Order’s Done! – Office Catering and Party Service Online Ordering System

Order’s Done! (www.ordersdone.com) is an innovative online ordering system for catering businesses that lets your customers place their orders for office catering, party services, and more online – quickly, easily, and on their most convenient schedule.

www.ordersdone.com

Creator of this online ordering tool is a skilled veteran of the international hospitality industry, Katrin Rippel, who is also founder of the respected translation and web services firm Menu International (www.menuintl.com).

Rippel created this online ordering system specifically for small and mid-sized catering companies to leverage the “overwhelmingly busy” or “down” times of that trade.

Order’s Done! allows addressing different target groups (i.e. Corporate and Social Catering) and then guiding them through the ordering of single dishes, platters, etc., complete menus, multiple choices event packages as well as additional services including delivery, set-up and clean-up.

Order’s Done! accommodates specialized menus in an easy and intelligent way. Customer will be able to browse through categories, select/unselect their choices, get specific guidance on what else is important besides food, check out and submit their order securely which seconds later will be received via email, and, if necessary, can be modified and finalized with the customer directly.

In addition to a securely 24/7 running server, Order’s Done! is bundled with updating the menus, packages and items according to individual business needs on a quarterly, monthly or weekly schedule.

“It’s the customer guidance, the visual beauty (so important in the food service), the incredible customizability and yet technical simplicity that makes this tool unique,” Rippel says. “Plus our service of updating the menus, etc. with changing seasons makes the concept stand out…. And it’s even available in other languages!”

Kraut at Oktoberfest

 

Most German restaurants, delis and clubs around the world celebrate Oktoberfest. Outside of Germany – where the original beer festival is celebrated in Munich in fair style and big celebration tents for food, drink and dance – it is celebrated generally with German food and beer, and traditional clothing and dancing. As a German native, I am part of the local celebration as it became a tradition that I provide the Coleslaw for Oskar’s Oktoberfest.

Coleslaw German Style

 

 

Oskar’s German & European Deli and Catering is located in Lacey (next to Fred Meyer’s Shopping Center). Peggy Scott is the owner, a 72 years young lady that started the Oktoberfest tradition in 2001, and attendance is growing with each year. The second year, I had too much white cabbage growing in my garden, and as I had made tons of Coleslaw when being part of Schroeder’s German Restaurant in downtown San Francisco – the tradition was born.

Now, every year I go to the day before in the restaurant of a friend and prepare the white Kraut, and it became part of the delicious meals that Peggy cooks herself every year for her customers: Bratwurst, Sauerkraut and Kartoffelsalat, and Schnitzel, Rotkohl and Spätzle with gravy.

Peggy Scott and her team

And you don’t have to wait for the next Oktoberfest to try Peggy’s food, she cooks every day! Next to a huge selection of German beer and wine, chocolate, bread, spaetzles and dumpling mixes, etc. etc., and fresh sausage and cheese cuts (and not to forget my favorite Quark), there are tables to sit down, have a hearty German lunch, speak some German and sit back and savor the atmosphere.

Oskar’s German & European Deli & Catering, Lacey, WA, Phone: 360-491-3251

Sustainability – Tell your story!

Using recyclable disposable table ware, working with a green supplier chain, giving food scraps to local farms, donating time and service to a local organization and much more – are you working up your list of “have to do” things, or are you telling your story?

Sustainability is one of the hottest trends nowadays. It encourages you to search for best ways to recycle, limit waste, hence damaging impact on environment. It also involves creating and sustaining a healthy community, integrating minorities, supporting good deed and action. I know that new trends also attract misuse, in this case so called Greenwashing. However, I see that this great trend stops many catering owner or hotel manager in their daily track and routine and makes them re-evaluate their business, partners and actions. Yes, maybe first for the sake of “being in trend” and “don’t miss out” but why not – – when it brings the most amazing result: Being considerable and effective in creating a new together and environment.

And it’s ok to let everybody know! Yes, there are many restaurants, catering businesses and hotels that do so much for environment and community, and nobody knows! Not even their customer. Ok, maybe, there is a list of “green things we do” on their website, but it’s the same list as the restaurant next door.

Tell your story. Your customer and local community love to hear that, and they will follow your story. Be a leader. Inspire them with your story. They might even want to join you in your activities. Why not going one step further and share your story so you inspire even more businesses and people to do the same.

If you want a thorough presentation on sustainability with ideas for your business, contact us and we send you a PDF presentation.

E-Mail Marketing – Is There Really That Constant Contact?

By now, 99% of our targeted audience is using email. We are collecting purposefully email addresses, finding email managing programs and email marketing services that facilitate the creation of promotional and informational emails sent to current and potential clients. Yet are you, indeed, reaching your audience? Can you see what they see?

On a daily basis, I am receiving emails like that…

 

…with the intention to display like that:

There are integrated and added security measures added to my Outlook that generally don’t display pictures added to emails. It also helps to receive emails faster and keep the working of Outlook smooth. 

I have the option to download the pictures, or I can go and view that message online. However, you can imagine the flood of emails everyone is receiving nowadays on a daily basis (especially your targeted decision maker). Are you sure that they will do the extra steps to see what you have to say?

There are a view tweaks you can do to increase your visibility, literally:

• Use as view graphics as possible
• Use build in options of various background color and change text color or font instead
• Make sure that your message comes across without graphics
• Give some substantial content so prospects keep watching out for your message
• Give tidbits of interest that hooks your reader faster than he/she can push the “delete” button

 And send out that test email and check in various famous email programs, such as Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, MSN etc., how it looks!

A Taste of America’s Favorite Holidays

I was invited to the Holiday Open House of Elyse’s Catering. Already the weekend before, when visiting Elyse, I had seen the busy preparation for this special event, and was eager to experience it.

When I entered “The Deli”, legacy term referring to its being former “Elyse’s Potpourri and Deli”, I saw many shiny eyes and soon found out why:

The Holiday Open House was a showcase of America’s favorite holidays, a celebration of the Season ahead of us. And knowing Elyse, everything was topped off with creativity and extravagance.

Guests were greeted with Champaign, apple cider, and mouthwatering appetizers such as Prosciutto Basil Wraps and Walking Shrimp Cocktails.

Bountiful decorations lead you into the kitchen where baked carved turkey with gravy, mashed yams, cranberry sauce and – hoho freshly backed pumpkin rolls – were offered. The hit of the event, I found, was a mashed potatoes bar where everyone could select the ingredients, bacon bits, cheese, glazed and green onions, sour cream…, and then wait next to the stove where Ryan finished the combination to taste.

Cherishing traditions, your taste buds could enjoy Hannukah dishes including Challah bread and poached salmon with dill sauce.

The Holiday dessert bar was a combination of childhood Christmas memories and new variations of them, such as pumpkin dot bars, eggnog tarts and homemade marshmallows: Rosy cheeks and rolling eyes in delish spoke for themselves.

It was getting dark outside when I left the deli. What a wonderful Holiday Season kick-off, I thought; looking back to the place full of light and festive decoration, the laughter and talking followed me to the car.

Elyse’s Catering, Inc.
3238 Capitol Blvd. S.
Tumwater, WA 98501
T: 360.943.5555
www.ElysesCatering.com

“I’m Glad the Menu is in English.”

Last evening, my neighbor knocked at the door and gave me the menu from the Indian restaurant where they went for dinner. “Food is so good there, they barely speak English…”, and saying this, she looked meaningful – and I understood, this meant “very authentic delicious food”.

The menu showed a myriad of dishes that I certainly pronounce incorrectly; leave alone understand their meaning, nor what they might taste like. But luckily, the description/translation stands right underneath. So Lamb Jalfrezi is “Lamb sautéed in a wok with fresh garden vegetables and herbs” and Jeera Aloo is “Potatoes cooked with spices, ginger, garlic and cumin seeds”.

Well, I am not sure if the names are classic Indian dish names or self-created ones, yet in this case I am simply happy and relieved that with the description/translation I get some kind of picture and would be able to make a choice from the menu.

The owners are even so sensitive to give me an option to order my dish via a number next to the dish in case I feel self-conscious when trying to pronounce it, yet the truth is probably to avoid misunderstanding (remember, “they barely speak English”).

Of course, they have to add English because we are in America and most of their guests are English speakers, and their intent is to sell their food to the locals, and make communication easy, make their guests feel at ease.

And exactly that is always my point: Now we have the season of vacation, of travelers, visitors from Germany, France, Italy and so on. And not all of them speak English. They would appreciate a menu in their native language, would feel at ease, and very welcomed!

With that, I created a summer special for translating your restaurant menus. See here for the details: www.menuintl.com!

And I definitely will check out this Restaurant:
Curry Corner – Indian cuisine
9408 Martin Way East, Suite 2
Lacey, WA 98516
www.currycorner.us

Branding a City for International Tourism?

“Internationalization and branding of a tourism city” was the theme of the International Tourism City Forum 2010 which was held in Sofitel Hangzhou, China. 18 countries from around the world where represented at this forum. This conference was sponsored by the International Tourism Marketing Association (ITMA).

ITMA started in Beijing in March 2007 and since then has built a professional international level marketing service. With that they help tourism businesses with marketing planning, image building, tourism promotion, festivals and celebrations, etc. ITMA created and is involved in yearly major international conferences.

“The important trend for world tourism development is internationally convergence and integration. International marketing has become an important way for tourism destination. Language becomes the first obstacles when it comes to international tourism marketing and internet becomes the best tool to depend on. How to use internet to spread image and information for tourism destination? How to use multilingual platform to inform the target tourists’ countries?” (read more… )

ITMA owns now a multilingual international website, www.itmacom.com, which offers content in Chinese, English, Korean, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Arabic and Spanish.

Excited, I went to the website and clicked on all the pages in different languages. Well, it seems to be a work in process, as I couldn’t access any foreign language info except for some English. I was very fascinated by the global multilingual vision I read on ITMA’s info website, yet really disappointed in seeing the poor integration upon reviewing the website. This is a really good example that it is important that you do what you promise to your website visitors. You don’t have to integrate your whole vision at once, you can start with an i.e. one page summary in the foreign language, or translate the most important pages and inform your visitors when clickable content leads to non native pages. You show respect this way, and don’t lose your credibility. I will revisit ITMA’s website in few months, maybe.

“Feast in the Mountains” – Whistler’s Unique Celebration

This time being in Beautiful British Columbia, I passed Vancouver and continued driving Highway 99, the Sea to Sky Highway, up to Whistler, the Host Mountain Resort of the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games. Filled with utmost curiosity I was off to an event in Whistler’s Rebagliati Park where I would participate in celebrating the “connection between farm and fork” with a Feast in the Mountains!

In this inaugural year of Feast in the Mountains the Chefs represent Whistler’s brightest culinary talents and some of the finest BC beverages.

With the wine glass and a menu received at the entrance, I walked from booth to booth various times, tasting beautiful arranged tidbits of food in the order they appealed to my palate (and personal sense of menu order). While taking my time, I ventured to the quieter booths of the producers of that bounty. “Amongst the beauty of these mountains lie fertile lands that have long produced food for this valley and beyond. Upon that land a small number of committed farmers toil without glamour or acclaim to ensure the integrity of our food chain. This event is inspired by them – their commitment in the face of great challenges, their passion for the land that sustains us”, writes Astrid Cameron, Co-founder/Co-producer of Feast in the Mountains.

Furthermore, several organizations were represented; I encourage you to check them out:

Slow Food, an international organization that was founded in 1986 as a response to the standardizing effects of fast food and the fast life. It supports good, clean and fair food. Ocean Wise, Canada’s leading sustainable seafood restaurant program, Green Table, a network of sustainable foodservice and their suppliers in the greater Vancouver, BC area (although foodservices from elsewhere are welcome), and Farm Folk/City Folk, an organization that connects farm and city and that focuses on cultivating a local, sustainable food system.

I really liked the relaxed atmosphere full of laughter that comes along naturally with good quality food and drink (especially in an outside setting). Yes, it was a great feast in the mountains – and also a conscious one that celebrated the whole food chain and gives dining out again a meaning of true hospitality.

Find all pictures taken at this event at our flickr site

The “American Track” is international – www.amtrak.com

Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is the transportation for enjoying the journey while traveling the US, as well as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal in Canada.

Amtrak took its international approach very thorough and translated its entire content into Spanish and German language. I explored the German part and I am pretty sure that the Spanish is of equal excellence:

Portal (to the various languages): When arriving at www.amtrak.com, you clearly can see the links in the native language ‘Español‘ and ‘Deutsch‘ written vs. the sometimes ambiguous flags that are used to indicate a foreign language page.

Images: Images with text are translated, special offer picture ads, even the search button are translated for the German visitor. It gives the whole website a very integrated look and feel.

Customer Service: The German traveler finds all info on individual Amtrak stations, can search for current special offers, latest information on critical issues (such as swine flu), and use the reservation system in its native language. Amtrak provides an interactive map to search routes and plan trips which is in English, yet it is acceptable because the search goes via an image map of the US or by station and region names. And in case German visitors don’t find an answer in the question and answer section of the website, they can go to the contact page and submit their request… the answer they receive will be in German.

Don’t gross out the world…

Following link I received today via email. It is an amusing and educational short quiz to test your international restaurant etiquette:

www.fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf

Have fun!