Web Page Review – Jose Inc., Fayetteville

www.oleforjoses.com

rrJose Inc. – Joe Fennel’s parent company for Jose’s Mexican Restaurant, Jose’s Streetside and Bordino’s on Dickson Street in Fayetteville – has found a way to market itself to prospective employees. Job applications for all three establishments may be filled out and submitted online at www.oleforjoses.com.

rFennel has also figured out that coopetition is good for e-business. The restaurant triumvirate’s site, www.oleforjoses.com, lists The Event Group as its catering connection. The relationship is not technically coopetition since The Event Group previously operated out of Jose’s kitchen and Fennel is no longer in the catering business.

rBut Jose lists the now independent firm on its Web site at no charge, offering customers the choice of having a party brought to them instead of visiting one of Jose’s venues. So in a way, it is a competitive kinship.

rTaylor Mack Advertising in Fayetteville designed the site, which includes about 30 pages. The idea was to make www.oleforjoses.com both a customer and community information forum. The site includes pages for Jose’s high school athlete of the week and the winner’s of Jose’s Kids Art contest. There’s also a handy local calendar.

rOne of our reviewers said the site doesn’t fit well on standard browser settings (800 by 600 pixels), which causes surfers to have to scroll down to view much of the home page. He added that the font used on the site’s navigational elements bitmaps and is sometimes difficult to read.

rAlso, some of the menu items are blurry. But our most critical reviewer said he did like the animation and overall design theme because it “definitely fits the restaurant.”

rWe did have a little trouble getting the “map to Jose’s” to load in a timely fashion, even over several DSLs. But our three other reviewers had but one criticism — Why can’t we buy Jose’s enchiladas and chimichangas over the Internet and have them delivered?

rJose Inc. general manager Aaron Nickells said the company has not yet found a feasible way to provide its food online. But complete menus are listed for customers to simply preview, phone in pick-up orders or even for businesses to keep around for lunchtime cravings.

rWe were glad to see, however, that Jose’s t-shirts and hot sauce are available on the site. And we were very amused to read the “Tequila News” section, which updated us on the blue agave blight in Jalisco, Mexico, and quoted, of all people, Ramon Gonzalez, Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council chief.

rDespite a couple of minor glitches, the site left us all saying, “chimichanga.com, chimichanga.com, chimichanga.com.”