Promotional Restaurant T-shirts Get Some Love In Canada’s Largest Newspaper

While America has many amazing restaurants, including this best-of roundup from OpenTable that is quite kind to Promo Marketing’s Philadelphia base, we are not above commending our neighbor to the north for its excellent eateries. Canada abounds in terrific spots to fulfill its citizens’ and visitors’ caloric needs, and while the establishments’ fare serves as the obvious pull for those looking to break free from their domestic dining rituals, many locations have earnestly decided to extol the virtues of venue-affiliated apparel through T-shirts, with The Globe and Mail—the country’s most widely read newspaper—proclaiming that “restaurant tees are the new streetwear for the foodie set.”

Every time I wear my @VinPapillon shirt, people ask me about it...so I wrote this fun little thing about restaurant shirts. Now please read it so I don't have to be friendly in real life. Feat. @MontgomerysNews @eastvanbrand @Rosewoodwine and more. https://t.co/l8w2AB2qiO

— Charlie Friedmann (@cfriedmann) July 18, 2018

As the publication points out, end-users love to rock T-shirts that make plain their allegiance to bands and music artists, and we can say we enjoy showing off our preferences. What, then, could anyone see wrong with someone’s decision to tout, via a garment, something that provides another form of satisfaction? According to The Globe and Mail and the restaurateurs it recently interviewed, the answer is “nothing.” We at Promo Marketing have enjoyed detailing how chain eateries have come to rely on T-shirts to infuse fans with an added incentive to purchase their wares, so the decision by franchise-free food connoisseurs to draw patrons to their sites through decorative tops sits well with our commercial sensitivities.

Since non-food-based companies love calling on promo products to attract devotion to their identity, it makes perfect sense for proprietors in the ultra-competitive restaurant world to look for an edge that goes beyond hiring the best talent and plating the most outstanding dishes. Yes, dedicated staff members and delicious menu components will always resound as musts for restaurant owners, but, well, frankly, once diners consume the food, it is not coming back. In other words, that which can serve as a constant reminder of a location’s greatness would be a wise addition to any restaurant’s offerings.

Here, then, is where the Canadian businesses are excelling, as they are using apparel to complement and compliment their provisions. As The Globe and Mail reports, too, the restaurants are not simply using the T-shirts as thread-based means to give themselves a pat on the back. The garments can surely convey clout, especially if affiliated with a topnotch location, but they can also, as the publication points out, make known business owners’ pride in their background and attention to social matters, for example.

Canada is no slouch when it comes to producing stellar dining destinations, so perhaps the sites name-dropped in The Globe and Mail article can inspire other spots throughout its 10 provinces and three territories to follow suit. With respect to life in the good old U.S. of A., we wonder if there are restaurants in your cities that you would love to see promote their products, social views or other identifiers via T-shirts or if there are locations that have already done so and what the results have been of their decisions to enlist design-based visual aids.