By Matt Plapp
Last week here on PMQ.com, I told you 8 out of 10 people walking through your front door aren’t in your database, and I gave you the scripts and QR codes to fix it. That was the lesson on Attracting Attention In-Store. Today, I’m walking you out the front door and down your neighborhood streets.
Because if you nail what happens inside your four walls and then go quiet the second someone steps off your property, you’re still leaving the biggest pile of free attention in your market sitting on the table. This is Attract Attention In-Store’s twin brother: Attract Attention in Your Community.
I’m Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants. We help independent restaurant owners win. We help them win new customers, win back lost customers, win higher check averages, win their community’s attention and win against the chains. We do it through our three pillars:
- Attract Attention
- Build a Database
- Retain Your Customers
Today is about Attract—specifically, the version of Attract that no chain can ever beat you at if you actually show up.
Don’t Be a Minnow (MINO)
When I was 23 years old, I joined my local chamber of commerce. An older guy pulled me aside on day one and said, “Matt, don’t be a MINO.” I thought he meant “minnow.” He didn’t. He meant Member in Name Only.
For some businesses, this might look like putting a sticker on the window. A logo on a sponsorship banner. A name on a membership roster. Doing the bare minimum to claim you’re “involved,” while never actually showing up.
And that’s what most independent restaurants are doing in their own communities right now. You exist on the corner. You sit there hoping the people who live and work within three miles of your front door notice you. You wait for the high schools, the chambers, the youth leagues, the festivals and the charities to walk through your door asking for a gift card.
That means you’re a MINO. And while you’re sitting on that corner waiting, here’s what’s happening around you. In Union, Kentucky, where I live, there’s a quarter-mile stretch of road that 30 years ago had zero restaurants. Ten years ago, when I moved here, it had two. Today there are 23.
Chipotle alone has 11 locations in Northern Kentucky and roughly $1 million in annual ad spend per location. You will never out-budget them. You will never out-locate them.
But you can out-community them. They don’t know the high school band director’s name. They don’t go to the local toboggan race. They aren’t at the homecoming parade. They can’t be what you can be to your community.
Story #1: Lightning Struck Twice, and Nobody Said a Word
Right down the road from my house is Ryle High School. A few years ago, two girls who went to Ryle, Maddie Scherr and Lauren Schwartz, were both state championship basketball players. Maddie was a McDonald’s All-American. Both girls played college basketball. Maddie went to Oregon. Lauren went to Washington. And, one night, they squared off against each other on ESPN.
Two girls from the same Northern Kentucky high school, state champs together. Now, they were on national TV, playing each other. Within miles and blocks from Ryle High School are many independent restaurants. Want to guess what they posted about that game?
Nothing. Zero. Not one piece of content. Not an announcement. Not a watch party. Not a contest. Not a thing. One tiny online article was the only public record that the game even involved Ryle alumni.
A year later, the Ryle High School band got invited as one of a handful of bands in the country to march in the Pearl Harbor parade in Hawaii. There was a massive fundraising effort to fly those kids across the ocean.
But at the same restaurants, blocks away, restaurants that benefit from those kids every day, there was the same silence. Lightning struck twice in front of the door, and nobody flipped a switch.
What I Would Have Done
If I owned a pizza restaurant near Ryle, that basketball game alone would have created a month of marketing: An announcement posted the second that the schedule had dropped. A watch party the night of the game. Team Maddie shirts on one side of the room, Team Lauren on the other. Drink specials in both school colors. A contest: Who scores more points? Who pulls down more boards? Pick a winner and eat free next week.
How about a video interview with the high school coach who won the state title with both girls on the roster? Or posts featuring their old teammates, their parents, their classmates, and the band director who watched them grow up? I could get 10 to 20 pieces of content over four weeks, built around one night on ESPN.
And here’s the part you need to hear: Not one of those posts should have a pizza coupon on it.
This is where independent restaurant owners get stuck. You think every Facebook post has to sell a pizza. You think every email has to push a coupon. You think your social media is just a digital direct mail piece. It’s not.
Facebook isn’t a mailer. Instagram isn’t a mailer. Your email list isn’t a mailer. They’re a community megaphone. And when you point that megaphone at the people, the events and the stories that matter inside your ZIP code, you build a kind of trust the chains can’t buy.
People don’t share Chipotle’s queso promo with their friends. They share the post about the local high school band that made it to Hawaii.
How Mike Lardy Does It
You’ve heard me talk about Mike Lardy at Bravo Burrito in Minnesota. He’s the guy I use as my standing example of an independent restaurant owner who replaced hope-and-pray marketing with an actual annual plan.
And his community game is just as good. A few months ago, Mike posted a video promoting a homemade toboggan race in his town. It was a local charity event and free to enter. Mike turned the camera on himself in a Bravo Burrito shirt, made a 30-second pitch to help drive event registrations, and posted it to his personal Facebook, then shared it with Bravo.
He did two things right that almost none of you do: One, he wasn’t selling burritos. He was selling the event. He used his platform to push attention toward something his community cared about. Two, he wore the brand. Mike wears Bravo Burrito everywhere: the grocery store, Home Depot, the kids’ football games. His personal life and his restaurant are one brand.
Most of you wear a Nike shirt to the high school game and wonder why your neighbors don’t realize you own the pizza joint down the road. Connect yourself to your restaurant. Every time you leave the house, you’re a billboard.
Help Others, and You Help Yourself
Every week, a charity walks through your door asking for a donation. You write them a $25 gift card. They write you a thank-you note. You feel good. They go away. That’s a transaction. That’s not community.
Try this instead: Give them the gift card, sure. But also give them media opportunities. Tell them you’ll interview the organizer on video. Tell them you’ll promote their event to your email list. Tell them you’ll post their fundraiser to your social. Tell them you’ll do a dine-and-donate night and broadcast it.
Now, you didn’t give them $25. You gave them the audience you spent years building. That charity will work harder for you than any agency in town. Their supporters become your supporters. The event chair tells everyone she knows where she’s eating Friday night.
There’s a guy in Hershey, Pennsylvania, who runs Stuffin’ D Steaks. He builds his entire community presence by telling stories about local businesses on his Facebook page. He even features his own competitors. Why? Because the goodwill comes back tenfold.
I’ll dig more into him in a couple of weeks. For now, take this lesson: Help others publicly, and the community starts pulling for you.
You Cannot Do This in a Panic
Here’s where most of you blow it. Oregon and Washington didn’t decide to play the week before. The toboggan race wasn’t planned the week before. The Ryle band didn’t get invited to Hawaii on the Friday afternoon before the parade. These things are on the calendar a year out.
If you’re scrambling on a Wednesday because Mother’s Day is Sunday, you’re already losing. The owners who own their community aren’t winging it. They have a planner. They know the parades, the festivals, the school events, the holidays, the home games, the local fundraisers, the seasonal hooks, all mapped out on a single document.
If you don’t have one, grab mine. Go to mattplapp.live/2026planner. Request access (be patient—these requests come directly to me, and I don’t sit by a computer all day). Once you get access, it will be view-only. You make a copy, and you start filling it in this week.
Then walk it back into your restaurant. Get the in-store graphics built. Get the social content scheduled. Get the email list warmed up. Be the megaphone your community didn’t know it needed.
One Thing to Do This Week
Pick one thing happening in your community in the next 30 days. Just one. A high school playoff game. A local charity 5K. A community parade. A school fundraiser.
Then get involved publicly. Post about it. Show up. Talk to the organizer about how you can amplify them. Don’t add a coupon—just use your camera and your audience. That is the key to Attracting Attention in Your Community. That is the pillar the chains will never beat you on. But only if you stop being a MINO.
For more help, take our free WIN Audit. In 12 questions, you’ll know your real score. The industry average is 28 out of 100. We can typically add 40 points in a few months.
And join our free ABR Skool community, where we help owners and their teams dominate all nine strategies under the ABR pillars. Office hours are Mondays at 3 p.m. EST. Bring your questions.
Don’t let lightning strike right across the street without taking advantage. Let’s go win this week!
I’m Matt Plapp, the CEO of America’s Best Restaurants, and we exist to help independent restaurant owners win. Not survive—win. We help them win through their marketing and by leveraging our three pillars: Attract Attention, Build a Database and Retain Your Customers. The goal is to win new customers, win back lost customers, win more frequent visits, win higher check averages, win your community’s attention, and win against the chains. That last one is the one keeping you up at night. And it should be.
