Is This A Drill? How A Missouri Sonic Manager Trains For Robberies

We’ve all had one of those managers who’s just a little bit more hardcore than everybody else.  Usually they’re pretty harmless, if not a little annoying.  You just have to roll your eyes and get through the extra training seminar they scheduled. A St. Joseph, Missouri Sonic manager probably takes the cake when it comes to overzealous middle management taking things a little too far, however.  This guy decided to test...

The Skinny On The FDA’s 2009 Food Code

The Food and Drug Administration has officially released an updated Food Code for the first time since 2005.  The Food Code details procedures for implementing a food safety program in any food service environment, from grocery stores to fine dining restaurants.  The agency updates...

11 Hot Restaurant Trends

Keeping up with the latest and hottest trends in food service could be a full time job in itself.  Luckily for you, The Back Burner is here to keep track and distill things down into manageable chunks.  This is a quick rundown of the trends we’ve been tracking over the past couple months, covering everything from weird new menu offerings to radical new approaches to management: 1.  ...

Restaurant Grease Management: How Traps Will Save Your Butt

Grease is an inevitable byproduct of your restaurant’s kitchen.  Unfortunately, grease doesn’t disappear when it gets washed down the drain.  Instead, it tends to build up and stick to the sides of pipes and drainages, just like cholesterol in diner’s arteries. And just like cholesterol, that buildup over time can cause some serious problems.  Best case scenario, your kitchen smells like a rotting cesspool.  Worst case,...

Restaurant Marketing: Your Focus Shouldn’t Be On Social Media

I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin last week to do a restaurant marketing workshop for Sysco and was looking for a place to eat. Obviously in a strange town and no one around to make recommendations, I pulled out my trusty iPhone and downloaded the Yelp app.   Immediately, I got hundreds of restaurants with thousands of reviews. I searched for some...

Do Price Reductions Dilute Your Restaurant’s Brand?

In a very well written post on Waiternotes.com titled “Self-Fulfilling Prophecies,” the author examined in-depth the price reduction strategies the owners of the two restaurants where he works have employed over the last year.  The main point revolved around how cut-rate specials were bringing...

Is Pizza Perennially Profitable?

While many segments of the restaurant industry are struggling to stay afloat, pizza concepts in large part seem to be well positioned to weather the current economy. There seem to be at least three distinct reasons for this – sales don’t appear to be slumping as much for pizza outlets as in other segments, commodity prices for pizza staples have adjusted very favorably, and the value-centric focus of today’s dining customer...

Food Service Industry Groups Voice Their Opposition To The House’s Health Care Reform Bill

House Bill 3962 passed the U.S. House of Representatives last Saturday, and with the vote, which was a close one, the first steps have been taken towards comprehensive health care reform in America.  The primary provisions of the bill include: Roughly 96% of Americans would be covered Businesses with less than $500,000 in payroll costs would be exempt from providing mandatory health care Businesses and individuals would be able...