Here in Chicago, the Corner Bakery restaurant chain is fairly ubiquitous. They serve things like coffee, desserts, soups and sandwiches, and seem to attract a steady stream of customers. During the weekend, I walked by one of their larger locations, which takes up almost the whole first floor of a building. I’ve passed this location many times before, but I never thought about how they attract so many customers. Now, I think I understand part of the secret.

In short, Corner Bakery stencils the windows of every location with a long list of all the food and drinks they offer. I’m paraphasing a bit, but I believe it goes something like this:

“Coffee – Espresso – Soup – Sandwiches – Cookies – Desserts” (and so on)

Basically, they’ve listed every menu item right on the window. Walk by once, and perhaps you’ll notice one or two things. But walk by multiple times, and you really start to notice the huge variety of things they offer. As a customer acquisition strategy, I bet this is some of the cheapest and most effective advertising they could possibly do. And judging by how busy the locations tend to get, putting the product list right on the window seems like a brilliant idea, indeed.