How New Jersey Restaurant Prime 94 Used IRL Media to Turn Local Visibility into Regional Growth

December 11, 2025

If Adam Sandler showing up at your suburban restaurant saying he saw your billboard isn’t proof that IRL advertising works, we don’t know what is. Because for Prime 94 Steakhouse, billboards did the real sizzling.

There’s a universal challenge faced by every restaurant: how to stand out in a crowded dining market and attract new guests beyond their immediate neighborhood. Prime 94 is a local favorite here in Fairfield, New Jersey. But despite its reputation for bold flavors and warm hospitality, the restaurant needed to drive more traffic, especially during slower periods like weekday lunches and Monday dinners.

The goal of increasing the restaurant’s visibility wasn’t to just fill seats but to position Prime 94 as a destination dining experience – not just as a locals’ spot. That required a strategy to amplify awareness and spark curiosity among a broader audience.

The Secret Ingredients: Dynamic DOOH and Permanent Presence

To position Prime 94 as a true destination restaurant, we knew it would take more than just putting up billboards within a certain radius around their location. So we developed a campaign that would not only turn heads throughout New Jersey but spark curiosity online as well.

The media strategy combined nearby traditional static billboards with a statewide programmatic digital out of home execution. The two traditional billboards, reserved long-term as permanents or “perms,” served as a directional guiding hungry diners to their restaurant in that moment, while their programmatic campaign helped reach consumers from other parts of the state, building name recognition and curiosity.

To break through the noise and become impossible to miss, Prime 94 enlisted the help of STUDIOS, the creative team at OUTFRONT. After learning about the restaurant’s objectives, audience, and unique selling points, we developed a bold strategy to help drive traffic during slow times and improve general brand awareness.

Prime 94 leveraged the flexibility of dynamic digital creative by implementing dayparting, the delivery of creative with tailored messaging at specific times and days throughout the week. Daily from 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., diners could enjoy lunch promotions. Every Monday starting at 5:00 p.m., the digital bulletins and posters featured the restaurant’s signature prime rib dish to boost dinner traffic on the week’s slowest day. Dayparting is an example of contextual relevance, the practice of aligning a DOOH ad’s creative with the situation and environment in which the ad is consumed.

An Appetite-Satisfying Ad Campaign: The Results

Did the ad campaign succeed? Prime 94’s Rick Mieses told us that the billboard initiative quickly became “one of the most impactful marketing initiatives we’ve run.” Without spending a single dollar on Google ads, the restaurant’s organic search soared by 97%; overall web traffic was up as well (SOURCE: Prime 94). People who saw the boards went home and looked the restaurant up. Curiosity turned into searches, searches turned into discovery, and discovery turned into real meals.

The numbers tell a story of visibility leading to action. The skyrocketing organic Google searches proved that the billboard campaign had not just captured attention but sparked curiosity and intent. The digital surge translated into IRL results as guests exposed to the billboard looked up directions and called to book a table.

Perhaps most importantly, 93% of the visitors activated by the campaign were new guests, showing that the campaign reached far beyond the restaurant’s regular crowd. Mobile visitation spiked as well (SOURCE: Prime 94). All over New Jersey, people were discovering Prime 94 while on the move: on highways, in local neighborhoods, and within retail centers. And many of those discoveries turned into delicious meals.

Here’s the ultimate proof: Business is booming, with Prime 94 planning to expand to a second location in 2026. It’s a testament to how strategic visibility and smart storytelling can fuel growth.

What Your Restaurant Can Learn from Prime 94’s IRL Ad Campaign

When people like Adam Sandler drive past Prime 94’s billboard campaign, the ads told tell the story of a restaurant where the flavors are big, the welcome is warm, and you’re instantly met with the kind of atmosphere that’s worth a special trip.

Prime 94’s IRL out of home ad campaign proves that growth doesn’t have to stay confined to one neighborhood. Digital out of home allowed the restaurant to expand its brand reach far beyond its immediate area, while the permanent traditional billboards reinforced the restaurant’s presence locally.

Now, with a second location set to open in 2026, that reach is grasping more hungry diners than ever.

The takeaway: don’t just dominate your corner. When you expand your presence, your audience will expand with you.

Ready to expand? We’re ready to listen. Contact OUTFRONT today.

Author: Adriana Zelayandia, Marketing Intern @ OUTFRONT

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