Can Your Equipment Disappear?

By Mitchell Schechter, Editor in Chief, The Shechter Report Over the past few months, I’ve done a lot of writing and editing of materials describing sustainable foodservice 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....

Culinary Alumni Unite!

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 culinary alumni can offer them. The...

How Tech Companies Are Competing To Help You Market Your Restaurant Locally

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, everyone’s raving about ...

Restaurants Use Nutrition Info To Add Value For Customers

Added value – in a world of discounts, something besides price has to get your customers in the door.  It’s the new reality facing the food service industry these days, and many restaurants have already started devising ways to go the extra mile for customers. Soon enough restaurants will be required to post...

Restaurants Report Customers Coming Back

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 went into recession mode last year. The news brought back to the forefront a trend that has been observed...

The Age of the Groupon: Does It Make Sense For Restaurants?

Groupon.com, along with BlackBoardEats.com (which I covered in an earlier blog post) 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...

Could The iPad Change Food Service?

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 people have started to...

Induction Cooking: The Future Of Your Restaurant?

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 the cooks from getting overwhelmed. For decades no proper chef would have it any other way.  That’s beginning to change, and the catalyst of that change...

The Yelp Drama Continues

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 ...

Why Chipotle’s Food With Integrity Is Good Business

Everybody in the food service industry is talking about locally sourced food these days.  The National Restaurant Association has called local, sustainable, and organic ingredients one of the biggest trends of 2010, and consumers have defied logic by proving they are willing to pay more for better quality. The Mexican-themed chain Chipotle has carved a niche...