majikTib

I used to work at a fine dining restaurant in Nashville (near the airport) and was wondering the process to have a restaurant actually join iDine? Is it possible we could expand our city's iDine locations by suggesting places we frequent to join the program?

What's the cost from a restaurant's perspective? Benefits? In Nashville, we are very limited on iDine locations. Only 5 locations within 15 miles of my house, and not a great selection. I'd like to offer it to some restaurant owners that I know, but it's worthless giving a sales pitch without proper information.

I'd like to take a proactive approach to earning more miles and getting restaurants to sign up with iDine

JDiver

There are a couple of posts that tell more about how restaurants participate (there are several ways restaurants become iDine properties - including receiving money in advance they repay as dines occur, if my take on it is correct.) Some searching / reading threads would reveal the post; I can't recollect its location at the moment.

I know two iDine properties in the SMF area that have gone out of business that reopened later under new management - I have e-mailed iDine / Rewards Network each time, and they were members soon after.

I don't mean to imply any cause and effect form my actions, but I thought I'd give it a try just in case.

TAHKUCT

That would be interesting to know. I would love to add some more restaurants to the list in amy area.

kjeil

It is VERY expensive for the restaurants. They have two options to join one is the marketing only option and then there is a cash advance program.

In the marketing only program they are listed as a member and in exchange they hand over 17% of the total check for ALL registered cards that are used.

The cash advance option allows the restaurant to get anywhere from $5k to six figures up front as working capital but in exchange they have to hand over 50% of the total check for all registered cards and they usually have a lien placed on their equipment.

Most restaurants use the philosophy that they can get people to come in a few times for the miles and then they customer will stay for the food/service after they leave the program. This is why you don't see many stay in the program long term. Those that do usually have a big advance to pay off.

TAHKUCT

That is why restaurants come and go so often.

majikTib

hm.... around here, we have several cheap places on the iDine list. One is a small family owned place that just opened 6 months ago. A couple others are some real small mexican restaurants. We have one nice steak house on the list, but that's all. Not exactly easy to rack up miles... it's hard to hit the $15 mark to get the bonus miles at some of these places!

Stefan Daystrom

I find it hard to not spend $15 when visiting Nashville. Of course, I'm typically there for only a day or two at a time, so that it makes it easier to repeat Sole Mio (tho I think I'd repeat that several times a month if I lived there, their food is so wonderful!) and Merchants on each visit.

I'm not sure where you house is, but Nashville being non-sprawly (compared to most cities), I have no problems visiting, say, Sole Mio right before going back to the airport for a return flight, at least on a Sunday afternoon. (It is annoying that they now only offer earnings a few days each week. A year ago when they first joined they were "benefits every day".)

And doing a serach right around Sole Mio's ZIP of 37201, AA DIning (logged in as elite 5+5 level) shows me 36 locations. Now, that's pretty much all of greater Nashville, given how compact its footprint is, but in my experience that's the iDine pattern all over: You get a concentration of iDine restaurants only where there is a concentration of restaurants, because only 1 in several 100 sign up. So in areas where there are only dozens of restaurants period, you often dont tend to get any (because the reps don't feel like going to such an area because they're so unlikely to get a return from it, when they can choose another area with hundreds of restaurants).

So I propose it's not as much Nashivlle, but that you're too far out from the city center, and most iDIne restaurants are closer to where the "masses" live and work. (And "work" is likely a key to it, as many restaurants get the bulk of their lunch dining from people who are at work rather than at home.)

There'a s similar pattern in the more "outer" suburbs of all but the most massive cities.

majikTib

In Nashville, the restaurants I would visit include:
Nick & Rudy's
Merchants
Sole Mio
La Hacienda (good mexican, but not really in Nashville)

Sole Mio is excellent. Haven't visited the first two. I actually live 45 miles outside of Nashville. Within 15-20 miles of my house are 5 locations for iDine; of those, only 1 is really more than $15 for two and that's a very nice steakhouse. I'm new to the program so I'm not Elite status yet (almost!). I didn't find iDine til I found this site a couple months ago. I'm still young, and not to the point where I can afford go to that steakhouse very often and charge a $90+ meal for two (i'm at least waiting til I hit Elite, so it's 10 miles not 3).

A majority of the locations on iDine are bars and clubs, which I do not frequent (lipstick lounge, Alley Cat Lounge, Decades, Gravity/On the Rocks, etc.). The others are small bistros or small Thai restaurants (don't try Razz's, over priced and not very good).

If I was in Nashville, Sole Mio and Merchants would definitely be hot spots for me. Unfortunately, it's not exactly convenient. Even if it was, I'd prefer to have more than 3 good choices on a list, especially in a city such as Nashville. I visited Chicago two weeks ago, and there were 116 iDines within 5 miles of my hotel. I hit 3 in the one day I had, all excellent. It'd be nice to have that ability in Nashville.

Stefan Daystrom

Well, Chicago is the #3 metropolis in the country, and Nashville is barely in the top 50.

It drops fast after you get out of the top few cities. Yes, there are tons close to the typical hotel in places like Chicago's Loop, New York City's Manhattan, Los Angeles' Westside, San Francisco's Untion Square, etc.

But still in a very crowded area (but not as crowded as those) like Anaheim (oodles of hotels around Disneyland), it starts to get very spread out. Only six (6) participating restaurants within 5 miles of the Hilton Garden Inn at 11777 Harbor Blvd, Garden Grove, CA, 92840, which is within a block or two of a Hyatt, Crowne Plaza, Hampton, Embassy Suites, Mariott, Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, and within a few blocks of dozens more hotels, and which is just down the street from Disneyland.

Ok, let's go down the road, to a hotel cluster on Dyer Road near SNA airport (where Santa Ana, Tustin, and Irvine meet). 18 is better than 6, but it's still not as good as 26 (5 miles around Sole Mio's address).

So you see Nashville, at least in quantity, is no worse than many suburban locations around the very biggest cities in the country!

And at least you have something within reasonable driving distance. Get away from any metropolitan area at all, and the count is likely to drop down to 0. Follow the Interstate up into Kentucky and see how many restaurants there are within 15 miles of each town as you get further and further away from Nashville (but not yet to Louisville). Same in any other direction.

I know people who live in college towns far from any big city who don't have a single iDine restaurant within less than a "day trip distance" (hours away).

majikTib

okay okay okay... maybe I shouldn't complain so much

Sorry, I'm new to iDine. I found it last month and just reached Elite status yesterday. I guess I'm just realizing how beneficial this program can be and looking for ways to expand it locally. I know a few restaurant owners and want to be able to get them on the bandwagon, especially if I can benefit from it. Know what I mean?

MrDave

Is iDine / Rewards Network charging interest on this money or are they just pocketing the difference between what they pay for the miles and what they are charging the restaurant for the miles? Which can be a very large number.

-Dave

mlatuchie

What email address did you send your recommendations to?

NJUPINTHEAIR

I thought this might be a fun topic for some of us to post bragging rights towards enrolling a favorite restaurant that previously had not been a member of IDINE.

I did not think that any of us might be successful, but since IDINE actually invites us to provide them with names, I was wondereing if any of those so recommended actually made it into the program.

Of course, we will never know for sure whether your dropping the dime on the resto was the cause of its signing up, but it would be great to know if this actually results in more restos signing up for the program!

kebosabi

I actually would like to provide iDine with information of other restaurants that I go to quite often. How does one tell iDine about these?

NJUPINTHEAIR

Go to any of your IDINE dining prograrm websites and hit the contact us tab -- then you can call them or e-mail them and give them the name, adress and phone number of the particular resto you wish to see join the program.