7 Books Every Restaurant Owner Should Read to Improve Their Marketing: The Best Books for Restaurant Owners

books for restaurant owners

Looking to find the best & most useful books for restaurants or breweries? In this article, we’re list out 7 of the best books for restaurant owners to read that will help improve their marketing & sales. These are books we’ve read and studied that really hit home when it comes to restaurant marketing. Don’t take our word for it though. See for yourself below.

1 – Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand is a book that explains the StoryBrand Framework and how you can apply it to your business. The StoryBrand Framework suggests that you should position your restaurant as the guide and your customers as the main character in their story. While you can apply these principles to any type of business, restaurants can especially benefit as it gives step-by-step action-oriented items you can do today.

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[FREE DOWNLOAD]: Restaurant Marketing Checklist

2 – Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer

Jay Baer’s Hug Your Haters is a book that puts a magnifying glass on the subject of WOWing your customers. Baer suggests you should respond to every single review on every single site that has a review option. He breaks the different types of negative complainers (aka “haters”) into two categories: Onstage and Offstage haters. Offstage tend to complain privately while onstage prefer to have an audience via social media. Baer gives lots of stats on how consumers interact with businesses when it comes to comments and reviews and how to approach each scenario so that it will best benefit your business. This is an essential book for all restaurant owners to read!

Click Here to Buy it On Amazon.com

RELATED ARTICLE: The Ugly Truth About Delivery Services Like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats Every Restaurant Owner Should Know

3 – Don’t 86 Your Restaurant Sales: A Turnkey Digital Marketing Program for Restaurants by Matt Plapp

Matt Plapp wrote the book Don’t 86 Your Restaurant Sales: A Turnkey Digital Marketing Program for Restaurants so that he could share his marketing knowledge and experience with his restaurant clients. Eventually, internet marketers everywhere started buying his book to better their marketing for restaurants. This book is interactive in the way that it offers web pages with videos for each lesson so you can visualize each point. This book is very helpful for restaurant owners! A must-have for sure.

Click Here to Buy it on Amazon.com

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: Restaurant Marketing Checklist

4 – Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Seth Godin’s Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable is a book that is all about doing something remarkable… something people wouldn’t expect. Godin explains that just following marketing “best practices” simply isn’t enough anymore. Add something crazy to your business that will make people talk and you will be successful. There are some really incredible ways for restaurant owners to get their creative juices flowing and make their restaurants stand out from the rest. We highly recommend this book for restaurant owners.

Click Here to Buy it on Amazon.com

RELATED ARTICLE: The Ugly Truth About Delivery Services Like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats Every Restaurant Owner Should Know

5 – How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends & Influence People is something I recommend any leaders to read. In the restaurant industry, it’s crucial that you understand how to be like-able. People will know who you are and eyes will be on you more than you know. This book helps explain how to get people to like you more by becoming genuinely interested in other people, smiling more, remembering people’s names, being a good listener, talking in terms of people’s interests, and making other people feel important in a sincere manner. Other points like how to handle people, how to win people to your way of thinking, and how to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment will help you develop your restaurant into an extremely successful business. Do yourself a favor and get this book today!

Click Here to Buy on Amazon.com

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: Restaurant Marketing Checklist

6 – Don’t Bullsh*t Yourself!: Crush the Excuses That Are Holding You Back by Jon Taffer

This has got to be one of the absolute best books for restaurants… Jon Taffer’s book Don’t Bullsh*t Yourself!: Crush the Excuses That Are Holding You Back is a book that will help you stop making excuses, own up to your weaknesses, and getting stuff done! Taffer is the host on the show Bar Rescue and is known for being a “no excuses” kind of guy. His experience in the restaurant industry is extensive and he really knows what he’s talking about. Taffer breaks excuses down into six major categories, illustrating them with real-life examples.

Click Here to Buy it on Amazon.com

RELATED ARTICLE: The Ugly Truth About Delivery Services Like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats Every Restaurant Owner Should Know

7 – Remarkable!: Maximizing Results through Value Creation by David Salyers

David Salyers’ book Remarkable!: Maximizing Results through Value Creation is exactly what it sounds like. It explains how to create more value for your customers and how to manage a team, bringing the best out in them every single day they show up for work. David Salyers was one of the original two marketing executives at Chick-Fil-A and spent 37 years in the Marketing Department of Chick-Fil-A.

Click Here to Buy it on Amazon.com

[FREE DOWNLOAD]: Restaurant Marketing Checklist

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Zander Aycock

Written by Zander Aycock, Founder/Restaurant Marketing Specialist

Hi, I’m Zander Aycock!  👋🏻  I’m a restaurant marketing consultant passionate about helping restaurants stay open and avoid laying off their employees.  We help restaurants set up a marketing plan for steady growth and success. Send an email to say hello!

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