Tag Archives | Food Service

The Skinny On The FDA’s 2009 Food Code

Tweet 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 the code every four years to accommodate new developments and [...]

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Do Price Reductions Dilute Your Restaurant’s Brand?

Tweet 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 in more traffic (although not more than before the recession) [...]

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11 Hot Restaurant Trends

Tweet 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 [...]

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Is Pizza Perennially Profitable?

Tweet 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, [...]

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Louisiana Restaurant Association Fighting Back Against New FDA Regulations

Tweet The Food & Drug Administration announced in October that it would place a ban on untreated oysters coming from the Gulf of Mexico.  Louisiana is the primary harvester and exporter of Gulf oysters, and the industry accounts for $318 million dollars each year. Gulf oysters have been deemed a food safety threat because a [...]

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NYC Restaurants Make Smooth Transition Away From Trans Fats

Tweet 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 an undue burden on [...]

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Chefs Make Their Own Honey

Tweet 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, restaurants in large urban [...]

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4 Things You Can Learn From Restaurant Chains

Tweet Big operators like Chili’s, Applebees, The Cheesecake Factory, and others are always looking for ways to improve taste and customer experience while increasing efficiency.  These companies spend a lot of money every year in research and development, and studying the trends that come out of the big chain restaurant’s R&D can be very informative. [...]

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Menu Trends: Smaller Portion Sizes Seen As A Big Value

Tweet National chains like The Cheesecake Factory, Chili’s, and T.G.I. Friday’s have rolled out smaller, leaner, competitively priced menu items that are having considerable success targeting two primary consumer concerns: watching their weight and watching their wallets. For years the trend in the food service industry was towards bigger and bigger portion sizes.  The “bigger [...]

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Restaurant Management Tips: Stay Safe With Alcohol Service Training

Tweet The level of liability restaurant managers and owners face in alcohol related incidents can be shockingly high.  Protecting yourself, your staff, and your customers from dangerous alcohol related situations should be a top priority for your business.  And the best way to protect yourself is to make sure your staff is properly trained for [...]

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