Every day I read stories about BBQ off of the news wire and when I find something out of the ordinary I will share it here with my loyal readers.
Today I read an article written by Darian Warden of the Craig Daily Press. In it he tells us that Pankey’s Smoked BBQ in Craig, Colorado has closed it’s doors after doing a decent business for the year that it has been open, but Darian does not only give us the fact and move on, he went out and interviewed the owner Cherratina Pankey and she opened up to him about why she had to close and I think described well on how tough the BBQ Restaurant business can be and when you add in some personal issues it can really take its toll.
A lot of people dream of opening up their own BBQ Restaurants developing from their love for the hobby (or dare I say Sport) of Low & Slow cooking and many do very well but as we know the restaurant business can be one of the most difficult businesses to run. Sometimes you can have really good food, but not a large enough customer base. Perhaps it is not the best location. Or it could be our personal lives that get in between causing unforeseen difficulties.
I for one have a thought, Now I have no knowledge about the actual business or Cherratina other than what I just read in the article but in trying to do some more research on both I found very little information on either.
First of all, other than a couple of standard yellow page listings and chamber of commerce listings there was no social media links to speak of.
They did try to run one of those groupon type of deals on ExploreCraigDeals.com about 6 months ago but selling only 26 is not enough to make a difference considering that most of these types of deals only give back about 50% of 50% of the deals value. (note I do not know the exact details of this particular deal, I am going by what similar deal sites charge)
In these days the power of social media is huge, at least have a facebook page or take advantage of twitter, but what about a website? as far as I can tell Pankey’s had none of these things.
Cherratina does have a personal facebook page but when I had a quick look there was no mention of the business.
Now I know that not everyone is internet savvy and does not know how best to use its advantages but then that is where people need to use the services of a Social Media Management firm to help build their business by raising awareness and also having an ongoing program that keeps the business visible and in the public eye.
Being friends with someone in the Social Media business , Annette Penney of Inspire & Acquire, I have seen first hand the effects that she has had in building up businesses to make them prosper and take big steps in making them known to the masses and also hold on to customers by continuously talking about them.
Please take a few moments to read Darian’s article and Cherratin’s story.
Link below…
Pankey’s Smoked BBQ closes
Bacon
