Block & Grinder Case Study

Challenge:
Founded by a former butcher shop owner, The Block & Grinder restaurant concept specializes in premium beef as well as all-natural, organic meats and wild game. When the owner reached out to SPARK Strategic Ideas, they were just three weeks out from the grand opening of their first location. They needed to get the word out to the Charlotte community and quickly.

Solution:
The SPARK team jumped into action, immediately going to work on creating a custom media database and selecting key members of the media for a sneak preview night. A unique media invitation idea was born – a folded card featuring a mouth-watering sliver of a slice of steak. The handle of a fork was bent into a folded position, allowing the fork to “sit up” to support the invitation, with the steak image fitting perfectly into the tines of the fork. Over 50 of the invitations were hand crafted and personally delivered on a silver platter to our invited media guests and VIP members of the Charlotte community.

A media kit was developed to showcase the new restaurant concept and featured key menu items, management bios and their butcher counter selections. With no time to have the media kits professionally printed, the SPARK team printed the invitations onto butcher paper in house, round punched the corners and delicately tied each of the kits together with twine in order to have them ready to hand-deliver to the media and VIPs prior to the big event.

SPARK also launched Block & Grinder’s social media platforms, creating unique content across Facebook and Twitter and managing reviews on Yelp, Foursquare and Urbanspoon.

Results:

SPARK helped to get media and influencers there and Block & Grinder captured their attention with the restaurant concept. The restaurant launched to culinary acclaim – from Helen Schwab at The Charlotte Observer. Well-known area bloggers from Scoop Charlotte, CLT Buzz, Fervent Foodie, Creative Loafing Charlotte, Charlotte Smarty Pants and Charlotte Burger Blog were among a few who spoke to the quality of the food and the attention to detail. Restaurant Traffic highlighted the unique, yet simple approach taken by the owner and executive chef.