It could be argued that the restaurant is the perfect encapsulation of the entire graphic communications market. Small-format print like menus, flyers, and promotional materials sit alongside wide-format and applied graphics like signage, wall graphics, floor graphics, and table graphics. Graphics can be applied to checkout counters—even salad bar sneezeguards. Depending on the restaurant, it can also include electronic signage, traditional exterior pylon signage, cut letters, neon, LED, even vehicle graphics. Then there is electronic media: the restaurant’s website, social media, non-print-based marketing. Any “full-service” print provider serving the restaurant market has likely discovered that those services are legion—and the time in which they need to be turned around is not quite “30 minutes or less” (as one pizza chain once advertised), although it can seem like it.

“I think when people realize they need signage, they’re ready for it that second,” said Eric Grossman, founder and CEO of marketing agency Graphic Alliance.“The rush is mad for signage, the turnaround is extreme.”

Located in Wheeling, Ill., a suburb northwest of Chicago, Graphic Alliance has built up a steady clientele in the ever-changing, ever-growing restaurant business, and Grossman believes that one of the keys to the company’s success has been its ability to turn jobs around very quickly.