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It’s been a year of change for Chef Rod Butters.
First he morphed his fine dining restaurant Frescos to the more pocketbook friendly RauDZ Regional Table, and now he’s embraced social networking as a means to reach out to more prospective customers.
Launched this month are video podcasts on both the RauDZ.com website and iTunes. With a message about the importance of using fresh ingredients accompanied by easy to follow recipes and high quality graphics, the podcast titled Home Plate has been a hit and recognized as New and Notable by iTunes.
The podcast’s title Home Plate is a nod to Butters’ former baseball career as well as his passion for featuring local, close-to-home ingredients. The podcasts allow Butters to share his cooking philosophy and “takes you behind the lines and into a professional kitchen”, giving quick tips and insight of a professional chef.
Butters is not alone in his most recent endeavor as social media is changing the way chefs communicate with their customers. Previously a copy-heavy menu expressed the chef’s philosophy and presented their culinary point of view, but today, through the use of blogs, podcasts and twitter, chefs can express their viewpoints and passions in an approachable and tangible way. In addition to his podcasts, Chef Butters also blogs on the RauDZ.com website and his tweets can be found @RauDZ.
The brief 140 characters of micro-blogging on Twitter gives Butters a unique opportunity to offer a shout out to the farmers delivering the fresh asparagus to the kitchen, the fresh peaches used to create the featured dessert and all the various locals providing farm fresh ingredients to the RauDZ kitchen.
“I enjoy customers telling me they follow me on Twitter” said Butters. “It can provide instant feedback on what we are doing in the restaurant and can be personal with direct messaging with fellow restaurateurs or a guest”.
RauDZ Regional Table is located at 1560 Water Street, in downtown Kelowna, BC.
Tags: Raudz, Raudz regional table, Twitter
