strategy New Niche Binge - Restaurant and Food Services

[ThatNameGuy]

As most of you know for the last five years I've attempted to carve out a niche portfolio with the likes of new TLD's like; .realty, .homes, .online and most recently .link (see thread titled "Throwing in the Towel".

Not being one to give up on anything and living in the largest resort city in the world I've decided to focus on the food services industry, and restaurants in particular. And this isn't to say I'm giving up on the 300 brandable name portfolio I've accumulated over the years.

This idea/revelation came to me while waiting to pick up my order @ CaribShack.biz (featured on the Food Networks Diners - Drive-Ins and Dives by Guy Fieri). When i saw their .biz TLD, i checked to see who might own the .com and and it happens to be for sale at DAN for $9,300. Then while waiting I thought I'd see if the domain CaribHut.com was available to register, and damned if it was, so for $9.45 i registered it

In the US alone there are over a million restaurants with well over 200,000 startups each year. Anyone else see this as a profitable niche assuming a comprehensive "outbound" marketing strategy is developed? Anyone own food/restaurant domains that need exposure? Suggestions, observations and recommendations are welcome. Thanks

 

[bmugford]

 

[Joe N]

Nice to see you back at it, Rich.

As much as I love restaurants, I personally have not had much success with domain names in this niche. I think that restaurant owners, on average, are much less likely to spend significant money on a domain, since they are much more reliant on local customers and word-of-mouth. Brand authority via an exact match .com name doesn't tend to be as big a factor for them as it is for businesses in many other industries.

Your Carib Shack example illustrates this perfectly. They're operating on the lowly .biz TLD (no doubt hand registered), but it sounds like it has had very little impact on their success.

I think that catchy food industry brand names are still a great investment, so long as the name isn't one that would be limited to being used for a restaurant.

 

[bmugford]

Actually Covid created opportunities for some domainers who understand that change involving such things as food delivery, pick up, catering, tasting and even food truck growth are examples of new concepts requiring domain names.

While Whisky.com sold for 3.1M in 2014, "zooming" as a result of Covid has me registering names like WhiskyFocus.xxx and DiscoverScotch..

A friend of mine owns Bo Bo's Chicken here in Virginia Beach where seafood happens to be the dominant fare in most restaurants. The young man who started it in 2019 is knocking the cover off the ball ever since he closed his dining room due to Covid and started serving chicken and a variety of family recipes via his "backed up" drive thru similar to Chick-fi-A's. And like Chick-fil - A he's closed on Sundays......so where am I going with this? Because i happen to luv wings, I've registered a few "catchy" names for Bo like BoBoWings.xxx hoping to entice Bo to create the best recipe known to man for a variety of chicken wings that can be made in my garage

Finally, i've started, operated and yes NAMED dozens of businesses in my life, and I've said to friends that if they ever hear me say I'm starting a restaurant please just pull out a gun and shoot me. Bottomline, I'm determined to fail at starting and running a restaurant, but I'm just as determined to succeed at NAMING restaurants.

You have been at this for years now jumping from extension to extension and idea to idea.

All this experience, all these connections, all these stories...

How many domains have you actually sold?

Success in some unrelated field doesn't really translate to domain investing.

You would probably be wise to do more listening to successful domain investors.

Brad

 

[DrJacoby]

 

[bmugford]

As much as I love restaurants, I personally have not had much success with domain names in this niche. I think that restaurant owners, on average, are much less likely to spend significant money on a domain, since they are much more reliant on local customers and word-of-mouth. Brand authority via an exact match .com name doesn't tend to be as big a factor for them as it is for businesses in many other industries.

Your Carib Shack example illustrates this perfectly. They're operating on the lowly .biz TLD (no doubt hand registered), but it sounds like it has had very little impact on their success.

To illustrate this further, I was talking to a friend who owns a restaurant locally.

They have been tracking their business name in .COM for quite some time. It finally expired and was up at GoDaddy auctions.

This was not a great term, but still the name of their company where they have tracked the domain status for a few years. I asked them their budget. $50.

The price of (1) entrée on the menu is not much less.

Brad

 

[Lox]

I just registered SushiHut.biz and SushiShack.biz for a whopping 5.48 each because neither of the .com's are in use, and DAN is asking $24,888 SushiShack.com

This ain't gonna work … at least your .biz examples are very helpful for the newcomers to get ideas what to not reg./ invest time, $ and energy … hope is the best you can get.

Regards

 

[bmugford]

Brad.....i've had 10X the success in business than you'll ever have. The examples of businesses I founded, operated and named were started and named years before internet domains were even thought of.

The thing is, no one cares.

Plenty of others have named businesses, have connections, etc.

Bragging about past accomplishments and namedropping are not going to get you anywhere.

The proof is in the pudding.

Whatever you have done in the past is clearly not translating to success in the domain field.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Ever hear the Nursery Rhyme about the "Turtle and the Hare" Guess who wins the race Brad

The hare is very confident of winning, so it stops during the race and falls asleep. The tortoise continues to move very slowly but without stopping and finally it wins the race. The moral lesson of the story is that you can be more successful by doing things slowly and steadily than by acting quickly and carelessly.

Jumping from extension to extension and going on "binges" is hardly slow and steady.

You are the one who is overconfident, despite a lack of results.

Much to your chagrin, you are the hare in that story.

The tortoises are the domain investors who build quality inventory over time, make sales, and continue to scale up.

Brad

 

[Lox]

Maybe you should be more into branding than domain investment.

I see … CEO moving head L-oo-R after reading a long story about the next big name …

TNG is a rich one who wants to experiment … and we’re lab rabbits. Still, I love his posts, That Name Guy account name and … bling avatar … sleeping on a couch , legs on the table- w Escrow.com logo sticker and a dog … so curious about wtf is going on …

Regards

 

[NickB]

I haven't logged in for quite a while and look at what I find when I jump back in.......a new binge thread created by Rich - what a way to start my day!

Rich, can you at least this time use a bit of logic to at least give yourself a small chance of selling.....

Below are the 100 most popular keywords used by U.S based restaurants in their domain names in 2021 according to Chat GPT.......

1. Food
2. Restaurant
3. Grill
4. Bar
5. Cafe
6. Bistro
7. Eatery
8. Tavern
9. Diner
10. Kitchen
11. Pub
12. Cuisine
13. House
14. Dining
15. Pizzeria
16. Steakhouse
17. Deli
18. Seafood
19. Sushi
20. Burger
21. Bakery
22. Lounge
23. Gastropub
24. Buffet
25. Pizza
26. Gourmet
27. Breakfast
28. BBQ
29. Fusion
30. Fresh
31. Wine
32. Coffee
33. Organic
34. Market
35. Vegan
36. Mexican
37. Italian
38. Asian
39. Indian
40. Chinese
41. Noodles
42. Tacos
43. Brasserie
44. Roast
45. Sandwich
46. Local
47. Smoothie
48. Salad
49. Tea
50. Juice
51. Craft
52. Farm
53. Delight
54. Bowl
55. Street
56. Fast
57. Wok
58. Ale
59. Fish
60. Spices
61. Dish
62. Fine
63. Family
64. Soul
65. Smoke
66. Cheesecake
67. Bagel
68. Creamery
69. Shack
70. Quick
71. Snack
72. Ice
73. Sweets
74. Donuts
75. Kebab
76. Nook
77. Catering
78. Garden
79. Comfort
80. Pasta
81. Grillhouse
82. Lounge
83. Espresso
84. Canteen
85. Munch
86. Taste
87. Country
88. Flavors
89. Burrito
90. Fries
91. Southern
92. Sub
93. Wings
94. Oyster
95. Liquor
96. Tapas
97. Ramen
98. Vintage
99. Sip
100. Aroma

You can search online to update the above list for this year and use harpa.ai to create a new list if you wanted.....

Below is a list of popular domain keywords for the food and drink industry - might be a couple of crossovers with the above......

1. Fresh
2. Local
3. Organic
4. Healthy
5. Quick
6. Delicious
7. Gourmet
8. Tasty
9. Pure
10. Natural
11. Vegan
12. Farm
13. FreeRange
14. GlutenFree
15. Paleo
16. Ethnic
17. Spicy
18. Sweet
19. Savory
20. Craft
21. Artisan
22. Nutritious
23. Eco
24. NonGMO
25. Fine
26. Quality
27. Premium
28. Family
29. Fast
30. Fusion
31. Homemade
32. Diet
33. ZeroWaste
34. Comfort
35. Ready
36. Specialty
37. Beverage
38. Bakery
39. Wine
40. Coffee
41. Juice
42. Tea
43. Soda
44. Smoothie
45. Liquor
46. Pub
47. Tap
48. Brew
49. Beer
50. Cocktail
51. Spirits
52. Meal
53. Feast
54. Flavors
55. Green
56. PlantBased
57. Dairy
58. Meat
59. Seafood
60. Poultry
61. Veggie
62. Snack
63. Breakfast
64. Lunch
65. Dinner
66. Baking
67. Culinary
68. Kitchen
69. Foodie
70. Eat
71. Chow
72. Bite
73. Market
74. Grocery
75. Chef
76. Recipe
77. Cook
78. Grill
79. Oven
80. Fry
81. Boil
82. Roast
83. Blend
84. Mix
85. Sip
86. Taste
87. Indulge
88. Yummy
89. Tangy
90. Hearty
91. Aroma
92. Wholesome
93. Zesty
94. Freshness
95. Goodness
96. Pick
97. Gather
98. Source
99. Choice
100. Supply

These lists should give you an idea on what keywords to look at for new registrations and on the drop lists, it's not an area that interests me much, not a lot of money to be squeezed out of these types of businesses......

But, it's your money.......GL with the new venture.....

 

[HotKey]

Holy, guacamole.

 

[BaileyUK]

OK. So if I'm getting this right .Biz is now the new wining extension in your new search for partnerships but this time in the food services businesses.

I find it strange that you latch on to different extensions because they apparently fit your ideal pairing by quoting a few examples in use. Having worked in the catering and restaurant trade for 12 years in my younger years (college trained) I've always noticed that the large and funded start-ups tend to go for unique and dare I say slightly obscure business names. Today their looking for a unique key word and far more likely to prefer the CCTLD. Of course the Global brands aren't going to settle for anything less than the .com.

I wasted a lot of money when .biz came out, thinking businesses would latch on to this extension. kept a few good ones for far too long. never had even a low xxx bite. and I was buying when availability was good. today nobody wants them. The few exceptions being businesses that launched on the .biz and couldn't be asked or bothered to change. to my mind it's a small demonstration that the restaurant trade don't really care about domain Extensions so long as it resolves to some nice pics, and the menu.

Lets face it, around 90% of the Restaurant trade is repeat business. They're hardly aiming for page-rank unless they are a tourist establishment

 

[bmugford]

Bill....i see you're a new member so welcome to NP. Is there a way you can post a link to the article you're referring to? I'm in the process of developing a food and restaurant specific marketplace for the eats industry, that btw is HUGE. While I'm not a foodie, one of the best dining experiences I've had was in North Miami and I've had some great experiences In South Beach while attending conventions there.

If you're pretty familiar with this industry maybe we should talk and share a few ideas. Thanks

That (first) post from Bill Brown sure reads like an auto generated comment from some bot.

Brad

 

[VadimK]

I feel the same as fellas domainers mentioned already.

Coming from a travel industry and knowing lots of restaurants, catering and food venues in Spain, I can tell that the quality domain name is on the very bottom of their priority list for almost all of them. Believe it or not, but until like 3-4 years ago, about 20-30% of restaurants in Spain didn't have a website at all...they felt no need... And decent places. I assume in the US it's better, but core logic will be the same...If you tell them you want to sell them domain name for as little as $1000 - they either will shoot you or themselves, depending on who talking to ))))

This is type of people that if like the name will take any available extension without thinking twice, or simply add 1 to the end of the name they like (I saw it more than once, I swear). They don't care. Extremely small % of them will see a value in the name, thus investing heavily in this industry is an absolute no-go, imo.

I myself hold no more than 10 names related to specific food and gastronomy, and not one of them has been inquired seriously (although I believe they are good ones and will continue to keep them in my portfolio).

 

[Cush]

A group of kids on my street have been operating a lemonade stand all summer. They even have a name for it. I should buy a .com or .biz name and get them to buy it from me, because we all know how well funded 13 year old's running a lemonade stand are. Not to mention the way their sales will skyrocket when people google search MarkMikeJennaAndLeahsLemonadeStand.biz. Easily a 5 to 6 figure domain. Right?

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I like that domain. You might want to check on that renewal as it hasn't gone through yet... Knowing the registrar you may want to double check.

Actually it just comes up for renewal 12/31/2023, but i thought I'd already renewed it While most of my domains are "Catch and Release", this ones a keeper

On another note i'm finding a lot of decent domains that were registered prior to Covid, but were dropped in '22 and '23. I don't know if that's for the industry in general, but it's surely happening in the food services and restaurant industries.

 

[bmugford]

Buying, holding and maybe selling 2-3% of ones domain portfolio is NOT my idea of success. Here are a couple of companies I founded, operated and yes NAMED over 25 years ago that are generating 10M and 5M respectively in what is referred to as "fee revenue" today;

What is your idea of success?

Hand registering thousands and thousands of domains, making hardly any sales, then dropping the vast majority of them?

That doesn't really sound like a recipe for success.

CreditControl.net - a debt recovery company
and
AcSel.org - a medical billing company

Those are reg fee domains. No one would pay a premium price for those.

I only share this as a measure of success where "naming" of these businesses contributed to their success. Only if you care to hear the story, I'll share how the name "AcSel" evolved from the original name, "Accounts Receivable Management Corporation"

Thank again!

"Naming" and making domain sales are apples and oranges.

It is bonkers that you still don't understand that.

Brad

 

[BestBrandDomains]

Good example Brad! Thanks for sharing.

I agree with phaethon and other above, only high end or large restaurants will pay the premium price. Most smaller ones will be frugal.

The restaurant business is really tough, then add Covid on top of that. A lot of the best restaurants are out of business now.

The only exception would be if you had popular keywords that can be both a restaurant but also fit other businesses (food delivery service, software app, etc.). Stay away from smaller niche and geo ones, go for broader/global appeal.

 

[ivey]

Nice to see you back at it, Rich.

As much as I love restaurants, I personally have not had much success with domain names in this niche. I think that restaurant owners, on average, are much less likely to spend significant money on a domain, since they are much more reliant on local customers and word-of-mouth. Brand authority via an exact match .com name doesn't tend to be as big a factor for them as it is for businesses in many other industries.

Your Carib Shack example illustrates this perfectly. They're operating on the lowly .biz TLD (no doubt hand registered), but it sounds like it has had very little impact on their success.

I think that catchy food industry brand names are still a great investment, so long as the name isn't one that would be limited to being used for a restaurant.

I was the owner of CaribHut.com for a few years and dropped it. I did get interest once but possibly countered too high. Not meaning to offend, but many Caribbean people are stingy with their money(I'm Jamaican btw) and may not see the value in investing in domains. Maybe their kitchen tools etc will come first. And I've sold other food related names in the past too. It's a good niche, but pricing must be right. Because most are small startup restaurants, mom and pop shops and bloggers who won't pay very high for a food name, when they are trying to survive just to pay their staff.

But i do see potential in it if priced and marketed right. Wishing you the best going forward.

I'm a foodie myself... with a few food names left in the barrel.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

That (first) post from Bill Brown sure reads like an auto generated comment from some bot.

Brad

i wonder what they're phishing for Speaking of phishing, i just renewed DowntheCatch.....pretty catchy name for a Seafood Restaurant. Almost as good as DowntheHatch

 

[branding]

i wonder what they're phishing for Speaking of phishing, i just renewed DowntheCatch.....pretty catchy name for a Seafood Restaurant. Almost as good as DowntheHatch

I like that domain. You might want to check on that renewal as it hasn't gone through yet... Knowing the registrar you may want to double check.

 

[phaethon]

Only high end restaurants pay attention and invest in quality domains and there are also the book a table / review / delivery food companies that work with them and do their promotion.

I think I hold one name only related to fast food and I'm about to drop it.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

But these are not in reality Food and Beverage industry names. It's for some highly motivated enthusiasts. I myself have VodkaPro.com and GinStuff.com - both 've been sitting with me for 3 years, waiting for the occasion. But going heavily into these types of names - you'll burn your cash heavily.


There is no correlation whatsoever between him making awesome chicken wings and him wanting to buy a domain name for $1000. He will register BoBoChickenWings or BoBosChickenWings without understanding how one can pay $100 for a domain name, let alone a much higher amount. And 99% of them are like this.

So Vodka and Gin aren't beverages? Last I heard they're called "alcoholic beverages" ABC actually stands for "Alcoholic Beverage Control" in the state of Virginia, USA. While VodkaPro.com and GinStuff.com are pretty good domains, you'll likely be sitting on them three years from now unless you're able to get exposure beyond what you get at dynadot

With regards to Bo Bo's Wings..... Bo happens to be a very smart young man ( business degree from UVA), and in a very short time has quite a local following. Can he expand that following with BoBoWings.com.... time will tell

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I was the owner of CaribHut.com for a few years and dropped it. I did get interest once but possibly countered too high. Not meaning to offend, but many Caribbean people are stingy with their money(I'm Jamaican btw) and may not see the value in investing in domains. Maybe their kitchen tools etc will come first. And I've sold other food related names in the past too. It's a good niche, but pricing must be right. Because most are small startup restaurants, mom and pop shops and bloggers who won't pay very high for a food name, when they are trying to survive just to pay their staff.

But i do see potential in it if priced and marketed right. Wishing you the best going forward.

I'm a foodie myself... with a few food names left in the barrel.

Wow Rory....am i glad you showed up, and thanks for chiming in. I'm a little surprised you dropped CaribHut.com, but I see where you still own a killer portfolio of Food and Drink domains displayed at Got Brands.

I've yet to develop "Domain Gourmet", but I sure would like to talk/meet with you about it. You're right about mom and pop startups not having the where with all to spend a lot of money on domains, however there are also a lot of well funded startups. According to Bankrate.com the "average" startup cost for a new restaurant in 2018 was $375,000 What I've found too is many doctors, lawyers and successful business people will send their kids to top culinary schools when the academic highway is closed.

Finally, and a little off topic, Winsome Sears our Lt. Governor here in Virginia was born in Kingston Jamaica. I'll share a little more about my connection with her later. Thanks again Rory.