Dig In: 7 Recommendations for Restaurant Week 2015

Restaurant Week has begun, and with all the amazing choices, it’s no wonder you are confused on where to even start! That’s where I come in! Restaurant Week happens once annually. This year it starts November 13th and ends November 21st. You will have a variety of restaurants to choose from with differing price points. Let’s get into how it works, there are 6 categories:

• “Nyam and Scram” 30% discounted lunch combos
• “Morning Bites” 30% discount
• “Tasty” dinner menus are $1,850
• “Savoury” are $2,800
• “Delectable” meals are $3,800
• “Epicurean” experiences are available for $4,300

Nyam and Scram and Morning Bites differ from the other categories by having discounts on the meal options selected by the restaurants, instead of a three course meal. But, let’s be honest, who can handle that amount of food and still be able to function?! We definitely don’t mind as we can try different places for breakfast and lunch and get us out of our food rut. We are delighted to see they have added the new addition for breakfast- Morning Bites- as that wasn’t included in the previous years of the weeklong event.

To give a well rounded experience we have chosen 7 restaurants from the different categories:

Fromage Gourmet Bistro & Grill takes 1st place for Morning Bites. The prices are good and the options are vast, there is something for everyone with this menu! Fromage has an intimate environment and their staff is known for being friendly and welcoming and the food receives rave reviews!

Looking to save on Nyam & Scram so you can splurge at dinner? Chilitos Jamexican Restaurant is for you! Enjoy their delicious fish tacos while enjoying their laid back environment and chill vibe.

If you are looking for something a bit more fancy as your lunch option, I would recommend Regency Bar and Lounge. Their lobster mac is divine and with so many options to choose from for $1,100- who can say no?!

For $1,850 it can be difficult for restaurants to be able to put together a meal with an appetizer, entree, and dessert for that price- and actually have a well rounded menu for patrons to choose from. Lucky Strike Lounge does just that in the Tasty category. The entire family will love this menu, and when you’re done with dinner you can work off those calories by bowling! Talk about win-win ;).

The choice for the Savory category is for you pasta and Italian lovers- Caffe Da Vinci! This restaurant can do no wrong. There isn’t anything ever tasted from Caffe Da Vinci that wasn’t amazing! This makes the lineup up of their dishes very hard to choose from. 

Seafood lovers the Delectable choice will be your heaven! Whitebones Seafood has countless options and the menu options seem to go on for days! WOW! Quite impressive indeed! The ambiance is nice and rustic, and it’s the perfect place to bring a friend, date, or the family.

We are now on to our last category the “big fish” if you will. The choice for epicurean isss… *drum roll* Rojo Restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel! There is something to please everyone here from the carnivores to the vegetarians alike. The menu includes items such as: fish, seafood pasta, and filet mignon. The staff is courteous and helpful but they run out of tables quickly with it being a very popular choice for RW. If Rojo is filled, another wonderful option is Terra Nova All Suite Hotel. Terra Nova’s food is absolutely delicious and will have you coming back long after RW for your food cravings.

A bonus is Golden Gate Restaurant will be having a 10% off discount all week long during this week. Perfect if you’re not in the mood for a hectic atmosphere! Golden Gate carries a variety of dishes that will make your mouth water. Dine with your family, your significant other, or even for your business lunch, you will be pleased.

That’s it for our list of restaurants you need to visit for Restaurant week. Make your reservations early, as most of these restaurants fill up quickly! Click: Here For the full list of restaurants and their menus. Where will you be visiting for Restaurant Week? Did we have you considering a new restaurant or two? Let us know, we want to hear from you! 

No Matter Your Status #LoveMore

In a relationship? Single? Married? Confused?

Separated? On the side? Divorced? Lonely?

No matter your status #LoveMore

The #LoveMore campaign was designed and launched by IPP to reduce, demolish, obliterate, torpedo, flatten the international stereotypical behaviour of only outwardly showing love and appreciation on February 14, birthdays or anniversaries.

Loving is a social gesture, a form of companionship and should not be limited to persons involved in a sexual relationship. So, IPP took to social media and found five persons who only had two things in common: they were on twitter and are involved in the media. Why media personalities? They are exposed to diverse groups of persons and they either tweet often or have many followers. And since the campaign doubled as an internal competition for the team members of IPP, the latter was extremely useful.

IPP was in the process of restructuring and a good team building exercise is friendly competition. The #LoveMore campaign was initially intentioned to be organized by all members of the team. The good leader, Mr. Managing Director, realized that some members of the team were not getting as involved and as enthused as he would have hoped. So … how do you fix that? You let your members compete with each other- divide and conquer. Now you have two teams (#TeamPurple and #TeamBlue), each with three members given the task of executing individual group campaigns for two days each, during the week February 11-14.

Charged with the uphill battle of sourcing guest presenters, compiling a plan (outlined with hashtags, questions, images) and promoting the twitter chat; the teams even found themselves persuading the same personalities.

#TeamBlue featured Intense host, Talia Soares; Vlogger and Singer, Toni Blair; and Socialite and Event Promoter, Marlon ‘Musique’ Campbell. Diversity proved strong for #teamblue as they featured a male during their campaign. Promotion by their guests saw the increase in followers and interactions  during the campaign. Campbell’s girlfriend joined in on the chat confirming her likes and dislikes, when he was asked about things in their relationship. Lack of retweets in hashtags like #vdaysinglesplaylist and #loveyourself and the late start and lack of advisory before the chat with Talia, were faults noticed by the very critical twitter public.

Off to a great start with guest and entertainer, Denyque, #teampurple outshined #teamblue with their followers when comparing both teams on their first days. #TeamPurple also managed to snag the lovely Fi Wi Choice host, Amita as their other guest. Relationship pet peeves, cheating in relationships and heartbreak featured the discussion with both females. Twitter jail, lack of organization and scarcity in engagement on valentines day were downfalls of this team.

The teams overall contributed to the 562 retweets and the 21% increase in followers over the four day period. An amazing combined effort for campaigns planned in three days.

The edge in the victory went to #teamblue who were able to demonstrate good organization and good follow through in documented plans. However, competition and celebrations aside, let us not forget the underlying purpose of the campaign.

#LoveMore represents love for self, friends, family, acquaintances, team members, country. It represents pride, commitment, sacrifice and patience. And it most definitely lasts 24/7 365 days a year.

Message from the MD

I founded It’s Pixel Perfect (IPP) because I believed that building a great marketing agency would improve businesses, people’s lives and, hopefully the world. In the two years – plus that has followed, my team and I have been constantly delighted by the ways in which we have impacted business while not shying away from our social responsibilities.

In the next decade, however, the competition for new revenues, new markets, new products and new services will continue to intensify. I know, that if we want to survive this period we have to operate in completely new ways, making sustainability integral to our innovation and performance.

Toward the end of 2013, I found guidance in the words of the late Nelson Mandela. He said, “there is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” It is this idea, that I used as a stepping stone toward the rebuilding of IPP. Last December, I began by reorganizing the management team around a core service to improve responsibility and accountability across IPP. We had a big clean up. We needed it! We had so many opportunities, and unless I made those hard choices, we may have ended up spreading ourselves too thin and not have had the impact that we would want. This left me with no choice but to focus on a core service, content marketing. This service would be cleaner, more consistent and would bring more value to our customers. It would allow all our services to work together seamlessly. It is still early days, and we have a long way to go, but this process will tremendously impact the we way we do business going forward.

Our dependency on technology for efficiency has single-handedly been our change maker since the start of the year. Our customers access to changes and information has been well streamlined by the use of several unique open source softwares and web applications. It is however futile to have the right resources and not have the right team members. That in itself was a roller coaster ride I won’t forget. Finding the right fit and the right balance to meet the required roles we needed in the company, certainly had its moments. We tried several interns with various skill sets and leadership capabilities. As talented as some were, we just couldn’t fit the pieces together seamlessly. I think we got the break-through when I recognized that we had to develop a team of A-Players who understood the philosophy of Performance with Purpose. After understanding that, I recreated a team with several unique roles and since then we have been on the road to sustainable growth. I know at this point that the mountains we climb will be steep, but we will climb them together.

There has been something slightly funny in the office that right now we may be known more for our philanthropic duties than the marketing ideas that we have executed for our clients. I wasn’t amused initially, because I thought our focus was being misjudged. After much thought, I realised that we were right down the path of what I had initially wanted. Social Responsibility is at the centre of our business and we won’t change that now or in the future. It is who we are. WE LOVE PEOPLE. We had our first successful charity activity in December “Give Where You Live: Christmas Treat” at the UWI Hospital. Since then, we have continued our philanthropic activities with our #LoveMore campaign and our “Give Where You Live: Toy Drive” which starts this month.

Relevant information and a lightning fast approach in delivering clients needs are key in our core service. We know if we keep our customers informed with information they NEED to know, it will help them to understand our business process and also potentially understand the changes in their industries. That is why I’m so excited about the relaunch of our blog. It allows us to execute projects for our clients, then write a blog post to explain how it works. We recognize that if we hold their hands during this time, they will hold our hands in the future.

We have observed that the financial situation of this country has placed businesses in a corner and thus they need excellent return on their investment (ROI) to meet their basic needs. They need results out of a hat like magic. Can we blame them? No we can’t. We have accepted the situation that we are in, what our customers are faced with and we are equipping ourselves with the skills, the patience, and the people to survive this period and help our clients to reach their goals.

I am proud of the progress we are making but is this the best we can do? I certainly do not think so but I know we can, must and we will do better.

– Conrad Mathison