Rok Bistro, based in downtown Sunnyvale, is a stone-age fondue and steakhouse that provides middle to upper-middle class individuals, couples, and families with a unique and fun environment to celebrate special occasions, entertain guests or simply enjoy a delicious meal. Steve Wright and his partner, Doug Quist, opened the restaurant in September 2008, with the goal of making stone-age cooking one of the most well-known and popular dining-out concepts in the entire Bay Area -- known for its unique, natural, fresh, healthy and entertaining ways of preparing incredibly delicious meals.

Rok has been in business for about 11 months. Their sales have not been as brisk as expected due to the down economy and lower-than-expected local traffic due to a slowdown in the downtown mall reconstruction project. Steve has completed a business plan and has been spending thousands of dollars in marketing but the investments have not yielded as high a return as expected.  He came to the SV-SBDC to look for cost-effective ways of marketing and driving sales for his business.

Steve started working with Jenny Huang, SBDC marketing advisor in March 2009. Jenny reviewed RoK Bistro’s business plan and marketing activities and made recommendations to define a cohesive marketing strategy and promotional roadmap with measurable metrics. Because the restaurant is located in a crowded marketplace, Jenny also recommended articulation of category ownership, clear positioning and messaging to build awareness and break the clutter. She helped Rok focus by streamlining their marketing with sales-driven activities in the short-term and driving awareness and goodwill using PR, cause marketing, and social media in the long term.

During the course of counseling sessions, Steve attended search engine marketing and social media classes to understand how to market in the online world using SEO and social media vehicles such as blogs and social networks.

As a result working with the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center, Steve has gained clarity, focus and marketing direction for his business. He has developed a clear positioning and a set of relevant marketing messages to articulate Rok’s differences. He pared down marketing spending in areas that yielded poor results and focused on ones that worked. He introduced 2 additional nightly specials to attract more patrons in the evening hours. He improved his e-newsletter with a clear objective and call to action to drive traffic and saw a moderate increase in response rate and closed sales. Their May and June sales were better than expected, with an approximate 30% increase over monthly average sales, influenced by seasonal activities as well as focused marketing efforts. They have since added 2 additional part-time employees to their Rok team.

Steve has completed his initial marketing plan and has a clear promotional roadmap with plans to explore new ideas recommended by Jenny to drive incremental awareness, visibility and sales.

"Working with the SV-SBDC has been informative and beneficial in helping us better understand our marketing direction and messages, and ways of getting those messages out to our target market in a cost-effective manner." -- Steve Wright, Owner, RoK Bistro, Sunnyvale, CA.

Client: Rok Bistro
Business Owner(s): Steve Wright, Doug Quist
Phone: 408-733-7651
Email: steve@rokbistro.com
www.rokbistro.com