Move over beer, craft cocktails are the latest trend. For generations Americans have had a fairly straightforward approach to cocktails – gin and tonic, highball, rum and coke – without ever giving a second thought to the possibilities a true bartender genius is capable of when given the space. Back …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 …
Read More »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 steady grumbling has risen about …
Read More »The Trouble With Yelp
The food service industry as a whole has had decidedly mixed feelings about Yelp, the San Francisco-based internet company that provides user-generated reviews about a variety of businesses, including restaurants. As I wrote last year, Yelp had many owners suspicious because it seemed like the only way to get good …
Read More »Mission Street Food: The Non-Profit Restaurant
Some restaurant owners may feel sometimes like they’re running a not-for-profit restaurant, especially after last year, but for most the intention has always been to create a successful and profitable business. That’s not the case at Mission Street Food in San Francisco, where a couple of ambitious restaurateurs are trying …
Read More »Is Your Food Safety Program This Hardcore? It Should Be.
McDonald’s hasn’t grown into a multinational restaurant chain without doing a lot of things right. And whatever you think of their culinary achievements (or lack thereof), you can’t deny that they’ve built an empire in food service. If one lesson is clear from the rise of McDonald’s, it should be …
Read More »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 …
Read More »What To Watch For In 2010
About this time every year the food service industry starts buzzing about the trends that will shape consumer preferences and affect business in the next 12 months. We are lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on how you view it) to be in the midst of a transition period for many …
Read More »Why Card Check Is The Symptom, Not The Disease
Like it or not, small business owners like many in the food service industry are experiencing a period of drastic change labor laws. As health care reform becomes a reality, several other projects championed by Democratic lawmakers will start nudging their way back to the top of the agenda – …
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