Making the decision to make your restaurant a more sustainable operation has gotten considerably easier in the last few years.  That’s because as consumer awareness grows there are more and more benefits associated with “green” restaurants.  If you’re in doubt, simply look at the National Restaurant Association’s sustainability efforts, or …

Kansas City based casual dining concept Houlihan’s has been around for almost 40 years.  In that time they’ve seen the rise of the casual trend and a lot of ups and downs.  In the early 2000’s Houlihan’s was seeing more down than up, and a new management team was brought …

Cooking in public is the new trend in the restaurant industry. Kitchen culture has captured the American public’s attention in recent years with the explosion of celebrity chefs, various reality shows featuring said chefs, and dedicated cable channels like the Food Network.  All of this media attention has made consumers …

2010 is the year of social media, and the food service industry has really started to embrace the world of social in a big way.  As I’ve mentioned on The Back Burner before, the biggest expense marketing with social media is your time.  That’s good news for tight marketing budgets …

Move over beer, craft cocktails are the latest trend. For generations Americans have had a fairly straightforward approach to cocktails – gin and tonic, highball, rum and coke – without ever giving a second thought to the possibilities a true bartender genius is capable of when given the space.  Back …

The Center For Science In The Public Interest, an advocacy group that has tangled with the food service industry before over menu nutrition labeling, is pushing for letter grades of restaurant’s latest health inspections to be posted in the front window. This food safety info works on a 100-point scale …

Over the past few months, I’ve done a lot of writing and editing of materials describing sustainable food service operations. In addition to helping operators fulfill their potential for socially responsibility, sustainability practices typically lower overall program costs, boost local economies and create new revenue streams. Equipment end-users increasingly understand …

Alumni Helping Alumni, a place where New England area culinary alumni can come together and help each other in business. Two culinary alumnus have joined together to create an online public marketplace to help fellow New England area, culinary alumni network and take advantage of the skills and offerings that other …

Marketing your restaurant online is a concept that’s relatively new to the food service industry as a whole, and is still a foreign concept to many restaurateurs.  This is not helped by the speed with which marketing channels online are moving.  By the time you set up a Facebook page, …

Some of the largest players in the food service industry, including Brinker International, McDonald’s, Chipotle, and The Cheesecake Factory are reporting sales and guest traffic up for the first quarter of 2010.  That meant good news for the rest of the sector, which had been hurting particularly badly after consumers …

Groupon, along with BlackBoardEats.com and a whole array of other discount coupon websites have proliferated in the last year as restaurants struggle to get customers through their doors.  These sites operate by getting large discount vouchers from restaurants (usually in the 50% range) and then marketing them to a large …

The unveiling of the iPad earlier this month left a lot of people wondering what all the hype was all about.  For many, the mini-notebook looks and feels like an oversized iPhone without the ringtones.  But as the iPad hits the market and continues to sell well, more and more …

The presence of a large multi-burner gas range at the heart of the cooking line is about as fundamental as it gets in any restaurant.  That iron and stainless steel behemoth uses a lot of energy, throws a lot of heat, and requires a dedicated ventilation system just to keep …

I’ve written several times about Yelp – a San Francisco based website that collects and publishes reviews about local small businesses in many cities across the country.  Naturally, restaurants are one of the most commonly reviewed businesses on the site. Over the past year a steady grumbling has risen about …

Ah, yes, the capricious foodie: that enigmatic character who can turn 100 people into loyal patrons with a glowing mention of your restaurant at every dinner party – or become the bane of your existence with nasty reviews on sites like Yelp or a sarcastic blog post. Especially in competitive …