Yesterday's blog post, it seems, caused a bit of a stir.  In it, if you missed it, I did some back-of-the-envelope math based on standard industry calculations to determine if Groupon was good for chef-driven restaurants. The bottom line is that with fees and discounts, a chef sells his food for 25% of the value (not 25% off, 25 percent of).

Groupon feels they are a good marketing tool; I think there's a lot better ideas out there.  Ideas that reach the target audience instead of basically trying to reach everyone on the planet and hoping one of your targets is included.  Ideas that don't get chefs into what I think seems like a legal version of loansharking. Celebrated Chefs is one of those ideas (more will come next week).

No, this in no way gets anyone off the hook on the hard work of being a great restaurant. If you are dead or really anywhere in the vicinity of scrambling, you likely have an actual problem you need to solve and not a marketing program you need to execute. But this, and the few other things like it I'll feature, is my concession that not every restaurant has the magical powers that a few seem to possess and so into their toque a marketing program must fall. 

Here's the rundown from the Celebrated Chefs people. They're in Seattle now, rolling into Chicago and methinks they'll be in other cities soon, because it's a solid program, easy to understand, does a little good for the world and doesn't devalue the hard work of a chef.

Here's the topline:

• Celebrated Chefs publishes an upscale recipe book with an associated marketing program featuring the area's top restaurants and chefs in support of local non-profit organizations.
• Celebrated Chefs drives business to restaurant partners by targeting affluent, philanthropic-minded individuals who like to dine out. So, Celebrated Chefs is already ahead of Groupon because, well, it actually targets the market -- line-caught fish rather than industrial trawling.
  
• No upfront costs -- production and distribution of our book, as well as our marketing program, are paid for by Celebrated Chefs. Restaurants only contribute when we deliver results.  This is one of the key selling points of Groupon, per Groupon. Here, you've got that same offer without devaluing your food with a discount.

Here's how it works:

• Every time a Celebrated Chefs diner visits any of our participating restaurants, a donation is made to the customer's designated charity. I guess the rub here is that if the customer wanted to donate to Glenn Beck for President, you'd have to honor that.
  
• Celebrated Chefs supporters enroll their Visa/MasterCard/American Express into the program. When supporters pay their bill with their enrolled credit card, the restaurant makes a donation to the supporter's cause.
• The process is seamless and automatic -- we work with credit card processing technology to administer the funds so there are no special cards or coupons, no new equipment, and ... no employee training.
• 100% Trackable -- A detailed statement is sent on a monthly basis summarizing the previous month's activity. So, you'll know if your 10% cost is actually bringing in full-paying customers the whole time. Not a year later when you've hoped the Grouponistas have come back 6-8 times to convert to profitability.
  
• Celebrated Chefs is not a "discount program" -- nothing happens at the point of sale and nothing is returned or credited back to the consumer.
• The only cost is 10% of the Celebrated Chefs customer's adjusted bill. The adjustment is tax and gratuity -- which is an important point; there are rewards programs that charge restaurants on the full bill, including tax and gratuity. Celebrated Chefs collects the 10% on a monthly basis after sending the billing statement.  Of the 10 percent, half (5%) is donated to the customer's designated charity, the other half (5%) goes to Celebrated Chefs to foot the bill for the book, running the program, etc.

If you have any other programs you'd like RIA to drill down for you, send them along!  We are happy to share our thoughts and math about anything out there.