Seattle chef-owner nets bigger clientele via e-mail, Web site

Nation's Restaurant News, March 6, 2000 by Amy Spector

SEATTLE -- Prospective customers of Rover's cannot yet download the aroma of chef-owner Thierry Rautureau's refined cuisine, but they can sense the restaurant's flavor via his Web site, www.rovers-seattle.com.

The 49-seat Rover's serves about 15,000 customers annually. Meanwhile, the restaurant tallies more than 80,000 visits monthly on its Web site, according to statistics Rautureau receives from his Internet service provider.

Rautureau said he would steer a portion of that Internet traffic to an e-commerce site he plans to launch this spring, where he will sell such items as Moroccan olive oil, cookbooks and house-prepared chocolate truffles.

However, the most valuable stock-in-trade for Rover's is the 2,000-name, e-mailing list the restaurant developed from customers and referrals, Rautureau said.

Rover's, which does little media advertising and generates business largely through word-of-mouth and customer mailings, has been able to cut back on printing and postage costs and also has saved time by utilizing its e-mail list to announce promotions, Rautureau said. Where each general mailing used to involve trips to the graphic designer, printer and post office, only to have at least 10 percent of the mailing returned, the process now ends once the promotional piece is written and sent electronically. E-mail addresses are stored on the computer for instant access, and with one click the mailing is sent, he explained.

"You have to build a base," Rautureau recommended, adding that his small operation generates approximately 20 new names per month for the mailing list. "For restaurants that serve hundreds of customers per night, if they give the customers cards to fill in e-mail addresses, they will get 10,000 names in no time," he said.

Rautureau said the response to his mailings is heavy because he does not "spam" his recipients with trivial announcements. "You have to be careful not to bombard people with junk. It has to be interesting," he said. He also advises placing an advisory at the top of every mailing that tells recipients how to delete their name from future mailings, if desired. "We try to make it as convenient as possible for our customers," he said.

A recent e-mail announcing Rover's Valentine's Day menu prompted hundreds of calls within 48 hours, Rautureau said. Demand, he added, was great enough that he opened the restaurant on the normally dark Sunday before Valentine's Day as well.

Rautureau factors convenience into his Web site's design, limiting the number of photos and tables that would lengthen the time needed to access the site.

The biggest problem in developing Rover's Web site was not the expense, but the time, he said. He estimated that he has invested about $7,500 in the system since installing it three years ago. Finding the time to sit down with a consultant, design the Internet site and establish its objectives, "was painful at the beginning," he recalled. "My 'webmaster' bugged me for six months, and I kept telling him, 'Not now.' Like any small business, I have to do it all myself But once things are rolling, it's not that hard to update."

Rautureau's webmaster is a friend and customer who already was knowledgeable in Web site design and maintenance. Rautureau recommends that restaurateurs find someone comparable who understands their business and its owners.

The chef-owner likens the Internet to a crowded cosmos. "It's like going into space," he said. "How do you get someone to see your planet? I'm not into that game; I'm not shooting for 250 million Americans to hit my Web site.

"For my Web site I want the same thing as for my restaurant: I want people to find it who will want to eat at [Rover's]. People who only want to eat hamburgers and fast food aren't going to be interested."