How trendy is your restaurant? Even if you run a popular restaurant, it’s still a difficult question to answer. What exactly defines trendy? There certainly is an answer. But its connotations can entail different things to different restaurants.

Although “trendy” is a fairly broad term, you may have an idea of what a trendy restaurant might entail. Those ideas might be based on your own personal preferences, or what you’ve come to personally conceive as trendy.

Rather than focus on your personal view of trendiness, I’d like to encourage you to take a step back and examine your restaurant from an objective perspective. Here’s a few general tips to help determine what being trendy can mean to you.

Start with the aesthetics. Run a Google image search on “trendy restaurants.” Browse through a few of the images. Go ahead, I’ll wait here.

Done? Good. What you may have noticed, in regard to the aesthetics, is that there’s really no distinct trait that defines a trendy aesthetic. Design is entirely subjective, and what is considered trendy can change over time. However, there are common elements to keep in mind when planning (or altering) your restaurant’s aesthetics, along with specific factors to consider.

For one, it’s essential to consider different factors of your restaurant. These include things like personality, audience, why people eat there, and what kind of food is served. These will impact your decor, art, furniture, lighting, etc.

Think with Instagram and social media in mind. Another marker of “trendiness” is how Instagram-able your restaurant is. This extends beyond the decor and aesthetics (although both are important – nobody wants to share a picture online in a drab environment).

Consider the look of every single dish that your restaurant serves. How appealing does the food look? Does each element of the meal complement each other well? What about the silverware and the table? Every fine point of the picture should be tested and planned.

Follow actual trends. The most definitive way to become trendy is by keeping up with, and following actual trends in the restaurant space. By examining current trends, and incorporating them into your restaurant’s menu, you can make an appeal to the type of customers who value them. You’ll be able to attract foodies who are more likely to spread your restaurant across social media. You’ll also delight regulars with newer options, encouraging them to frequent your restaurant even more often.

Play to the local state-of-mind. One of the more important things to consider is what’s considered trendy in your area. For example, what’s considered trendy in a southern college town will likely be completely different than what’s considered trendy in a touristy, tropical town. You’ll want to know your audience just as well as you know your area too. Even within each of these examples I provided, you can have entirely different demographics.

Get Trendier With CoGoBuzz

With CoGoBuzz, our state-of-the-art digital marketing service, making your restaurant trendier starts at the digital level.

Designed from-the-ground-up to invigorate your restaurant’s customer engagement, both in-store and out, our service automatically discovers your audience. Through WiFi, SMS, and Email, CoGoBuzz promotes directly to the devices your customers use the most: their mobile phones. With a one-time login to your in-restaurant HotSpot, our service develops a full customer profile.

With our SMS solution, you can send automated texts promoting your new, trendy options as soon as they’re available. Enroll customers into your new text-based loyalty program, and engage customers wherever they go.

Check out the rest of our website to learn more about CoGoBuzz.

How do you keep your restaurant trendy? Let us know in the comments!