Restaurant Marketing: The Future Is Now

Foursquare is a location-based application for mobile devices that allows users to discover and rate local businesses and then share those discoveries with their social network.  Since I wrote about Foursquare last year, the company has really started...

Restaurant Management: Why Nick’s Isn’t Just Another Pizza Joint

Inc. Magazine did an article recently about pizza and pub owner Nick Sarillo, a restaurateur with blue collar roots based in the Chicago area.  Sarillo has built his business based upon a corporate culture that emphasizes customer service and employee development. Sarillo’s Nick’s Pizza & Pub is another example of how the labor...

The Restaurant E-Book

The Restaurant E-Book is a great little handbook for anyone new to the food service industry looking to succeed.  If you’re reading this blog, then you’re obviously interested in learning as much as you can about the restaurant business.  This e-book is just another tool in your arsenal as you look to find that secret recipe that will...

Chefs: How To Decide Between Apprenticeships Or Culinary School

Having a formal education is a wonderful thing to be able to put on a resume. Training under an experienced Chef can also teach you just as much practical information. There are pro and cons to both. Culinary schools are more structured environments. Apprenticeships are more unstructured environments. If you have the opportunity to do both, I would highly recommend it. Culinary Schools Pros: * Culinary schools look good on a resume. *...

Asian Carp Have Only One Predator: Restaurants

Invasive species take over new habitats so quickly because they usually have no natural predators in their new home, allowing them to reproduce quickly and overwhelm native populations competing for the same food.  The latest foreign invader to make headlines in the U.S. is Asian Carp, a fast-moving, quick-breeding intruder that has taken over the Mississippi and Ohio watersheds with amazing speed. The carp was originally brought...

Sound Advice for Opening a Restaurant

Look Before You Leap I get a lot of inquiries from people kicking the tires so to speak, interested in opening their own restaurant. For a lot of restaurant owners, owning a restaurant is a lifelong dream. They can imagine every detail, and it’s filled with happy customers who return again and again. A lot of these independent restaurant owners, they had a certain idea of what it was going to be like to own their own restaurant. But...

Want To Start An Independent Restaurant? Start With The Incubator

Every restaurateur has been through the baptism by fire known as Opening Night.  Those who have survived can testify to the nerve-racking experience of preparing menu items for the first time for a dining room full of people.  Many hopeful entrepreneurs have had their dreams realized or crushed on opening night, and anyone wanting to start a restaurant had better be prepared for the big night. The problem many new restaurant...

Text Message Ordering: Why Your Customers Already Love It

One of the biggest shifts in customer behavior over the past few years has been the preference for take-out food.  All the major national chains (Applebee’s, Chili’s, etc. etc.) have added drive-up service for their customers.  And I’ve written on this blog about taking your restaurant’s food out, whether it be catering,...