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Lolla | Restaurant Marketing

@digitalchicklolla

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I help restaurants turn marketing into bookings
💡Restaurant Marketing Ideas
📧Email Campaigns
🍭Creative Promotions
🤓Ex Restaurant Manager
📍UAE | Remote

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The struggle is real 🥴

#festiveseason #newyear2026 #restaurantmarketing #marketing #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing #motivation #photooftheday #girlbosstribe by @digitalchicklolla

Just a little reminder to restaurants and hospitality brands...

👀 Google indexes your Instagram posts.

Posting captions like: "Yummy", "Delicious", "Join us tonight" is doing nothing for you. It's also generic. And boring. No one wants that.

Google uses the captions, alt text on images and even the hashtags to understand and rank content for relevant search queries.
So no, hashtags are not dead.

It indexes public photos, videos, reels and carousels from professional accounts.

This means your Instagram content can have an extended lifespan and be discovered by a much wider audience who are searching directly on Google, not just browsing the Instagram app. Awesome!

This essentially treats your public Instagram posts like searchable web pages.

So you better start posting right.

#dubairestaurants #dubaieats #hospitality #socialmediastrategies #marketingstrategies #socialmediagrowth #growyourbusiness #dubaibusiness #foodmarketing #dubaiblogger #growyourbusinessonline #instagramtips #instagramforbusiness #digitalmarketing #onlinemarketing by @digitalchicklolla

Hospitality isn’t just “being nice.”

It’s anticipating needs before they’re spoken.

It’s reading the table without hovering.

It’s remembering the guest who orders “that flat white with oat milk.”

Yet too often, we reduce it to smiles and scripted greetings.

Hospitality is a skill - not a mood.
And when done right, it’s what turns a one-time visit into a loyal customer.

So no, it’s not just “service with a smile.”
 It’s strategy disguised as kindness.
It’s kindness with intent.

#restaurantindustry #hospitalityindustry #restaurantlife #restaurantweek #dubairestaurant #dubaieats #foodmarketing #employeeexperience #uaebloggers #marketingmanager #businesstip #londonrestaurants #hospitality #hospitalitymanagement by @digitalchicklolla

What weekend?

If you know, you know 😉

#hospitality #hospitalityindustry #restaurants #hospitalitytruths #dubaieats #dubairestaurants #restaurantweek #hospitalitymanagement #restaurantlife #weekendvibe by @digitalchicklolla

Hospitality isn’t marketing.

Or is it?

Anyone who’s ever worked a busy Friday night knows - it absolutely is.

When a customer leaves smiling, tells their friends and actually comes back... that’s not luck.
That’s marketing doing what it’s supposed to do - build loyalty.

In the restaurant world, your customers don’t remember every plate or price.
They remember how your team made them feel when things got chaotic,
whether someone noticed their empty glass and if that same server greeted them by name the next time they came in.

That’s customer experience marketing.
It’s not in your ad budget but it IS in your bottom line.

We often separate “marketing” and “operations,”
but the truth is - the customer doesn’t.
Their experience is your marketing.

So before you spend another dirham on ads, ask yourself:
Would customers come back even if I stopped promoting tomorrow?

If the answer’s yes... congratulations, your hospitality is your marketing.
If not… maybe it’s time to start treating it like it is.

#hospitalityindustry #hospitalitymanagement #dubaieats #customerexperience #restaurantlife #foodandbeverage #dubaibusiness #uaebloggers #marketingmanager #dubaifoodblogger #marketingstrategies #businesstip #dubairestaurants #foodmarketing #restaurantmarketing by @digitalchicklolla

That time I made a decision that got me in trouble.

I worked as a manager for a restaurant that had a mechanical bull.
It was like a Dubai attraction.
You had to sign an indemnity form in order to ride it.

One night, a girl broke her thumb while riding it. Her thumb got stuck in the stirrup or something and twisted. She was totally okay about it but her friend made a huge fuss and was demanding that their bill be refunded. Well, this is the reason there's an indemnity form and we don't refund your bill over this.

She just kept going off on me about it but the girl who broke her thumb was being super nice and trying to tell her friend to leave it. I made a decision in that moment that I would refund their bill - purely because of how nice this girl was being and I truly felt bad for what had happened.

End of night recon email to the bosses, I explained what had happened.
Next day, I got a call from my operations manager (not even my GM)... going off on me about refunding the bill, that's why we have an indemnity form, we don't refund bills over this etc. The bill was just under AED 500.

Next week, the girl was back. Her thumb bandaged with a metal rod. Still being super nice. Brought a whole group of her friends with her. All making jokes that she's the girl who broke her thumb at our restaurant. Even posted it on social media. They spent AED 1,500 that night. Her and her friends became regulars after that, spending in that range each time. Never saw the friend again though.

Hospitality is not black or white. There's no one size fits all.
As a restaurant manager, you often have to make decisions on the fly. Sometimes those decisions go against the standard, go against what higher management wants or agrees with.

Would I make that same decision every time? No.
You must read the situation when in the moment and make a decision that you believe is right - that balances the needs of the restaurant, your team and the customer experience.

#hospitalityindustry #hospitalitymanagement #dubaieats #customerexperience #restaurantlife #restaurantmanager #dubairestaurants #uaebloggers #marketingmanager #dubaifoodblogger #marketingstrategies #foodpassion by @digitalchicklolla

5 Lies you've been told about hospitality.

Hospitality isn’t just an industry.
It’s a masterclass in empathy, resilience, business and grace under pressure.

If you know, you know. 🖤

#hospitalityindustry #hospitalitymanagement #dubaieats #customerexperience #restaurantlife #dubaibusiness #uaebloggers #marketingmanager #dubaifoodblogger #marketingstrategies #businesstip #dubairestaurants #restaurantmarketing by @digitalchicklolla

I worked with this client last year then we went on hold.

We started back up in September.

Open rate was 16%. ALL metrics were in the red with “needs attention” alerts 🆘
After only 4 email newsletters, open rate was 43.63%.
That’s a 26.49% increase.

All metrics increased after only 4 emails with open rates being the highest increase.

Client wins!

#emailmarketing #marketingtips #marketingmanager #marketingstrategies #marketinglife #emailmarketingtips #marketingplan #marketingideas #email #klaviyo #marketing101 #dubaibusiness by @digitalchicklolla

The UAE ranks in the top 5 globally for chocolate consumption per capita.

I'm typing this while eating a chocolate by the way 🍫

In the UAE, people don't just buy chocolate, they experience it.
From camel milk bars dusted with sea salt to viral Dubai Chocolate, the nation treats its confectionery with the same flair and innovation it applies to everything else.

I remember receiving a massive box of Patchi chocolates from a regular customer back in 2017 for Christmas. I was a restaurant manager in Abu Dhabi and one of our Emirati regulars bought a box of assorted Patchi chocolates for EVERY SINGLE staff member as a gift for Christmas.
Never seen the staff so happy!

#dubaieats #uaebloggers #dubaifoodblogger #dubairestaurants #foodmarketing #restaurantmarketing #dubaichocolate #chocolatelove #patchi #dubailifestyle #dubaifoodie by @digitalchicklolla

I've only ever worked at ONE restaurant that had a training manual. One.
I worked in F&B for 16 years.

The usual "training" in restaurants goes like this:

- Shadow another waiter

That's it.
They show you around. They show you where everything is.
A week later, you're ready for the floor.

Back in the late 2000s, I worked at Hard Rock Café in London - their flagship.
Your first day was an induction with the training manager.
The company history and echos etc is explained in detail.
You're given the company manual (which you had to actually learn) with a training manual in the back.

You had waiters who were specifically Trainers - they went for a 3 day intensive training program on training staff. They got paid more per hour.
When a newbie joins, you're allocated to a trainer for 9 days. At the end of each shift, you and your trainer sit with the assistant GM and the manual - she would ask what you learned that day and ask specific questions. You spent a day in the bar. A day on expo (on the pass). A day in the retail store. A day at the host stand. The rest with your trainer on the floor.

You had to know EVERYTHING.
Who the owners were. Who started Hard Rock. What year it opened. Where HQ is. Which countries they were in. How many chips were in a portion of nachos (half and full portion - 24 and 42... I still remember!). Ingredients and measurements in every dish and drink. How many oz. everything was.

*I think I need a part 2 to the Hard Rock experience*

I haven't seen training like this since, in places I've worked.

Except when I had to come up with training as an assistant restaurant manager years ago for a new restaurant in Dubai. No prior experience. by @digitalchicklolla

I was out and about yesterday and stopped at this place for lunch (and cocktails), living on the edge with the day drinking.

Absolutely lovely place, super chilled and relaxed with the nicest waiter I think I've ever met (more on him later). It's one of those quirky restaurants with house rules - one being you have to drink with your left hand otherwise buy the whole place drinks... I sipped straight from the straw without touching my drink mostly because I kept forgetting!

We were welcomed the moment we walked in, by a very friendly waitress named Beyonche - yip, quite the conversation starter. Named by a drunk auntie in the delivery room.

Our wonderful waiter, Brooklyn has to be one of the most sincere and friendliest people I've come across - constantly checked in on us without being smothering, anticipated needs before we had to ask and a natural in customer service. In fact, all the staff we came into contact with were nice.

We all ordered pizzas which were great, had the leftovers for lunch today :)
Had another cocktail and some milkshakes - Salted Caramel (yum!).

When we asked for the bill, we were informed that a 10% gratuity fee is automatically added to the bill... 🤔 There were only 3 of us.

Hmm... service was worth 20% no doubt but yet another cheeky restaurant move of automatically adding a tip.

Did it ruin our experience? No.
Would we go back? Yes.

This leaves me wondering if this is going to become the norm in hospitality.

#hospitalityindustry #restaurantlife #restaurantindustry #marketingmanager #marketingstrategies #businesstip #foodmarketing #restaurantmarketing #restaurants #cocktailgram #coffeeplease #pizzaislife #foodtrip by @digitalchicklolla