We recently connected with Taylor Schultz and have shared our conversation below.

Taylor , appreciate you joining us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

This is a topic that is very relevant to me as I work for my own families business. While I understand that it is not the right fit for every family, it is something that works for ours and in many ways has made us a more tight knit unit. I feel very thankful to be working alongside my family with a common goal in mind. Not only have I been able to watch our business grow over the last 20 years, I’ve been apart of that growth and in many ways contributed to it. I have found working with my family to be extremely motivating and a responsibility that I do not take lightly. I want to do the best that I can so that we as a whole can make our business as successful as possible.

Taylor , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Taylor Schultz and I am the Marketing Director for Babbo Italian Eatery. Babbo is my families business and I have been apart of it since a young age. I’ve worked as a hostess and server and learned about what it takes to work in a restaurant. About 6 years ago I moved into a marketing role. With my amazing team I manage our social media, website, print ads, and any marketing campaigns we may have throughout the year. It has been extremely rewarding to evolve our brand over the years as well as see how much we have grown since opening our first location 20 years ago.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I have been very intentional on working to build our social media audience. It’s such an important way to communicate with our current customers while also adding potential new customers. This takes time but with consistency and patience we have seen how social media can be a huge asset. One of the most important things we have done to grow our social media is be consistent with our content and posts. It’s important to show up daily on social media whether it be facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. We’ve also made sure that all of our content is very brand specific. We will not post anything that does not match our brand and image. This means investing in quality photographs, video, and even graphic design. Furthermore, we share a variety of content. Not every photo can be a picture of Spaghetti and Meatballs. We try to share many different aspects to our business. This includes behind the scenes content. We will show our back of the house team cooking in the kitchen. Sharing a perspective that a typical customer wouldn’t see when coming to eat at our restaurant can create interest and make the viewer feel like they are apart of the Babbo team. We also share anything new happening within our company. For example if we are building a new location or working on new menu items we share the process. Social media is not just a space to advertise but a place to invite the customer to be apart everything happening within our business.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As a restaurant we’ve had to change our business model quite a bit over the last few years. The time that we made the most changes was during the height of the pandemic when restaurants had to close all indoor dining and exclusively offer take out. In addition to offering our regular menu and take out options we included a weekly Meal Deal. Where the customer could get a variety of food for a discounted price. These meal deals were perfect for families needing an affordable take out option during the pandemic. We were able to advertise these through our social media and email family. They became a staple for many of our customers during this time and because we changed the special every week our customers wanted to order each time a new meal deal was offered.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.babboitalian.com
• Instagram: @babboitalianeatery
• Facebook: Babbo Italian Eatery
• Twitter: @babboitalian

Image Credits
Erica + Jon Photography