Agenda

Who's hungry?!!? Join us and a number of your peers as we explore Boston ... through our stomachs!

You'll get a chance to try a couple of unique local restaurants while networking with your peers on a food crawl hosted by Rev Ciancio.

All attendees, sponsors, and speakers must check in at the registration desk and pick up a name badge. Please wear your badge at all times during the Workshop.

You're a restaurant marketer, and you're drowning in guest feedback—reviews, DMs, surveys, emails. But what do you do with it all? Most operators just don't know how to turn that flood of information into something powerful.

This session is your lifeline. We'll give you a clear, actionable playbook for not only collecting and replying to feedback, but also for using it to drive retention and revenue.

You'll discover how to:

• Turn headaches into a gold mine. Stop treating negative feedback like a problem and start seeing it as an opportunity to build a loyal customer base.
• Automate your work without losing the human touch. From AI-written review responses to feedback loop triggers in your CRM, you’ll learn how to work smarter, not harder.
• Build a guest feedback program that actually works. We'll break down the entire process—from collecting and analyzing feedback to using it to create loyal customers who come back again and again.

Ever wonder what makes a restaurant go viral while one with a similar menu fails?

Two words: Amazing marketing.

These winning restaurants aren't just serving delicious food; they're serving experiences. And more importantly, they are telling the world. Behind every sizzling social media post, craveable campaign and packed house is a talented restaurant marketer. These are the culinary creatives, the data-driven dynamos, the storytellers who make mouths water and brands thrive.

Let's raise a glass in congratulations to our inaugural class of Top 30 Marketers as they strut their marketing prowess during our "Parade of Top Marketers."

Tired of sending out email blasts with disappointing results? Everyone wants better CRM performance, but what specific actions actually drive revenue for restaurants?

In this session, we'll cut through the noise and reveal five powerful CRM strategies you can implement immediately to grow your database, boost guest frequency, and increase lifetime value.

Get ready for a deep dive into real-world examples, hard numbers and proven workflows that work, including:

• Win-back automations that bring back lapsed diners.
• Sign-up incentives that actually attract high-value guests.
• Tactics that turn first-time visitors into regulars.
• Stop guessing and start implementing. Learn the CRM moves that will truly move your business forward.

Paid ads can get you a click, but a great story gets you credibility. In this session, we'll demystify the world of public relations and show you how to generate media attention for your restaurant brand without hiring an expensive agency. You'll learn to think like a journalist and craft compelling narratives that news outlets, bloggers, and local influencers actually want to cover.

We'll provide a step-by-step playbook for building buzz, including:

• Crafting your story: Identify your restaurant's unique angle—is it your chef, a new menu item, a community initiative, or a brand-new concept?
• Building a media list: Discover the free tools and simple hacks to find the right journalists, bloggers, and influencers to pitch.
• Writing a winning pitch: Learn how to create a concise, compelling email pitch that gets opened and acted upon.
• Leveraging your earned media: Learn how to amplify every media mention you get across your social channels, website, and in-store.

We’ve all seen points-based loyalty programs that flop. This session brings together several brands with loyalty programs that are actually performing — driving frequency, bigger check averages and guest love.

You’ll get to “steal” tested mechanics, including:

• Onboarding hooks,
• Reward types
• Frequency boosters.

Bring your notepad—this one’s packed with ideas.

The biggest challenge with local store marketing? Getting it to work across all of your locations. You've got great ideas, but they fall apart in execution because your store teams are busy, not marketing experts.

This session is your solution. We'll show you how to design plug-and-play local marketing campaigns that are so simple, anyone on your team can run them successfully.

You’ll get the tools to:

• Build community and drive traffic with campaigns that are built to be executed on the front lines.
• Stop reinventing the wheel. Walk away with templates and timelines that you can use immediately.
• See real-world examples of successful local store marketing that truly works at scale.

Third-party marketplaces like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub are here to stay. But that doesn't mean you have to let them eat your margins and hijack your guest data.

This session is your playbook for taking back control. We’ll show you how to stop just surviving and start thriving with a strategy that actually drives profitability.

You'll learn how to:

• Optimize your listings to stand out and convert.
• Set a pricing strategy that protects your bottom line.
• Manage order accuracy to keep your guests happy.
• Use third-party platforms to grow your first-party business—without sacrificing profitability.

Multi-location brands face unique challenges: scaling voice, empowering GMs, measuring results and keeping content fresh. This open Q&A panel brings together brand-side social leads who are crushing it — no fluff, just tactics.

After a short introduction, we’ll break up into small groups, where you can expect to hear about real accounts and tested playbooks on engagement, UGC, location tagging and more.