The Carleton Place Food Menu Challenge

 

Photo by Linda Seccaspina–The gals at St. James Gate in Carleton Place

Gary Dike Belcourt posted a valid argument today on the Carleton Place Restaurant And Retail Review Facebook page  

Why are so few of our local businesses absent from an online presence– especially the restaurants. This is a new day and age folks, and people want the information at their fingertips on their electronic devices. If not, there they will go somewhere else.

Giving your small business an online presence means more than simply putting up a little website with your company’s address and phone number. It means setting up a virtual version of your business, with a welcoming, informative website, a Facebook page and Twitter account. In this electronic era, more people search online for the products and services they need as opposed to searching through a phone book. Ignoring this important potential marketing platform is akin to saying, “I don’t need any new business.”

The Internet encompasses a much larger area than the few miles local to your business’ office or store. Your Web presence reaches out to everyone who passes by your virtual doorstep, which could include people from right next door or in another country. Depending on your specific industry and offerings, this could open up a much wider customer base than relying on face-to-face interactions would.

Carleton Place resident Ted MacDonald wrote many pieces to get the word out, but we need more. Lisa Strangway has worked hard to set up the Carleton Place Social Scene on Facebook as the place to go for information about upcoming events, and especially the place you will get information  about local emergencies. So we could do the same thing as the CPSS setting up the  Carleton Place Restaurant And Retail Review Facebook page  as place to go for menus.

My challenge to you is: when you eat at a local restaurant take a picture of their menu or ask for one and scan it. Send it to me at sav_77@yahoo.com and I will put it all together. I in turn will send it to the Carleton Place Restaurant And Retail Review Facebook page so they can keep it as a document so it will always be handy.

So why should we take the time to do this? Because we care, and if no one else is doing it is NO reason why we shouldn’t. Why? Because we love our town-that should be enough. There should never be the word ‘can’t’ in our vocabulary.

 

A very important comment was added today by Wes Parsons:

Where is our Economic Development Agent? Instead of twenty different restaurant website addresses and another ten links on reviews and feedback, why don’t we have one town portal with an Eats and Drinks category that connects us to all our local businesses? It would be handy to have this all organized and I think this falls under that person’s job function.

PLEASE NOTE:

St. James Gate

Jaime Duchemin –St. James Gate has a website that includes our full menu and you can book a table with the touch of a finger. You can also join our page on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram to stay updated with our latest events, weekend dinner features and specials.

 

 

Here are some of Ted’s stories about Carleton Place eateries

Good Eats Survey of Carleton Place Restaurants — Thanks to The Ted Report

The Carleton Place Ale Trail — What “Ales” You Asks The Ted Report?