Restaurant Trends and News

Feel like you need to get caught up on what’s been going on in the food service industry?  Here’s some hot industry trends that will help you get up to speed: 1.  A National Tax On Soft Drinks?  The advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest is promoting …

What if you were told about a restaurant that had no fixed location or menu and kept this information a secret until just a few hours before you leave for dinner?  The Dissident Chef of San Francisco does just this to his patrons on a regular basis.  They purchase tickets …

Credit cards have become the currency of choice in restaurants everywhere.  Many restaurateurs report 80% – 85% of their customers pull out plastic when it’s time to pay the bill.  For a long time now the conventional wisdom in food service goes like this: any way the customer wants to …

The Inamo restaurant in London’s Soho district has taken high-tech ordering to a whole new level.  Gone are the days when picking up a phone at your table was the techiest gig in town.  Sure, some restaurants call themselves high-tech because their servers have wireless pads for taking orders.  Inamo …

As Congress grapples with the costs of tackling health care reform, a couple ideas have floated to the surface to help fund the effort.  As I mentioned recently, a national tax on soft drinks was the subject of a national feasibility study and it was determined that such a tax …

The co-owner of a chain of Asian restaurants in the Seattle area was recently indicted on immigration fraud charges.  Varee Bradford apparently paid employees of the Thai Ginger restaurants she owns with her husband to marry her relatives so they could immigrate from Thailand. Bradford has been charged with arranging …

Back in 2006, despite objections from industry groups like the National Restaurant Association (NRA), New York City banned the use of trans fats in all foods served in the city’s restaurants.  At the time, the NRA said that municipal government had no place regulating restaurants, and the ban would put …

We’ve been hearing more and more about the local sourcing of ingredients in the food service industry.  By far the most common form local sourcing takes is a small independent restaurant working out a deal for locally grown vegetables and herbs, or maybe even some locally raised meat. Of course, …

I’ve been talking about how restaurants can benefit from Twitter and not following my own advice for long enough now.  The Back Burner now has a Twitter account that will update every day with Back Burner posts and other little gems of information. Yes, I’m now on the bandwagon.  If …

A bit of good news, at least from the perspective of the National Restaurant Association (NRA), was released last week: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), has agreed to drop the card check portion of the Employee Free Choice Act.  The card check provision would have allowed workers in businesses with 20 …