Partnerships: Part 1
SUZUYA is SUZUYA today because of the help we’ve gotten from our partnerships over the years. At our core, SUZUYA is about our dedicated staff, both chefs and front of house, as well as our delicious creations that they serve our customers everyday. Beyond that, we have worked hard to establish great partnerships that help us make SUZUYA what it is today. We rely on our food distributors, cleaning companies, coffee roaster and branding agencies.
Our branding agency partner is Post Chromatic, a local firm that specializes in branding, digital and experiential design. We work with them to make sure that SUZUYA stays SUZUYA with our branding, both in store and digitally. One of the first major goals we had while working with them was to launch this brand new website. Over the years, we’ve had a few different websites, but they helped us realize some issues with the previous version and identified areas that needed to be updated and modernized.
Being chefs, we are not the best at computer diagnostics and operating, short of ordering products and setting up our point of sale system. They helped by clearing A LOT of old junk and redesigned a format that would enhance the customer experience and simplify our online ordering process.
Post Chromatic is one of our newer partners. We began working with them when we opened our new Buffalo location. They have also been involved in many new projects like design ideas for the new space, social media postings and new packaging, to name a few. Before we met them, we had ideas of what we would like to do but didn’t really know how to make that happen. For example, we wanted to do custom packaging and create a new website that fulfilled our needs and was more convenient for customers to pre-order cakes. We wanted to show what SUZUYA had to offer and to connect with our customers.
Another project was to clearly showcase our products that we are so proud of. We use high quality ingredients to make fresh, handmade pastries day after day. We are chefs that are in the kitchen all day and we knew we needed to get the word out about who we are and what we do and say to the world, “Look! This is what we make!!” For that, we really needed photos of our newer menu items to clearly show customers what these items are, so we talked to Post Chromatic and scheduled a photoshoot.
Personally, when I see other pastry menus and they show a featured item, I almost always get it, as opposed to the ones with just a written description. Pictures make me hungry! When something looks delicious, I can’t pass it up. Just the look of the food and my taste buds are getting ready!
Post Chromatic has been helping us do all that. Now more than ever, making sure we have proper marketing and PR is very important. We got the help we needed to take SUZUYA to the next level.
Through working with professionals from other industries, I see the passion that they have in what they do and it is inspiring to work with them. When our professional partners and SUZUYA work together, we create things that we could have never have imagined..because we give ideas and they come back with new ones! So here’s to great ideas and great partnerships!