Ramada Inn: Can you smell the BBQ?
Bill Donovan is familiar with opening restaurants in various hotels around the country. His most notable success can be credited to his ingenious marketing gimmick at a BBQ restaurant in Haddeysburg, Miss.
The BBQ restaurant was in a Ramada Inn and they smoked their own ribs out back of the hotel. Whenever the BBQ meat was being smoked the smell would encompass the entire hotel. What was amazing was the amount of guests who ordered ribs each night. Bill knew the smell was infectious; this sparked an idea which will forever be infamous in the restaurant business.
Bill knew most hotels have in room booklets containing advertising local eating establishments. He decided to take out a full page advertisement that asked them to step outside their room and smell the Ramada Inn BBQ smoking their ribs right then.
Bill’s gimmick was that he would have a busboy drive through every hotel parking lot in town every weekday between 4-5PM (usual Check-in Time) and spray a product called Liquid Smoke, a flavor enhancer that most chefs use in any smoked or BBQ recipe. He bought the stuff by the gallon for next to nothing, and would fill up a simple spray bottle. He had the kids spray cars, buses, bushes, anything. Bill had people coming from all the way across town saying “I smelled you guys smoking those ribs all the way over at the Hilton”, which was several miles away. Needless to say Bill kept that restaurant full every night, which is remarkable for a Ramada Inn.
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