A conversation with Kevin Downey, Lightning Sales & Marketing

The Catered Solution

The NRA projected the restaurant revenue would reach $843 billion in 2020. This is the largest amount ever projected and the biggest increase year over year ever. Attitudes and habits are changing so rapidly and with such culture altering effects as never before. Three out of four families partake in restaurant prepared meals on a regular basis. 41% of all diners will order a meal to be delivered or picked up. The demand for food delivered to the office from simple lunches to elaborate functions is on the increase. Many restaurant companies project 10% or more of their per store sales to be generated by meals eaten outside the restaurant. Catering will grow right along with it. The old concept of a caterer being a supplier of rubber chicken dinners is long gone. Today any restaurant or café can also be a caterer.  And with the incessant cost increases from government mandated labor rules, raw ingredients and landlord rents along with the market saturation from more competition, every restaurant should already be in the catering business or planning on getting started real soon.  One man has seen these problems as an opportunity to create a marketing force that searches out and maintains relationships with the regular users of catering services…the workplace or office. Meet Kevin Downey of Lightning Sales & Marketing. Kevin has come up with solutions to several problems many restaurateurs didn’t know they had. First there’s keeping the top line revenue high as most of the food being sold for delivery or takeout is through a third party online portal that has 50 to 150 or more menus for my guest to order from while taking between 25% - 30% of the sale when it does happen. And second, if there is a demand for food brought to the workplace, how do I find it and keep it? As you’ll hear, Kevin’s service offers a way for the operator a way to get and keep these sales with an investment that sounds prohibitive at first, but once the machine gets rolling it becomes a reliable revenue source with fewer cost demands than the food eaten at your tables.

I first became aware on Nick Zukin when in early 2011 I was researching the market for Jewish delis. There was a newly born interest in delis happening and I was working with a client in Minneapolis who wanted to jump into the pool. Nick had opened Kenny and Zuke’s in Portland, Oregon about 3 years earlier with partner Ken Gordon. So, over the years I’ve followed Nick on Facebook with the opening of his current restaurant Mi Mero Mole and several well documented and photographed research trips to Mexico. During this time, I got to know and appreciate his irreverent and “tell it like it is” style. I invited him to be guest on my podcast several times for that reason…but something always got in the way. Then Covid-19 struck and as the weeks went on Nick’s voice on several subjects concerning the devastating affect the shutdown became louder and more focused. The subsequent incomplete and ill managed attempt to help the industry by the government was top of the list but he was out there telling it like it was on several other counts. So finally, I got him to sit down and talk about his experiences.

Restaurant Life After The Lockdown: A Conversation with Nick Zukin

An update of the condition the restaurant industry is in on August 13th, 2020. The pandemic is quiet in some states and surging in others. The political process has hijacked the health system so that we have lost control on the right things to do to get back to normal. Wearing a mask is a badge of courage to some and abject slavery to others.

Restaurants Under Fire

Tobie Nidetz is a long-time veteran of the hospitality industry. He began his career in Chicago as part of a restaurant and tavern family.

Restaurant Legends and Lies