Off the top of your head, can you think of a restaurant that has seasoned fries? I bet you can. Pretty much everyone thinks seasoned fries are way better than normal ones. I can think of a couple of different restaurants that have pretty strong local reputations based almost entirely off their seasoned fries.
What about crushed ice? Everyone loves it when fast food places have crushed ice and yet everywhere I go I find nothing but cubes.
There are some really basic things that businesses can do to set themselves apart. I'm not sure why it's so rare for new restaurants to take advantage of a simple trick like crushed ice, but my guess is that most of them are focusing all the complicated stuff that doesn't actually matter that much. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars and months of your time working with a marketing firm to pick the perfect colors for your logo, or you can spend 30 minutes and a few hundred dollars and get a machine to crush your ice which gives each and every one of your customers something to remember you by.
Obviously there's more to starting a successful restaurant than having a crushed ice machine and some seasoned salt, but I think little things could go a long way. We've all heard the statistics about how there are about five gazillion new restaurants started every year and only about 15 of them actually succeed. Of those five gazillion, I bet about two gazillion get all the big stuff right. They probably find good locations, hire competent employees, and market their business well. They probably just fail because there's nothing remarkable about them (and a little bad luck may be involved).
If you're a new business looking to make an good first impression, or you're an existing business trying to figure out how to grow, I think that you should consider buying some metaphorical seasoned salt. Do something small, but memorable so that when your customers are thinking about coming back, they remember that little something extra that sets you apart from the competition.
If you run a movie theater, maybe you should serve a unique snack. If you are a dentist, put a video game system in the waiting room that people can play while they're waiting. If you build software, just build one feature that no one else has. Whatever you do, your business could use some seasoned salt.
