New Bedford Guide launches South Coast Dining Guide

By Matthew Neumann
By Matthew Neumann

Like many Americans, the staff at New Bedford Guide loves food and we love eating local. The Greater New Bedford area has been recognized multiple times over the past five years, for various accolades, but one of the categories overlooked is dining. We boast some of the best and freshest seafood in the country, unmatched Portuguese offerings, authentic Italian, Thai, Indian, Japanese, Chinese and so many more options. I can confidently sit behind my laptop and say that we’re a hidden gem in the dining community. Our establishments have been featured all over Phantom Gourmet, making the less fortunate observers left to drool, while we gorge ourselves and expand our waistlines.

It’s because of our love for all things food that we are proud to announce the launch of our South Coast Dining Guide. The South Coast Dining Guide is unique in that our guide is not only for all the residents of our beautiful area, but also for the restaurants themselves.

Click here for the South Coast Dining Guide

Users are able to navigate our beautiful and easy-to-use layout to find the best dining options, both on their desktop and mobile phones. Our clients (restaurant owners, managers, marketing reps, etc.) are able to enjoy the many features our dining profiles offer, as well as other marketing opportunities with New Bedford Guide, and our incredible growth and traffic (view our analytics and company information here).

Here is a list of features that are offered in the South Coast Dining Guide (version 1.0):

Google Maps API – You are able to quickly locate restaurants addresses through the built in Google Maps API. In addition, users can pull up the location directly on their mobile phone for easy access to GPS directions.

Built-in Social Media – Once a restaurant claims their listing, all applicable social media profiles are linked and featured on their profile. This allows users quick and easy access to view specials, discounts, coupons, photos, news and more.

Mobile Friendly – How people access information is changing, the majority of us get all of our information via our smartphone. This is why it was important to make sure the dining guide had responsive design built-in. As of January 2014, 58% of Americans owned a smart-phone. Making your website mobile friendly is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Our beautiful and easy-to-use dining guide has been designed, developed and optimized for your smart phone.

Video Spotlight – One of the benefits of working at New Bedford Guide is the access businesses give us. We are able to show our users a glimpse into the every day operation of businesses that other media companies simply don’t have access to or aren’t interested in. It’s this personal look into businesses that truly connect the business with their customers. With our built in video feature, restaurants can receive a New Bedford Guide video spotlight, and integrate it right into their dining profile.

Here’s an example of one of our dining profiles with a video spotlight: All Friends Smokehouse & Catering

Dining Blog – We love to write, and we love to write about food. We’ve been fortunate enough to be invited into some of the best restaurants in the area to spotlight and/or write reviews. We’ve enjoyed some truly incredible meals that even the perfect adjective(s) can’t quite describe and need to be experienced personally. With our dining blog, users are able to read our first hand, unbiased accounts of dining in the south coast.

Dining Amenity Tags – One of my favorite features of the dining guide is our tagging/filter system. Once a restaurant claims their listing, we go through all the amenities they offer. This allows the user to engage our filter system to find the exact dining experience they are looking for. Users can look for locations that offer free Wi-Fi, accept the UMass Pass, have outdoor seating, as well as many other options.

With every new product we launch at New Bedford Guide, the strategy behind it always looks to the future. So what features can users and businesses expect in version 2.0?

Online Food & Drink Menus – From a pure consumer stand point, nothing annoys me more than not being able to window shop before I buy. When making the all important decision on where I’m going to eat breakfast, lunch and/or dinner, a glance at the menu before choosing is a must. I’ve spoken to friends, family and New Bedford Guide fans, and one thing they all agree on is that the dining guide has to have menus.

Over the next month, we will be working to develop and integrate food and drink menus into our listings. We’ve set a very ambitious goal of adding 300 menus by the end of 2015.

Events Trivia question of the day: Does anyone know how New Bedford Guide got its start? The answer is, as an online event system called Local Oracle (some of you might recognize that name). Local Oracle featured the events of numerous New Bedford area businesses, and also the embarrassingly awkward The Dating Game (high five if you were ever on it). As Mike Silvia and I noticed a demand for a broader range of information, we closed the doors of Local Oracle and launched New Bedford Guide, the rest is history.

With that being said, our number one clients on Local Oracle were restaurants. From live music, to trivia, jam sessions and even arm wrestling matches, there is always something to do, on any given day in the South Coast.

With that in mind, we are developing an event system to integrate into each dining profile. This will allow our clients to market their events, and for users to plan out their week. Look for that in the second quarter of 2015.

Do you have an idea for a dining guide feature? Contact us

We are very excited for the launch of the South Coast Dining Guide, and we hope our fans and businesses are also excited. If you are a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, franchise, etc. and want to become a partner of the South Coast Dining Guide, please click here to submit a listing or locate your business and claim it.

Thanks for your continued support of New Bedford Guide and enjoy the brand new South Coast Dining Guide.

Click here for the South Coast Dining Guide

If you are a business owner or manager and would like to discuss a plan and/or claim your listing, please contact Charles Turay at charles@newbedfordguide.com 

 

Do you see a business missing from the dining guide? Contact us and let us know what restaurant(s) we missed.

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