome, hearty, good quality and lots of it. Roasted chickens, Hog roasts, Casseroles, Prime beef, seasonal vegetables, racks of lamb, and homemade desserts pies, real puddings etc. This is not fine dining but very high quality good solid food. Please help
Working names so far
The Strange Cafe
The Molehouse
The Playhouse Cafe & Bar
The Straw Barn Cafe & Bar
The Old Straw Barn Cafe
Our names are Rob & Susanna Moles
our children are Zoe & Ruth
The addres is Westdale Road, Richmond, New Zealand
A good name has a lot to do with the culture of where you live, and also with marketting it. In some places, a name like ‘The Old Straw Barn’ will strike just the right note of comfort and friendly welcome, in others it will sound stuffy and old fashioned.
My suggestion is this ~ approach your local newspaper or television station. If you are opening a restuarant, the chances are you will have to do some advertising in the future, so develop a relationship with them now.
Tell them you would like to offer dinner and wine for ten people to the reader or listener who can come up with the best name for your restaurant. Set some limits ~ the name has to be suitable for the food, the style of restaurant and the local area. No good calling it ‘ocean crest eatery’ if it’s inland!!
Arrange a panel of judges and be sure to ask the radio station manager or newspaper editor (or whoever they delegate) to be one of the judges. Invite some other local people to join in as judges. Make sure members of your family are on the judging panel. Decide how the judging will be done, and set a time limit of say six weeks AFTER the restaurant opens. In the meanwhile, call it something like ‘Insert Name Here’ or similar silly name which will catch people’s attention and make them say ‘What is that about?’.
Suggest all this to the newspaper/radio station, and ask their advice. Let them know you’ve spoken to their competition and they are interested in the idea but you prefer them because (insert reason, lol). They are sure to have some good promotional ideas.
Food and drink for ten people sounds like a big prize, I know, but consider this … You will get FREE publicity for a few weeks before your opening night, plus make sure you invite all concerned to the opening night and you’ll get good publicity for that too!
People will come to your restaurant for six weeks to see what the best name would be (make sure you’ve got entry forms everywhere and the staff know all about it). So you’ve got six weeks to impress them and make them regulars. Make them feel welcome ~ get stickers and pencils made saying ‘Insert Name Here’ Restaurant and give them away like lollies.
Personally, I’d go as far as to offer several minor prizes, too ~ such as bit parts in the plays you put on (non-speaking trees, etc, lol). This costs you nothing but is quirky and fun! And, it lets people know about the playhouse component of your restaurant in an interesting way … a way they can see themselves in the limelight!
The winners might come and eat and drink enough for 100, but they will have friends and if they enjoy themselves they will let their friends and family know, plus they might get interviewed on the radio or in the paper and tell everyone what a great place your restaurant is.
You will get everyone talking. Even if all they say is ‘what a dumb idea’, they will be talking about YOUR restaurant.
Once the winner is decided, splash out on a big ‘naming ceremony’ and invite some important folks for the big name unveiling. Don’t book any tables that night, just people for ‘nibbles’ and celebrations. That means even more people can come and saple your food and find out where your restauarant is and get interested in coming back.
Book the winners for a night a bit down the track ~ don’t be mean, let them come on a Saturday night, it will create a great atmosphere and show evberyone there what a fun place your restaurant is. Of course, the night they come make sure the media is there and the winners (and media) are treated like royalty, with boxes of chocs and bottles of wine as ’surprise’ gifts, and lavish attention!
Make the whole thing a huge celebration of your restaurant, your family and your town. Talk to anyone who will listen about how excited you are and how you want the restaurant to be a place local people will think reflects their own tastes and attitudes (and where they can dine well and affordably and be entertained, too!). In other words, make it about the customers.
And have a LOT of fun. When the owner is having fun, everyone has fun, from the owner’s family to the staff, to the guests, to anyone else involved in the place.
Anyway, that’s my suggestion! It’s a bit wild, but I’ve done a fair bit of marketting over the years and I think it could work.
After all, with ANY restaurant the most important thing is to get people to drive past all the others and come in YOUR door! Once they do that, if the place is nice, the service good and you make them feel welcome, they’ll keep coming back. But first you’ve got to get them in the door!
Whatever you do, have fun and best of luck! 
Thriller Chiller Theatre
