My menu ranged from an 8" sub for $4.99 to a 14 oz Strip Sirloin for $18.99. I had something to satisfy every one's taste and wallet.

These 10 steps may not work for everyone; however, if you own a small mom and pop pizzeria, café, deli, etc, these are great ideas to bring in the bodies and boost sales.

1. Make your menu affordable to everyone. Don't leave anybody out

   Lunch time is usually a time for customers to get in and out. You'll always want specials on the board that are quick and easy; and cheap. You need to produce efficiently to get the customers in and out as quickly as possible.
   Dinner time is a more relaxed experience for customers. They will take their time when choosing menu options and they will look at a wider range of choices. It is always a great idea to offer options that range anywhere from $7.99 for a Spaghetti &Meatballs to a Heavy NY Strip for $18.99. You are, therefore, opening the menu to different customers and wallet sizes.

2. Advertisement on a Local Radio Station

   If you can find a local radio station, usually it ends up being an AM station to advertise for you, it will significantly boost your sales. I did this with an AM station every Monday morning. The disc jockey would ask me questions about specials, my background, location, menu items, do we serve alcohol, etc. I was allotted a time slot for every week. I would often mention specials for the listeners and as soon as I hung up the phone, my phone lines would blow up before I was even open for business. The cost to me was around $170.00 a month. That's a fraction of funds compared to advertisements in local newspapers or magazines. I had drones of people coming in to meet me that heard me on the radio.

3. Lucky Rock Bags

   This was about the most powerful forms of advertisement for me. Take a box of sandwich bags, put a river rock in the bag to weigh it down, and include your menu, a coupon, upcoming specials, and locations. You throw these out on people driveways. The typical reaction when people call is that they received a bag in their driveway and this was the first time they were trying the restaurant or heard of you. Unfortunately, you will have a choice few that will be upset that the bag that actually landed in their driveway was purposively thrown in a bush or on their perfectly manicured lawn. I usually shrug these people off since they have never worked a day in their life in a restaurant. After all, we have free speech and this is a way for you to get your name out. That's all I tell them.

4. Participate in Food Competitions to increase customer base

   I have participated in these for a couple of years now and the feedback you get is incredible. There are hundreds of people that are walking around trying local fare. You can meet and greet the locals, tell them about yourself, and hand out menus. It's also a great way for potential customers to sample your items before they visit your location.

5. Write a blog to gain customers

   There are so many resources available on the web for you to write about your restaurant. Most of the time these websites are free and they will get the word out about specials you're running, location, menu items, and other pertinent information about your particular restaurant. Some of the best websites for blogging on restaurants is chowhound, cooks, and pizza.com.

6. Have a Newspaper write an Article

   I had one of the most popular newspapers from the area do an article about the restaurant in January 2007. They interviewed some of my best customers from my base and asked them to put their two cents in. They took a picture of me cooking in my chef jacket. The article was a lovely rendition of my life as a chef, my background, and my favorite items to cook. Trust me, it worked. I was still busy 6 months after the article came out. This was due to the fact that I retained a new customer base and customers were traveling for 2 hours to get to my restaurant.

7. Make a club and Email List

   I formed a pizza of the month club. I would provide the customers with an XLarge specialty pizza, 6 garlic rolls, 2 desserts, 2 salads, and one appetizer for $39.95 twice a month. It's your club, so you can do what you want to. Be creative. You can create an email list within this club to let your customer base know the monthly specialty pizza or upcoming events.

8. Wine Tastings

   Depending on your clientele, this is an extremely lucrative way to have other streams of income coming in. This is, of course, is dependent on if you have a Beer and Wine License. You can combine your food with the type of wine the wine guy has brought for tasting. This does take some more extensive planning but, on many occasions, I have taken in $75.00 a head for a night of food and spirits.

9. Cooking Classes

   Provide classes to your customers each week about a particular aspect of cooking, a technique, a type of cuisine, etc. This can be worked around your restaurant hours. This is a great way to develop relationships with your customers.

10. Catering

    This is a lot work and often times you need a lot of employees to help. You need a form of transportation that will safely transport the food without diminishing the quality. This requires planning and knowledge. Knowing the portions sizes for a certain amount of people; remembering every item to take with you for service. I have worked with one of the top Catering Executive in the Country. I have extensive experience in this field of expertise.

 

 

The city is of course quite concerned. Since it didn't own the land it could attach no conditions to the sale, but there is a construction-ban on the site and the city of course wields the power of the permit. It seems as if the city of Prague and Orco will have to work together to get the most out of this piece of land.

Now the location offers a lot of potential. The area is famous for being pretty much destroyed by the communists in their desire to connect the centre by express-way. The result is the busy Argentinska road that cuts through Holesovice like a knife. The area was reputed to sport a lot of beautiful buildings. Those buildings won't be brought back, but what could Orco do to get the most out of this opportunity.

It seems to me (and I'm personally motivated, because I live close by) that what's most important here is to use the opportunity to fix the ridiculous traffic situation that virtually separates Holesovice from Letna with the exception of three narrow passageways. If Orco works together with the city they should be able to come up with a plan that:

a) takes the Argentinska road out of the equation, either by turning it into a tunnel or redirecting it to run parallel with the railway tracks. It should then be connected to Bubenska by means of a tunnel round and about Hermanska.

b) connects Holesovice to Letna. This could be done by connecting Veletrzni with Delnicka with the help of a tunnel under the railway.

If the Argentinska change were made that would open up the door to some other projects. For example revitalizing the shore of the Vltava. With the cars gone the entire stretch along the Vltava starting at the railway bridge to Karlin and past the Prazka Trznice (Prague river town) could be turned into a beautiful promenade.

In this scenario the trams that run past Prague river town would have to be rerouted to follow Za Viaduktem and Jatecni before resuming its old course on U Kommonardu. This route would be a lot more convenient for the inhabitants of Holesovice and also for visitors to the market.

The project also offers the opportunity to give bike traffic in Prague an extra impulse. Since the infrastructure still has to be designed it could be the first area in Prague with bike lanes fully separated from car traffic. Since at present there is not a single bike lane connecting Holesovice to Letna this should have a high priority.

There is also a great opportunity here to remodel the Holesovice and Vltavska metro stations. Vltavska is without a doubt the ugliest and most dilapidated metro station in Prague. With an entire new business, retail and residential area in its backyard its the ideal opportunity for a makeover.

Some serious thought should be given to whether the new area should have an additional tram line. Some might say the area is already well enough connected and maybe the reroute I described with a tram stop on Za Viaduktem is enough. However an extra tram line extending from Za Viaduktem to join the other lines at Nadrazi Holesovice might just be the cherry on the cake.

So much for the infrastructure, what about the actual things to be built? There has been some talk about Holesovice turning into the skyscraper district of Prague and this makes some sense considering the the fact that it is some of the lowest land in Prague making any high buildings having less of an impact than anywhere else. I personally think skyscrapers would fit in well especially since the road-grid in the eastern part of Holesovice is similar to the one in New York.

There has also been talk of using the site for a potential Olympic village. That might not be a bad idea. Olympic Villages are often characterized by a lot of green and special paths for biking, roller-blading and running so the athletes have a secluded place to practice. Since Holesovice, at least the eastern part is virtually without parks any addition of Green would be a welcome relief.

Parks in general should be part of any plan here. At the moment the area has Stromovka and Letna, but both parks are at the moment quite hard to reach. A green way that connects these parks to the eastern part of Holesovice would be much appreciated.

And what about the Bubny Railway station. At the moment it isn't clear to me whether this will remain in operation, but I assume that at least some of the tracks currently in use will remain active especially since it is the shortest route to Hlavni Nadrazi (Prague central train station). Orco and Prague 7should do their best to keep and restore this charming building. Especially since it is one of the few things that remain of the Holesovice from before.

Otherwise I think an opportunity would be missed if a large recreational facility were to be left out. I'm thinking swimming pool. The area at the moment lacks decent swimming facilities and the only aqua park in Prague is quite far away. An aqua park in the centre of Prague would be a great tourist draw and a great boon for the people living in the area.

So let's see what Orco does. The whole Bubny area is probably going to lay fallow for at least two more years and the whole project might not be finished for another fifteen. When it's finished let's hope the area has been converted from an industrial, polluted and congested area into a beautiful oasis of glass and green where cars, trams, bikers and pedestrians live peacefully side by side.

Organization name: Currys

Web address: http://www.currys.co.uk/

Brief history:

Currys is an electrical retailer in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and is owned by DSG International plc. It specializes in home electronics and household appliances, with 295 superstores and 73 high street stores.

Currys was founded in 1884 by Henry Curry (born 1850) when he started to build bicycles full time in a shed at the back of his garden at 40 Painter Street, Leicester, England. He opened his first shop in 1888 at 271 Belgrave Gate, Leicester. Currys was taken over by DSG International plc (owners of the Dixons electrical products retail chain) in 1984 but maintained its separate brand identity.

Currys nowadays sells solar panels. They have also sold videogames, but eventually they left that to Comet. Henry Curry

Currys belong to the tertiary sectors because they sell goods to the customers and provide other services.

Currys is a public limited company. Public limited companies usually end their names in "plc". The shares are exchanged by the Stock Exchange and can either be owned by members of the public or people such as institutionalized investors: like large banks or insurance companies.

Main types of presence for online businesses:

Passive brochureware:

These sorts of websites are intended to provide information about a particular site which helps to improve brand name recognition either locally, nationally or internationally. This online presence was criticized because originally it was the same format of web presence as having a brochure put up on the web. There were two vital flaws, the first one was that online readers read information differently that off line i.e. they are impatient towards reading quite a large amount of text. The second flaw is that with this presence the readers will find it quite hard to interact with the presence.

Complementing off line services:

In this online presence the website is either used as an extensive catalogue e.g. IKEA or daily news or information e.g. BBC. As long as a business or an organization do not introduce online transaction but can offer information with interaction and understandable web language then it can be classified as a complementing off line services.

Inviting online transactions:

This presence can range from a rather tiny brick and mortar shop to a quite large one. In every case key features of the web must include ordering system and the facility for receiving and processing payments securely.

• Basic sites should at least have a product/service list with spaces for order details
• Amazon has an extensive catalogue of products with a search engine. You can simply click on an item and can transfer it to the shopping basket.

Interactive customization:

Interactive site changes to suit the needs of a buyer, this can be done by registering a username and adjusting the site in terms of your preference.

• On E-bay you can change how you view your products by brand name, pricing (lowest-highest and vice versa) and date posted
• On search engines like Yahoo and Google you can change the preference to filter adult material via the search engines. .

Currys online business presence is to invite online transactions this is because Currys encourage consumers to buy online and have "add to shopping basket

Website design

Currys has changed its design from Autumn to a more Christmassy design, this reaps many benefits, one benefit is that it looks as if the company is active.

Product search/ Promotion code

You can browse for a specific product or you can enter a promotional code so you can obtain discounts..

Filter search

This enables the customer to change the preference of their search depending on budget, model make or other features.

Navigation bar

Makes it easier to browse through different products.

Product info

Gives information of the product i.e. its conditions, features or price.

Product picture

shows the product in a photo.

Add to basket

invites customers to online transactions.

You can easily see product status: Out of Stock or Sold Out.

Customer service enables customers to find out details on transactions, deliveries and useful contacts. Contacts that are found are telephone numbers, an in store address or an e-mail.

Contact us contacts that are found are telephone numbers, an in store address or an e-mail.