The purpose of this article is to help restaurants that are thinking about having multiple food challenges. Having multiple food challenges can help you cater to a larger number of your potential customers if you combine the correct kinds of food challenges, giving you even greater marketing power. If you create multiple types of challenges without combining the right kinds of challenges, this will actually hurt your marketing power rather than help you because you will not be able to maintain one centralized and focused advertising campaign. Having one excellent, focused campaign yields much higher results than if you are spending even more effort marketing multiple campaigns that don’t combine well together. If you are thinking about having more than one food challenge at your restaurant, here are some ideas and tips for you to think about before designing them:

Having multiple large quantity challenges – Having two or three larger quantity challenges don’t really reach different groups of challengers. There are only 3 types of food challengers which are quantity challengers, speed eaters, and spicy food challengers. Most quantity challengers don’t eat spicy challenges and many spicy challengers can’t eat large quantity challenges. Those 2 groups are much more likely to participate in speed challenges though. If you are going to have multiple large challenges, increase your marketing power by keeping the challenge names similar. For example, Smokey’s Joint, a restaurant in Walsall, England, has a large Monster Burger Challenge, Monster Hot Dog Challenge, and a Monster Burrito Challenge, and they all combine together and work really well in Smokey’s marketing campaign. They are not the only example of this either.

Having a quantity challenge and spicy challenge – This is the most common form of having multiple food challenges which caters to both quantity challengers and spicy food challengers. Since they are completely different types of challenges that reach different crowds, you need to treat them differently. They can be marketed at the same time, but don’t expect quantity challengers to be interested in the spicy challenge, and the spicy food challengers to be interested in the big quantity challenge. The popularity of each depends on the type of restaurant you are and the clientele that you attract, and one challenge may be more popular than the other. Sometimes the popularity of each challenge can average out to be about equal. There are no guarantees.

Having a quantity challenge and speed challenge – This can be a smart idea too because the quantity challenge caters to the big eaters while the speed challenge caters to the faster eaters that can’t eat as much. These challenges are more capable of being marketed together, since the spicy challengers in your area might still be interested in your speed challenge. A speed challenge creates a different atmosphere in your restaurant too than quantity challenges do, so you can better the experience for some diners by having both for them to watch and participate in. Quantity challengers are usually also interested in speed challenges, but quantity and speed don’t necessarily correlate, meaning that the biggest quantity eater may not be the fastest eater for the speed challenge. If designed correctly, the two challenges can work well together and attract a lot more customers.

Having a large quantity challenge and a smaller quantity challenge – This combination is common too where a restaurant has a large quantity challenge with a longer time limit with better prizes for the big eaters, and then a smaller similar challenge with a shorter time limit with smaller prizes for the lesser eaters. This can be a great way to reach different levels of eaters while still having one central marketing campaign, since both challenges are similar. For example, a larger city restaurant may offer a big burger with a 1kg burger patty with toppings, fries, and a drink that has to be finished in 30 minutes, and winners get a free shirt and gift certificate. The same restaurant may also have a challenge where they just add a 1kg burger patty with the same toppings to make it a double burger with the same sides and a drink, and then establish a 1 hour time limit, awarding winners the meal free along with a shirt and an even higher value gift certificate. Doing this will work much better, and the marketing will be much easier than having a large burger challenge and a medium-sized hot dog challenge.

Having a team challenge and a solo challenge – More often than not, it is best to just have 1 food challenge at your restaurant, but there are a ton of situations where restaurants have more than 1 successful food challenge, and each situation completely depends on the restaurant type and location. Restaurants with team challenges though can usually benefit by adding a smaller solo challenge. The major drawback to team challenges is that sometimes it can be hard to find a qualified partner that is also wanting to attempt the same challenge. You also then have to be able to both meet at the same time too which can be hard for people with conflicting schedules. By having a solo challenge and a team challenge, a person won’t have to worry about finding a qualified partner, and can still take a challenge at your restaurant. It will not work to have the same challenge be both an individual and a team challenge, unless it’s too small to be a real team quantity challenge so it actually becomes a team speed challenge with a short time limit. A 5 star challenge that is also a team challenge is way too big for 98% of your customers to beat alone, so you are actually hurting yourself by advertising it as a solo challenge too. Make it just a team challenge and then create a smaller but similar solo challenge. For example, a pizza place may have a 30″ team challenge along with a 20″ solo pizza challenge. If you go this route, make sure to have similar names and prizes for your marketing purposes so that everything flows smoothly together.

Having 5 similar sized food challenges – This is extremely rare in the United States but I have seen it multiple times throughout the United Kingdom, where a restaurant will offer 4 or 5 different types of food challenges all around the same size with similar time limits. If you are going to do this, you will basically become known as a restaurant that offers food challenges rather than being known for one particular symbolic challenge. Most people won’t really know what challenges you offer, so you will get the question a lot via social media. An example of this is where a restaurant has a burger challenge, spicy wing challenge, hot dog challenge, nacho challenge, and dessert challenge, all around 4lbs (1.82kg) each with a 30 minute time limit for each challenge. One option for you may be to start with multiple challenges and see which challenge becomes more popular, and then stick with promoting that one particular challenge. From what I have seen, having a large variety of food challenges is counterproductive, not very effective, and usually hurts your efforts rather than helping them.

Having multiple challenges is more work – Food challenges can be a major part of your marketing campaign, but they are just a minor part of the everyday happenings at your restaurant. Busy restaurants don’t have all kinds of extra time to focus on the extra things that come up due to food challenges. A food challenger is a higher maintenance customer than regular customers because they require more attention, such as having to keep track of the time that customer has left to finish the challenge. Also, food challengers typically require more drinks than regular customers. If the customer wins, the server then has to get the prize for that person. Food challenges are typically more work for the kitchen staff too because more food is involved which takes up more room in the oven, in the fryer, or on the grill. The benefits of having a food challenge are definitely worth the extra time involved, but having multiple challenges are even more work for everyone for obvious reasons, so restaurants should think hard before creating multiple challenges. One great one is better than 2 okay ones.

Multiple food challenges can work for restaurants if created and marketed correctly, but my biggest suggestion is to remember that “less is more.” The more food challenges you have, the less symbolic they become of your restaurant which gives you decreased marketing power than if you only had one challenge. You can’t become “The home of (your challenge name)” if you have 5 food challenges. Over 80% of restaurants only have 1 food challenge because having 1 challenge is usually more powerful and it involves much less effort to maintain while still receiving all the associated benefits. Remember that too much of a good thing is not always a good thing!!

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This article really only applies in the United Kingdom and Ireland because that is the only area I’ve found this situation to occur, but there are a few restaurants that have chosen to host a monthly eating challenge contest rather than an actual food challenge. Here are a few things to think about if you are debating whether to have a food challenge or to spend a lot more wasted effort and time hosting a monthly eating challenge contest:

The more often an event occurs, the less special it becomes – In the shopping world, an annual “sale” is a lot more exciting to go to versus a “sale” that occurs every month. If you can’t make it this month, you can just go next month for the same experience. The same goes for sporting events and concerts. If your favorite singer only comes once per year to your area, you will cancel other plans for that night to make sure you are available. If he or she comes 12 times per year, its then not a big deal if you have to skip the event. The same goes for eating contests. The more often a contest is held, the less special it becomes. A proper contest takes a lot of time to set up and promote, and more than likely the event attendance and rewards from having the contest each month will not be worth the effort spent making everything happen, and they will continually decline.

There are too many variables every month – You cannot have the contest on the same date every month because the dates always fall on different days. You can have a contest the first Tuesday of every month, but what happens if some other big event is going on that night in your community? Usually, restaurants that have monthly contests have a different menu every month, which also requires the extra effort to keep planning new dishes. You may have many people interested in your contests, but nobody will ever know all of the details, so you will constantly have to answer questions about the date, time, food, prizes, and other details, and you will always get complaints because you can never please every single person. A challenge is constant, and all questions can be answered on the same advertisement. The variables of monthly eating contests change every month and again, the efforts to minimize confusion and make everyone happy are not worth the end rewards.

People have busy lives – A food challenge can typically be taken during normal business hours at any time the restaurant is open, especially if the challenger notifies the restaurant well in advance so that the restaurant can be prepared. This makes things convenient for people with busy everyday lives and families. A person may want to do your challenge contest, but that person may have to work or may have something else going on almost every month at that time which never allows him or her to compete which is definitely frustrating. Your contests may lack attendance simply because the people that really want to compete aren’t able to free themselves up to attend the event. On the other hand, if you had a challenge that person would have been able to have competed a long time ago when it was convenient for that person and family. Food challenges are much more convenient!!

Hosting eating challenge contests can be great and a lot of fun for your customers and restaurant staff, but they become less special the more often they are held causing the rewards to be less and less. The rewards decrease but the efforts to host the event typically remain the same, and soon become inconvenient for most parties involved. If you want to have an eating event that occurs often in your restaurant, you should consider creating and hosting a food challenge rather than hosting many small individual eating challenge contests.

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Another situation that I found multiple times during my study of food challenges is that most restaurants maintain one constant food challenge all the time throughout the year, but there are some restaurants that change their food challenge fairly often. Some restaurants change their challenge based on the season, and other restaurants change their challenge whenever they switch up their menus. Then there are other restaurants that change their challenge every quarter (every 3 months), and I even found a restaurant that changes their challenge every month. If you are considering whether to have one consistent challenge or to change your challenge throughout the year, here are a few ideas to factor into the decision before you begin creating it:

There will be no symbolism – This should be obvious, but if you constantly change up your food challenge, then there will be no symbolism involved with it that can be used in your marketing plan. You will basically just be advertising that you have a food challenge on your menu, and there really isn’t anything that special about it. People will still come to take the challenge, but there will be no real significance that ties the challenge to your restaurant. This reduces the chances that people will tell their friends about the challenge, and it definitely eliminates the chances that people will travel from far distances just to take your challenge. People will travel an hour just to eat at a restaurant famous for one particular challenge, but not to eat at just some average restaurant with a food challenge on the menu, unless your challenge is the only challenge around. Most of the challenge attempts will be by customers ordering it just because they are really hungry or they got provoked by a friend after a few drinks. If you are going to constantly change your eating challenge, I suggest limiting it to being just 2 stars in size at most so that more people try it, since it won’t be considered anything special.

There will be confusion – There were many times while searching on Facebook for food challenge information that I would come across a picture from a year ago, and I would see a recent comment asking whether or not the particular challenge was still available. If a restaurant is known because of a food challenge, people won’t have to ask if the challenge is available, because they already know it is. Also, a person may see a delicious looking meatball sandwich challenge on your Facebook page or website and want to try it, but then get disappointed when they find out you are currently offering a spicy wing challenge. If you are going to change food challenges, keep your social media updated along with your website and keep people less confused. I made hundreds of calls to restaurants to double check challenge information and make sure their challenge still existed, and sometimes a host or hostess would tell me just to check out the website or Facebook. The reason that I even had to call was because their website or Facebook were completely confusing with pictures of 2 or 3 different challenges. If you are going to keep switching things up, please keep everyone updated. If people are confused and don’t even know what challenge you offer, they are much less likely to want to attempt your challenge.

These are the 2 main things to think about before deciding to change up your challenge often. Changing your challenge because the original one was not working is a completely different story, and is not what this article is referring to. If you are a smaller restaurant in a small town that typically caters to the same crowd of local people, you may need to change your challenge every now and then simply because everyone has already tried the previous one. In this scenario, you definitely want to change things up and keep things fresh at your cafe / restaurant. If you are a restaurant that changes up your challenge often, please keep FoodChallenges.com updated because we definitely do not keep track of all 3,000+ food challenges. This is a community based website and we depend on updates from the community of eaters, fans, and restaurant owners to keep things up to date. Make sure to contact us with the new challenge or restaurant details, and any other changes, so that we can change the information in our database so your challenge and potential customers are kept up to date.

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You can find top 10 lists, top 25 lists, top 100 lists, and many other kinds of lists around the world created by news media outlets and different websites that rank all kinds of different restaurant foods such as massive burgers, BBQ ribs, tacos, outrageous pasta dishes, towering sandwiches, and many other foods. When is the last time that you saw the headline “Top 25 Salads” online or while waiting to check out at the grocery store? Your answer is probably NEVER. If you did see a list involving salads, the list was probably ranking all of the most ridiculously unhealthy salads and taco salads, which aren’t exactly salads. The fact is that nobody is going to travel 100 miles to try your house salad, and nobody is going to tell all their friends about how good your side salad was. People love to see outrageous things like 6,000 calorie breakfasts, 6lb burritos, and 12-patty burgers loaded with cheese and bacon served with grilled cheese sandwiches as the buns. If you want to get known for something and be featured in any kind of list worth sharing, it has to be both outrageous and very unique.

Create a food challenge so crazy and different that it can only be found at your restaurant, and you will most definitely be happy that you did. You may even have to experiment a few different times with new ideas to come up with the final product, but make sure you create something that will make a person want to lick the screen when they see it posted on Facebook. If you are going to put that much thought into creating the challenge, don’t just take a picture with your camera phone and upload it. Find somebody with a high definition camera, or even hire a professional photographer to take a proper picture with proper lighting. If you do it big and do it right, people will share that advertisement photo like crazy. Because you were smart and posted your restaurant name and city on the photo, anybody that sees it will know the only place to get it. People will soon be in to try your challenge, especially if it is priced right with a proper time limit and prize, just like any other challenge.

If you take a few minutes and look back at the food challenges that were featured on Man v Food, or any other television show for that matter, there were certain unique characteristics about each of the challenges chosen. Every challenge was outrageous and was the only one of its kind within hundreds of miles. Nobody celebrates “normal” and nobody loves “average” so don’t be like everyone else. It may take a few thousand calories of food with a few hundred grams of fat to create your crazy challenge, but remember that the same people aren’t going to be trying it each and every week. For an item like this, it should definitely be offered as a menu item that groups can share too, rather than being only offered as a challenge. Doing this will create even more exposure, especially if you go a step further and take pictures of the groups that order it and put the pictures up on the Wall of Fame along with the customers that attempted it as a challenge. The main purpose of the challenge is for marketing your restaurant, reaching people that you would not have otherwise if you didn’t have the food challenge. If you are going to do it, go all out, and make it the best!! You will be very happy that you did.

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When a person is searching around on the internet looking for new and interesting places to eat that he/she hasn’t ever been to before, there are many different restaurants to choose from. There are even hundreds of options to choose from in really big cities. Sometimes a person may see something exciting while browsing menus and restaurant reviews that just stands out and makes the person decide, “I want to go there.” In order for your smaller restaurant to survive in a city full of other competing restaurants, you have to have something special that separates you from your competition, making people want to check out your atmosphere and menu. If you are a burger restaurant, you are definitely not the only burger restaurant. If you are a Mexican restaurant, you are definitely not the only Mexican restaurant. Even if you are a doughnut shop, chances are that you are not the only doughnut shop around. What makes your restaurant different from all of the other similar ones?

A food challenge may just be that something special that separates you from all of your competitors. If a person who likes bigger portions knows that you have a food challenge at your restaurant, that person may want to check out your restaurant simply because food challenges are typically associated with restaurants that generally serve bigger portioned menu items. That person didn’t even want to try your food challenge, but because you have one he or she wanted to come and try your food. A person browsing the internet may see a picture of your food challenge and think it looks really good. That person may come try out your menu because he or she thought the challenge item looked good, and therefore concluded that the rest of your menu must taste pretty good. Those are two examples of how having and advertising a food challenge attracted people that didn’t even want to order the actual item that attracted them to your restaurant in the first place. Follow that?

If you are still debating whether or not to host a food challenge, spend a few minutes checking out your city on our Map Search. How many food challenges are there around your restaurant? How many of those challenges around you are similar to the type of challenge you had in mind? If there are not many challenges around you, or there are no challenges around you similar to the one that you had in mind for your restaurant, let me answer the question for you. YES YOU SHOULD HOST A FOOD CHALLENGE!!! Separate yourself from the rest of your local competition. Be bold and tell your competitors that your restaurant is better than theirs, without even having to actually say anything at all. People will visit your restaurant if you have an exciting challenge. Some of those people will want to order your challenge, and other people will just want to check out the rest of the menu because your restaurant looked delicious and different. All these people would not have come if you had decided to be boring and never created a challenge. Dare to be different, and you will most definitely like the results!!

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Before you commit to creating and hosting a food challenge, make sure you understand that the work is NOT done after you develop the challenge and finally announce all of the details to your customers. Just like this website, maintaining the challenge after starting it will be easier and will take less time than creating it, but you will still have to put forth some additional effort to keep the challenge running smoothly and successfully. When you directly commit to starting a challenge, you are also indirectly committing to maintaining the challenge and keeping it going. Many restaurants that decide to end their challenge declare that “it lost its luster” as the reason for stopping it. Challenges do not just lose their luster and excitement. It may have lost it’s “newness,” but the problem is that the restaurant did absolutely nothing to keep the challenge going and just let it sit there, hoping that somebody would try it. If you don’t use it, you will most likely lose it.

Here are the main things that you will have to do to keep your challenge going successfully:

Keep the challenge materials in stock – This really only applies to challenges that involve custom parts like a specially made bun from the baker or a specially cut piece of meat from the butcher. If somebody orders your challenge, you don’t want to have to tell that person no, so you need to keep track and make sure that the challenge materials are in stock. Most eaters will hopefully call ahead for bigger challenges, but many people assume that they don’t need to if the challenge is not extremely large. You may get a few random people ordering the challenge just for fun, and it may ruin their opinion of your restaurant if you tell them no. People won’t order the challenge if they feel that they are an inconvenience, so make sure that you never have to turn people down, especially if your challenge is only 1 or 2 stars. Obviously, big groups need to call ahead though.

Keep your restaurant staff updated – I try to call well in advance before taking a challenge just to let the restaurant know that I am coming, and while I’m on the phone I usually try to confirm the challenge details just to be safe. I also called over 1,000 restaurants while putting together the updated list of food challenges featured on this website. It’s amazing how many people answering the phones at restaurants with challenges have no idea that they even have a food challenge at the restaurant. Many of the ones that do have to give the phone to a manager or read the challenge off the menu (something I already did on the website menu before calling). Keep your restaurant staff updated about your food challenge. When training new employees, make sure they know the details of your challenge too. If you do decide to end your challenge, let your staff know that so that they can let me know when they ask about the challenge. If you want people to call ahead, make sure your staff in charge of answering the phone knows the details that you are looking for. People can’t try your challenge if they don’t know about it, and it’s pretty hard for people to find out about it when your restaurant staff doesn’t even know about it. Make the effort to keep your staff informed and your challenge will get more attempts and will run a lot smoother, and your restaurant’s overall image will be much more professional too.

Maintain The Wall Of Fame – The easiest way to let your customers know that you have a food challenge is to have a Wall of Fame inside your restaurant. It amazes me when restaurants don’t have one because they are so simple to create and maintain. Then customers are able to walk by, look at the pictures, and they may even decide then and there that it looks fun so they want to try it. If 100 people have tried and they are all smiling, then they may want to be number 101. The more flashy your Wall of Fame is, the more people will check it out. Do you stare at a guy with a purple mohawk haircut with a neon yellow shirt or do you take more interest in the guy with a plain white t-shirt? Keep your Wall Of Fame updated with all of the pictures and/or names of the eating challengers. The more photos and names that you have displayed, the more inclined people will be to join in too.

Keep your social media followers engaged – I follow many different restaurants with food challenges on Facebook just to study their food challenge related posts and patterns. I do have a few favorites obviously, and the one similarity between all of them is that they post pictures of challengers almost every day to give their fans fun updates about how people have been doing. They post pictures of the fails, and then get hundreds of ‘likes’ when somebody actually wins. A big reason that people are trying it almost every day is because it is very reasonably priced, but another reason is because the restaurant makes the effort to take pictures and post about it every single day. How many people actually read your specials every day? “Not many” was hopefully your answer. It only takes a quick 5 seconds for somebody scrolling through their Facebook to see your post of a challenger with the remaining food left after he or she is finished. They immediately move on and keep scrolling, but you caught their eye just long enough to get your restaurant imprinted again in that person’s memory. Constant contact is a proven selling technique, and posting food challenge photos is a fun way to do that. People see all these other people doing the challenge, so they want to join in eventually too and take the food challenge themselves, or at least continue having fun following all the updates. Just a few minutes before and after whenever somebody takes the challenge will make a BIG difference to your customers and your wallet.

Keep trying to reach new people – If you only market your challenge to the same 500 people, well then yes your challenge is definitely going to lose its luster. To be honest your restaurant is going to lose it’s luster too if you only market to the same people. Keep trying to reach new people, and feel free to use your challenge as the “attention grabber” and “lead blocker” to get your name out there. As you read in Reasons To Have A Food Challenge, a well designed food challenge can put your restaurant “on the map” and attract a lot more new customers, but it won’t work unless you push it and make it work. A little extra effort can sometimes go a long way if you are working smarter and not just harder, but it won’t work if you don’t want it to be successful.

Hopefully after reading all of that, you can see that maintaining a successful food challenge isn’t hard or time consuming, but it does just take a little effort every now and then. Hopefully many of those things sound fun to you, such as posting on Facebook or updating the Wall of Fame. Would you prefer mopping and cleaning? Food challenges can do a lot for your restaurant, but just know going into everything that the effort of making it work never really ends. The more effort you put into the design though, the easier your challenge will be to maintain.

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There are 2 main types of restaurants with multiple locations. Some locations are all owned by the same owner, and then some restaurants are franchises where all of the locations are individually owned. This article pertains mostly to restaurants where the same owner owns all of the locations, but I do have just a few comments for franchise owners that want to start a challenge at their own particular restaurant that is not at other locations.

Have the same challenge with the same rules at all locations – Keep the challenge uniform at all locations, and don’t allow there to be a different set of rules at each location. Don’t allow 45 minutes at one location for the time limit and then 1 hour at the other location. Don’t only award shirts at one location and not the others. If the challenge details are different at each location, then the restaurant with the best set of rules and prizes will get the most attempts and all of the other restaurants will suffer. Having one uniform food challenge is a lot more powerful and it also gets rid of possible questions and arguments that may come up due to very unnecessary confusion and misunderstandings. Your restaurant will look a lot more professional and will operate smoothly.

Have the challenge at all of your locations – Your challenge will give you much more marketing power if you have the challenge at every location. If you only have the challenge at 1 location, you can only promote that restaurant and you have to leave out all of the others, which makes no sense as a business strategy. The only time it may be ok to only have the challenge at one or just a few locations is if your other locations are all in completely different cities and markets. You also keep your customers on the same page and less confused, making them more likely to want to attempt your challenge. It’s inconvenient to have to call all eight of your restaurants in the area to find out which location has the challenge. If you don’t want to make the effort to have the same challenge at all locations in the area, you are probably better off not having a food challenge at all.

For individual franchise owners – First of all, thank you for being interested in having a food challenge at your restaurant. The number 1 thing for you to do is to find out if your restaurant franchise rules even allow you to have a challenge at your particular location. You don’t want to go through the effort of starting a challenge just to receive a phone call from the parent restaurant owners telling you to end the challenge. If you are allowed to have a food challenge, by all means get one started!! The rules for you are basically the same as they are for any other restaurant owner. You just need to do one thing on all of your promotional materials. Make sure to list that the challenge is only available at your location(s) and that it is not available anywhere else. People will then know that they can’t go to the other franchise restaurant 15 minutes away. They know that your restaurant has the challenge and that your restaurant is the one they need to visit. Seeing an advertisement like that may just get people to visit your restaurant over the others just because you seem like you care more since you spent the extra time and started a challenge. Good luck getting things started and let us know how we can help you!!

As you can see, things are pretty much the same for restaurants with multiple locations as they are for individual restaurants. Restaurants with multiple locations just need to remember to maintain uniformity so that the restaurants can be marketed as one unit rather than requiring multiple less-powerful campaigns. Restaurants with different challenges requiring different campaigns at each location are just as silly as one restaurant having two totally different challenges that require two separate campaigns. Maintain uniformity and your challenge has a higher chance of creating successful opportunities for your restaurant as a whole.

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Of all the steps involved with hosting a food challenge, creating the challenge is by far the most important step in the process. A well designed challenge that is fitting for your restaurant’s attitude and atmosphere will make everything go so much easier and smoother for you and your staff in regards to marketing the challenge and just hosting customer challenges in general. Because everything is so much easier, the challenge will become so much more fun for everyone involved and the challenge’s momentum will just continue to build and build. On the other hand, a poorly planned and executed challenge will be tough to promote after the first few months which will cause the frequency of attempts to become less and less. The “excitement” and significance of the food challenge will continue to decrease until the challenge turns into more of an inconvenience for your staff whenever a person wants to actually take the challenge. Eventually both the restaurant staff and customers will forget about the challenge and it will be ended. You can easily prevent a food challenge from failing and make things easier by placing more emphasis on the initial design phase. You will be very happy with the results.

There are 8 main steps to creating a food challenge which establish all of the major details that are required to have a successful food challenge. Here are those 8 details which are explained by their articles (click on them):

1) Kind of challenge

2) Type of challenge

3) Size and components of challenge

4) Time limit of challenge

5) House challenge rules

6) Price of challenge

7) Prizes for winning

8) Name of challenge

Clicking on any of those links will take you right to the page explaining each of the different steps to creating a food challenge. Every eating challenge all over the world has these exact same eight details. Whether each restaurant with a food challenge meant to specifically establish each detail or not, all eight details had to be established. Each step is equally important towards the goal of creating a successful food challenge. One poorly planned detail can potentially ruin your challenge. If the time limit is too short, people won’t have a chance to win. If the challenge is too big, then people will eventually stop attempting the challenge. If the prizes for winning are not worth the effort, people won’t take your challenge. If the challenge costs too much, people won’t want to risk taking the challenge. All 8 critical details combine to form 1 successful food challenge.

Now it’s time for YOU and your staff to get started creating a successful challenge for your own restaurant!! Please choose one of the steps above or to go back and view other Creating A Challenge articles, click here.

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The first and most important step of the design process is to decide which kind of challenge you want to have in your restaurant. This decision affects almost every other step in the creation process. Before going any further, make sure you read and understand The Different Kinds Of Food Challenges. There are 10 different kinds, and they are briefly explained in that article, so make sure you have read it so that the rest of this article makes sense. Here are some questions to think about to help you decide which kind of challenge you are wanting:

Do you already have an existing menu item that will become the challenge? – This is an important question to mention early on because some restaurants already have an existing menu item, and now they are considering turning it into an actual food challenge. Sometimes a restaurant may have a pretty big meal as a menu item, and customers may start asking for it to become a food challenge. If this is the case for you and your restaurant, then pick which kind of challenge fits your particular menu item. If you have a 28″ pizza, it most likely needs to become a team challenge. If you have a 5lb appetizer plate of nachos, this would be best suited as a large quantity challenge. If this question pertains to you and your restaurant, pick the kind and go to step 2.

What size city do you live in? – If you read the Your Geographic Location Is A Major Factor article, you learned that there are typically more bigger eaters in a large city because there is just a larger number of people in the city. Larger cities can get by with larger challenges and shorter time limits than small town cities can. If your restaurant is located in a smaller city or town, you should not aim for a massive challenge because nobody will be able to finish it and the local people will quit trying. Decide to have a medium sized quantity challenge or speed challenge. If your restaurant is located in a bigger city, you may decide to have a large quantity food challenge. If answering this question helped answer the question, pick the challenge kind and go to step 2.

Do a lot of your customers like spicy food? – This question is easiest to answer for Indian and Thai restaurants because spices are used a lot more than in American style restaurants. If a lot of your customers could be classified as “chili heads” that love spicy food, your restaurant is more than likely suited for a spicy food challenge. If you serve a variety of flavored chicken wings and customers keep asking you to make them hotter, then you are probably most suited to have a spicy food challenge. If you never really get any customers asking to make a dish spicier, then you are probably more suited for a non-spicy speed or quantity food challenge.

Do you serve a lot of any particular foods? – Are there any particular food items that your restaurant is known for, such as tacos, wings, or sliders? If so, you may be suited for a quantity record challenge, especially if you have a certain night of the week when that particular item is on special. Then you can accent that particular food and night in your challenge advertising. If a restaurant has a wing record challenge on Wings Wednesdays when wings are cheaper, customers may be inclined to come up and have a few wings of their own while watching people try to set the record. If a burger joint is known for serving sliders 3 or 4 at a time, and some people sometimes order 8-10, your restaurant may be suited for a quantity record challenge. You may also be suited for a speed record challenge where paying customers see who can eat 10 regular sliders the fastest.

What is the attitude of your restaurant and clientele? – This is a very important question because the challenge needs to fit the atmosphere and attitude of your restaurant. Some kinds of challenges just don’t belong in certain types of restaurants. If you have a competitive atmosphere, then you should put together a smaller & more competitive speed or quantity challenge. You may even want to combine a medium quantity challenge with a speed record challenge, awarding a shirt and gift certificate for people finishing under 30 minutes, and the meal free only if a person can set the challenge record. The larger a challenge is, the less competitive it becomes, so remember that when deciding the kind of challenge. If your restaurant is a sports bar or some other type of restaurant that caters to competitive guys and sports, get the testosterone and beers flowing even more by creating a challenge that allows the guys to compete against each other at the dinner table during halftime.

Hopefully these questions provoked some thought and helped you decide which kind of challenge you want to have in your restaurant, cafe, or diner. Once you have made your final decision, its then time to go to step 2.

Thanks for reading why the kind of food challenge is the first detail you must establish!!

To go back and view other Creating A Challenge articles, click here.

Now that you have decided which kind of food challenge you want to host in your restaurant, it’s time to select the type of challenge you want to host which is typically a pretty easy decision. There are 28 basic types of food challenges that you can create in your restaurant. All 28 show up on the Map Search and they are all separated as “types” because eaters need to have a different strategy for each particular type. The types are all self explanatory so I have not written an kind of specific article about them, and therefore here is a list of them:

• • Asian (Asian foods not including soups or sushi)

• • BBQ (also includes chicken parm challenges)

• • Breakfast

• • Burger

• • Burrito

• • Calzone

• • Dessert

• • Greek (gyros)

• • Hispanic (Mexican foods not including tacos or burritos)

• • Hot Dog

• • Ice Cream

• • Irish (bangers & mash, shepherd’s pie, etc…)

• • Milkshake

• • Nacho

• • Omelet

• • Pancake

• • Pasta

• • Pizza

• • Potato (baked potatoes, poutine, etc…)

• • Sandwich

• • Seafood (also includes schnitzel challenges)

• • Spicy

• • Soup (pho and ramen soups)

• • Steak

• • Sushi

• • Taco

• • Team (any challenge with 2 or more people)

• Wing (does not include extra spicy wing challenges)

As you can can see, the type of challenge is basically the food that you want to serve. When added to the FoodChallenges.com database, your challenge will be added and classified under 1 of these 28 different types. Most restaurant owners already have a pretty good idea of what type of challenge they want to have, which is why I have listed picking the kind of challenge before picking the type of challenge, since the challenge kind is a much more difficult decision. The most important thing to remember when selecting the challenge type is that the challenge needs to represent your restaurant’s menu and attitude. It is pretty silly for a hot dog joint to start a burger challenge, and it is also silly for a Mexican restaurant to start a burger challenge. Select a challenge type that represents your restaurant and your menu, and marketing your food challenge will be much easier.

Thanks for reading why the type of food challenge is the second detail you must establish!!

Now that you have selected your challenge type, please go to step 3.

To go back and view other Creating A Challenge articles, click here.