June 18, 2013
Industry News
Specific Ingredients Don't Influence Customer Choices

The latest research from The NPD Group shows specific food or beverage ingredients do not significantly influence consumer choices of restaurant and menu items , although consumers express the desire for more nutritional information. According to the study, consumers are making a conscious effort to live a healthier lifestyle and are...

Read Full Story // read more about: Healthy Menus, Consumer Trends, Outside Insights
Denise Lee Yohn: QSR’s Marketing Guru
From Negative to Positive

Q: What's the right way to handle a negative online review? A: If you're like most restaurateurs, you're a perfectionist. So a negative review on Yelp or Trip Advisor can really sting. A particularly harsh comment can even prompt you to experience some of the stages of grief: denial, anger, depression. But, just...

Read Full Story // read more about: Marketing, Competition, Consumer Trends, Promotions
Industry News
At Chick-fil-A, Old Salads Just Don't Cut It

Chick-fil-A isn’t one to back down from a challenge—even one that’s self-imposed. That’s why, despite the fact that customers weren’t complaining about current salad offerings, the chicken chain decided to scrap its salad lineup in favor of three brand new options. “Salads are a product where people...

Read Full Story // read more about: Chick-fil-A, Digital Signage & Menuboards, Healthy Menus, Menu Development, Operations
Industry News
Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco Serves It Up at DQ

Baltimore Ravens Quarterback, Super Bowl MVP, and famous No. 5 Joe Flacco served up DQ $5 Buck Lunches to surprised fans at a Dairy Queen in Rosedale, Maryland, on Friday and joined Dairy Queen in presenting a donation to the Matthew J. Cheswick Memorial Fund. Cheswick, a student at Glenelg High School in Maryland, was killed last May...

Read Full Story // read more about: Dairy Queen, Burgers, Desserts, In the Store, Charitable Giving, Promotions
Industry News
WMMB Recognizes Winners of Cheese Recipe Contest

Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (WMMB) recently recognized 12 Johnson & Wales University culinary students for their outstanding recipes incorporating Wisconsin Cheese. The contest, presented in conjunction with Johnson & Wales, challenged postsecondary culinary students to create a unique recipe featuring one of three Wisconsin...

Read Full Story // read more about: Back of House, Kitchen, Competition, Food & Beverage, Ingredients & Dayparts
Industry News
8 Lessons from WFF's Annual Leadership Conference

For the first time, QSR had the honor of attending the Women’s Foodservice Forum’s Annual Leadership Development Conference, held this year on April 14–17 in Orlando, Florida.

Read Full Story // read more about: Marketing, Operations, Executive Insights, Women in Foodservice, Outside Insights
Industry News
Pizza Patrón Honors Pizza Revolución Franchisees

Pizza Patrón awarded Jason LeVecke, Margaret LeVecke, Carl LeVecke, and David Padilla of Pizza Revolución LLC the Patrón of the Year award at its 2013 National Franchise Convention. The brand held the convention in the Hilton Anatole Hotel, Dallas, March 24 - 26.

Read Full Story // read more about: Pizza Patron, Operations, Franchising
Health
The Truth About HFCS, Trans Fats, & Sodium

Dr. Ruth Kava isn’t concerned with the hype or hyperbole, emotion or ideology. She’s after one result: scientific accuracy. A senior nutrition fellow with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a New York–based organization that highlights peer-reviewed science to encourage more sensible public health...

Read Full Story // read more about: Healthy Menus
Fast food brands are using customer suggestions to develop new products.
Operations
The New Face of R&D

There’s no way around the truth that social media is now a critical tool for limited-service restaurant brands.

It plays an influential role in marketing and building brand identity, and allows concepts to reach out to and interact with fans and followers to build deeper...

Read Full Story // read more about: Baskin-Robbins, Sloan's, Wing Zone, Desserts, Menu Development, Consumer Trends, Menu Innovations, Social Media, Ingredients & Dayparts
Fast casual brands attract customers with alcoholic beverage programs
Menu Innovations
Buying into Booze

Fast-casual restaurants were once able to claim premium food, modern décor, and all-around upscale service as hallmarks of their category. But with more quick-service chains retooling in those areas to compete for post-recession consumers, fast casuals have been left to search for new ways to...

Read Full Story // read more about: Blaze Pizza, Chipotle, Freebirds, Fresh to Order, Starbucks, Uncle Maddio's, Beverage, Menu Development, Competition, Consumer Trends, Ingredients & Dayparts
Superfoods like blueberries offer nutritional and flavorful menu potential.
Menu Innovations
Wonder Food

Look, up on the table! It’s a burdock. It’s a plantain. It’s … superfood!

Although there’s nothing really super-heroic about eating nutrition-rich fruits and vegetables, the foods give customers an opportunity to pursue healthier options at a time when many...

Read Full Story // read more about: Bowl of Heaven, Freshii, Just Salad, Red Mango, Healthy Menus, Menu Development, Health, Ingredients & Dayparts
New fast food brands like Live Basil first start as innovative business ideas.
Industry News
Birth of a Brand

It always starts with a simple idea.

For Brian Bailey at Ichor Restaurant Group, it began with the idea that Ohioans needed better barbecue. Six years after that idea initially took hold, Old Carolina Barbecue opened the doors to its first unit, in Canton, Ohio. The company later opened...

Read Full Story // read more about: Fazoli's, Little Greek, Live Basil, Old Carolina Barbecue Company, Back of House, Finance, Marketing, Operations, Competition, In the Store, Growth
Ice cream brands are increasing innovation to take business back from fro yo.
Consumer Trends
Can Ice Cream Survive?

They seemed to pop up almost overnight. In strip malls and on street corners across the country, frozen-yogurt shops suddenly offered an exciting new option for America’s collective sweet tooth, teasing at healthfulness and innovating with self service and customization. Once concentrated...

Read Full Story // read more about: Baskin-Robbins, Cold Stone Creamery, Jeni's, Sloan's, Desserts, Competition, Menu Innovations, Ingredients & Dayparts
Quick service brands are using big data to streamline and improve business.
Operations
Get a Grip on Big Data

Franchisees, C-suite executives, and marketing experts in the limited-service industry have likely all come across the term big data in some form or another over the last couple of years.

But unless their background or interests lie in analytics or statistics, they probably shrugged it...

Read Full Story // read more about: Haute Dogs & Fries, Jamba Juice, Back of House, Back Office, In the Store, Consumer Trends
Wrap concept BSkis in Chapel Hill successfully delivers food to campus students.
Industry News
Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Burger King hopes its new delivery service will be a great profit-driver for the chain, as the company is banking on customers to put in large orders for office lunches, birthday parties, and other gatherings in the select cities where the service is offered.

But it may not be the only...

Read Full Story // read more about: Burger King, McDonald's, [B]Ski's, Back of House, Online & Remote Ordering, Consumer Trends
Industry News
Toppers Boosts System-Wide Sales by 40% in Q1

Despite the crowded pizza category, Toppers Pizza is taking its share of the more than $40 billion pie.

System-wide sales increased by more than 40 percent for both company-owned and franchised units in the first quarter of 2013, and same-store sales for company units were up 13.59...

Read Full Story // read more about: Toppers Pizza, Finance, Marketing, Pizza, Franchising, Growth
Five to Seven will invest in healthy and sustainble fast food brands globally.
Finance
Good Food for All

Five to Seven, a new restaurant funding initiative launched in May by foodservice industry veterans Brad Blum and John Vincent, has goodness at its core and as its goal. “Good food for the planet” is the initiative’s tagline, as Blum and Vincent want “good food”...

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The Boston Fire Department was treated to free meals at Firehouse Subs.
Charitable Giving
Nurturing Boston

As soon as he learned about the April 15th Boston bombings, Dave Tucci, the New England area representative for Firehouse Subs’ DMA, called the Firehouse franchisee closest to the bombings.

Tucci was relieved to find out that all employees at Firehouse’s Copley Square location...

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McAlisters Deli franchisee says casual dining experience helps in quick service.
Sandwiches
What You Can Learn from Casual Dining

David Blackburn has been in the foodservice business his entire adult life. Since 1979, the McAlister’s Deli franchisee has cataloged more than 25 years of experience in the casual-dining sector, spending 16 of those as regional vice president of operations at O’Charley’s....

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Corner Bakery's new menu items use fresh ingredients to offer premium quality.
Breakfast
The Corner of Innovation

In a push to distinguish itself from growing competition in the fast-casual bakery-café space, Corner Bakery Café is doubling down on menu innovation.

The 22-year-old, Dallas-based chain recently leveraged its high-quality kitchen equipment and capabilities, as well as more than 40 fresh...

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Fast casual brands added table service to open on Winter Park's Park Avenue.
Back of House
The Table Service Upgrade

The city of Winter Park, Florida, was in a quandary. Up-and-coming fast-casual concepts Firehouse Subs and BurgerFi wanted to move into the town’s upscale dining and shopping district, Park Avenue, but business owners and city officials were worried that the posh image would become...

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Fast casual brands attract customers with alcoholic beverage programs
Beverage
Buying into Booze

Fast-casual restaurants were once able to claim premium food, modern décor, and all-around upscale service as hallmarks of their category. But with more quick-service chains retooling in those areas to compete for post-recession consumers, fast casuals have been left to search for new ways to...

See More
A new tool from GS1 U.S. will help operators protect their food safety.
Food Safety
Cracking the Food Safety Code

For years, barcode technology has been commonplace in the retail sector, where it’s used to gather information about products, sales, and even consumer trends at various transaction points. But now, due to a major standardization initiative and broadening food-safety concerns, the same...

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Operators must protect their quick serve business from credit card fraud.
Point Of Sale
How to Prevent Credit Card Fraud

Every merchant that accepts credit and debit cards is required to be compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS), whose next set of standards will be released in October 2013. Yet despite these compliance requirements, the food and beverage industry had the...

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Superfoods like blueberries offer nutritional and flavorful menu potential.
Healthy Menus
Wonder Food

Look, up on the table! It’s a burdock. It’s a plantain. It’s … superfood!

Although there’s nothing really super-heroic about eating nutrition-rich fruits and vegetables, the foods give customers an opportunity to pursue healthier options at a time when many...

See More