Hey guys,
Long time no talk. I havent been very active here cause Ive been so busy with opening by myself and then closing by myself. So you guys know, we decided to reopen June 1st. We were closed for a good month but after some long thoughts, keeping it open was our best bet for everyone. Sales have been a little bit better than before and I’m noticing a lot more repeat business and word of mouth business. We kinda did a restructuring. We fixed our pizza sauce problem and now use Fresh Packed Tomatoes, we added pastas and sandwiches to our menu, new lunch specials with good deals, and slices of pizza with a real slice merchandiser.
Anywho, I just wanted to share my experience that I had with Taradel. I am by no means knocking their company or who they are or what they represent, just wanted to make others aware so maybe they dont go through the same thing as I did. Plus I need to vent.
Our first batch of menus when we opened came from a different place and they were 100# stock paper with digital print. Very nice menus. The quality, print, design (maybe not as eye catching as some but the design was perfectly uniform), color, fold etc etc. We didn’t want to skimp on quality but after many conversations with Chris, he lured me into a thinner paper and promised over and over how nice these menus will look. So after many, many proofs and changes (you wouldn’t believe the simplest of errors, spacing/grammar/punctuation) we got our menus… And I dont think in all the years of this business I have been so disappointed. It was a huge slap in the face b/c I passed on Chris’s promise to my father and hyped it all up just like Chris did to me.
First thing right off the bat was the color. I understand (now) that these were short run menus blah blah blah, but had I known they would look like this from the very beginning, I would have upgraded. We have graphic fold lines and the front to back colors are different shades AND textures of red… So when you have the menu completely open and fold the right panel in, the 2 reds (that are supposed to match and blend together) dont match. When you look on the screen (the proof) the colors and pictures pop out instantly, the pictures on the menus are kinda dark and eerie and have this shade of black to em.
Second was the fold. There is a good 1/16" strip on the back page from where it meets the front page which looks god awful.
Then there is our fonts and typesetting. We have basically 2 types, bold and then regular italics. The bold is for the item and the italics is for the description. For example, our first type of crust is thin crust plus the description. They are both a nice solid black (the way they should be). Then the rest of the crusts descriptions are like a gray or black with a white outline that totally doesn’t match.
And finally, now the fun part. He also had promised 1000 free business cards with my order (which I had to bring up several times and they didn’t show up till way after the menus already came). We wanted to do loyalty cards that we would stamp with our custom shape stamp (you know, stamps with INK) so when they buy a pizza they get a stamp. I must of said that 100 times that these are going to be stamped with INK so the finish has to be matte. It even says that theyre for stamps on the card. And I even put in the final comments to my final proof order to send to print that they have to be matte finish. Well after all that time and waiting, I got my cards. To my surprise, they were glossy finish! Who woulda thought that glossy finish cards are INK resistant… Of course I called to let them know and he said he would “rush” out a new batch. Almost 2 weeks later I got my new cards and although they are a much improvement, they still have a tiny bit of gloss on them and when we go to stamp it, it smears and I dont think people like that in their purses or wallet too much. Not to mention, it just looks messy.
Sorry, I really just needed to vent. I know they are a big company that does tons of menus with I’m sure lots of satisfied people, some of you probably. I was just one of the unlucky ones to have this type of experience.
Long time no talk. I havent been very active here cause Ive been so busy with opening by myself and then closing by myself. So you guys know, we decided to reopen June 1st. We were closed for a good month but after some long thoughts, keeping it open was our best bet for everyone. Sales have been a little bit better than before and I’m noticing a lot more repeat business and word of mouth business. We kinda did a restructuring. We fixed our pizza sauce problem and now use Fresh Packed Tomatoes, we added pastas and sandwiches to our menu, new lunch specials with good deals, and slices of pizza with a real slice merchandiser.
Anywho, I just wanted to share my experience that I had with Taradel. I am by no means knocking their company or who they are or what they represent, just wanted to make others aware so maybe they dont go through the same thing as I did. Plus I need to vent.
Our first batch of menus when we opened came from a different place and they were 100# stock paper with digital print. Very nice menus. The quality, print, design (maybe not as eye catching as some but the design was perfectly uniform), color, fold etc etc. We didn’t want to skimp on quality but after many conversations with Chris, he lured me into a thinner paper and promised over and over how nice these menus will look. So after many, many proofs and changes (you wouldn’t believe the simplest of errors, spacing/grammar/punctuation) we got our menus… And I dont think in all the years of this business I have been so disappointed. It was a huge slap in the face b/c I passed on Chris’s promise to my father and hyped it all up just like Chris did to me.
First thing right off the bat was the color. I understand (now) that these were short run menus blah blah blah, but had I known they would look like this from the very beginning, I would have upgraded. We have graphic fold lines and the front to back colors are different shades AND textures of red… So when you have the menu completely open and fold the right panel in, the 2 reds (that are supposed to match and blend together) dont match. When you look on the screen (the proof) the colors and pictures pop out instantly, the pictures on the menus are kinda dark and eerie and have this shade of black to em.
Second was the fold. There is a good 1/16" strip on the back page from where it meets the front page which looks god awful.
Then there is our fonts and typesetting. We have basically 2 types, bold and then regular italics. The bold is for the item and the italics is for the description. For example, our first type of crust is thin crust plus the description. They are both a nice solid black (the way they should be). Then the rest of the crusts descriptions are like a gray or black with a white outline that totally doesn’t match.
And finally, now the fun part. He also had promised 1000 free business cards with my order (which I had to bring up several times and they didn’t show up till way after the menus already came). We wanted to do loyalty cards that we would stamp with our custom shape stamp (you know, stamps with INK) so when they buy a pizza they get a stamp. I must of said that 100 times that these are going to be stamped with INK so the finish has to be matte. It even says that theyre for stamps on the card. And I even put in the final comments to my final proof order to send to print that they have to be matte finish. Well after all that time and waiting, I got my cards. To my surprise, they were glossy finish! Who woulda thought that glossy finish cards are INK resistant… Of course I called to let them know and he said he would “rush” out a new batch. Almost 2 weeks later I got my new cards and although they are a much improvement, they still have a tiny bit of gloss on them and when we go to stamp it, it smears and I dont think people like that in their purses or wallet too much. Not to mention, it just looks messy.
Sorry, I really just needed to vent. I know they are a big company that does tons of menus with I’m sure lots of satisfied people, some of you probably. I was just one of the unlucky ones to have this type of experience.
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