Recognizing this trend, technologically savvy restaurateurs have developed the ability to promote and market themselves instantaneously through the use of social media, blogs and smartphone applications. Utilizing these new advances in technology, current and future restaurateurs are challenging the concept of what it takes to establish, promote and operate a restaurant. If your customers aren’t tweeting about their experience, liking your restaurant on Facebook, or posting photos of menu items on Pinterest, you are losing market share to the younger, more tech-savvy customers who have an ever-increasing desire to eat out and socialize with their friends.

Customer preferences, even relating to menus, are changing. Virtual menus employed by such establishments as the Grand Met restaurant located at the Grand Hyatt DFW at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport offers guests an interactive touch-screen tour of the menu items, detailed food descriptions and recommendations for food and wine pairings by the chef.

Worthy of note is that these menus are located at the table during dinner service only and do not infringe on the Grand Met’s first-class, personal service provided by waitstaff. Rather, it is simply a new option to market and enhance the overall dining experience of Grand Met’s guests. After the guest completes the virtual tour, a personal server is there to offer further recommendations and to answer any questions they may have. (View the restaurant’s virtual menu description at www.hyatt.com/hyatt/images/hotels/dfwgh/TheVirtualMenu.pdf.

Mobile restaurants driving around every small town or large city tweeting their location so customers can be waiting for them to arrive at their destination is another innovation in dining. These food trucks sell niche menu items ranging from cupcakes to sushi to vegan menu items and everything in between. Food & Beverage Management seniors at the Johnson & Wales North Miami campus have taken advantage of this trend for their capstone project, by using a food truck they created and operate as their own mobile restaurant for a day. The idea of food trucks on campus was so successful that every Thursday several food trucks come to campus to offer their cuisine to both the students and the local community.

Pop-up restaurants, yet another similar food trend, rely almost exclusively on their social-media friends for promotion, as they will only be in the area or at a specific location for an evening or two. In this unique environment, chefs set up temporary kitchens and serve hip, locally sourced meals in any location where it is safe to cook and serve food. Menus are typically prix fixe and offer few to no substitutions to customers.

Some chefs use pop-up restaurants as a method of seeking financial backing for opening their ultimate dream restaurant, while others simply like the challenge of cooking a new menu in different and exciting locations for a short period of time. Doug Weiler, a 2009 JWU graduate and one of the chef/owners of Lost and Found, a pop-up restaurant located in the Long Island area of New York, focuses on menus that provide healthy, Long Island-grown and hyper-locally foraged ingredients. Chef Weiler and his partners use Facebook (www.facebook.com/LostAndFoundPopup), Twitter (lostandfoundpop) and their website (www.lostandfoundpopup.com) to promote market and build buzz about unique, exciting and innovative locations, such as the Lali Lali Salon Gallery in New York City, where they were part of a book launch for famed photographer Denis Piel in late October.

All of these aforementioned food trends demonstrate the fact that physical structure and location are no longer as important as the ability to promote a good food product through both traditional and innovative means. So what’s next? What are some future trends in restaurant marketing? Look for restaurants, especially high-end ones, to start promoting smartphone applications and websites that give the customer the ability to order from an online to-go menu, such as the very successful tracker website used by Domino’s Pizza.

Unlike the pizza giant, however, expect your gourmet menu items to be packaged in eco-friendly reheatable containers. Also, look for new and creative apps that incorporate social media into the marketing mix, such as Gratafy, a smartphone/social-media application just launched that lets you buy and pay for a round of drinks, menu items, a game of pool and even comedy tickets for your friends over the web. This is sure to entice friends, family and most customers to visit a restaurant or venue that they might not have considered going to before.

Realistically, would you pass up a free meal?

Douglas D. Stuchel, MAT, CHE, is an assistant professor at the Center for Food & Beverage Management at the Hospitality College at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.