Restaurant: websites and commericals
November 08, 2009
Restaurant websites are pretty piss-poor around these parts in New Jersey. Trust me when I say that I don't even want to go down this road, because it this subject could end up dominating this blog, and giving me a full-time writing job that I'm not prepared to take on.
Unnecessary flash pages (which preclude the use of an iPhone and other mobile devices), ridiculous music, hard-to-find basic information (address, phone, and hours), typos, and just all-around amateurish design, are the norm, rather than the exception.
I guess you just have to give a restaurant credit for making just a wee bit of effort.
I was just watching Guy Fieri (pronounced "fee-eddy" for some reason) on the TV there, and saw a local commercial for a local restaurant. These commericals are generally even more dreadful than the dreadful websites, but this one was even more exceptionally dreadful. You see, they have the website for the restaurant on the screen, but the website, it doesn't exist. It's listed as www.tuscanybar&grill.com.
Make no mistake about it, this horrible commercial did nothing to grab my attention in the least. It only caught my eye because I'm pretty sure you can't have an ampersand in your domain name. Otherwise I clearly would have opted for tommy&eats.com.
I figured I'd google the Tuscany Bar & Grill in Tappan, just to see if they ever managed to figure out how to create a website, for your basic shits and giggles. After a bit more googling than I had expected would be necessary, I came to learn that not only do they run a commercial with an incorrect domain name, but, the commercial actually gets the name of the restaurant wrong. The place is apparently called Tuscany Bistro, and I can't find any evidence that it has existed as anything but that name for some time. WTF?
I didn't spend much time on this website, but it should be noted that they have "Master chefs from Sienna". The menu, however, suggests that they are likely from Bloomfield, NJ.
I will give bonus points to this place for not putting an 'e' at the end of 'grill' in their imaginary restaurant name, though.
The bar, it's pretty low. Pretty, pretty low.