June 19, 2013
Industry News
Craft Soda Steps Up to Bat

Owners who stake their restaurant brands on natural ingredients are now matching their beverages with their mission statements. Built on values such as sustainability and local sourcing, craft soda—the nonalcoholic sibling of craft beer—has stepped up in recent years as an alternative to mass-marketed soda. Owners say these...

Read Full Story // read more about: Beverage, Menu Development, Menu Innovations
Outside Insights
Communication: The Key to Drive Thru?

Customer service encompasses a multitude of factors. A smiling face and good manners can go a long way to creating a positive impression for any consumer-facing brand, including drive-thru restaurants. But there’s more to it than that.

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Industry News
Coffee Shops Increasingly Add Wine to Operations

Espresso beans and grapes are not a prevalent snack combination, but the growing trend toward coffee and wine bars proves they are indeed palatable as beverage complements. Coffee and wine bars are spreading nationwide, from Bean & Bottle in the lobby of the Sonoma Resort in California to the Great Lakes Coffee Shop in Michigan and...

Read Full Story // read more about: Starbucks, Beverage, Menu Development, Operations, Consumer Trends, Menu Innovations
Industry News
Noodles & Company Opens Milestone 300th Restaurant

Noodles & Company, the restaurant brand that features a collection of dishes from around the world, announced today the opening of its 300 th system-wide restaurant. The 300 th restaurant is located in Waterloo, Iowa, on Crossroads Boulevard.  To commemorate the landmark event, Noodles & Company invited hundreds of loyal...

Read Full Story // read more about: Noodles & Company, Growth, Expansion
Industry News
Yum! Brands Excels in Q2, Led by Taco Bell

Yum! Brands Asian markets continue to surge, fueled by red-hot growth, said CEO David C. Novak during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on July 19th. Taco Bell, with a 13 percent increase in same-store sales, continues to be the most profitable brand for the company’s U.S. market.

Read Full Story // read more about: KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Yum! Brands, Finance
Industry News
Who Needs a Supply Chain?

Two foodservice producers ditched the supply-chain middleman and opened their own quick-serve concepts earlier this month. Smithfield Foods, synonymous with Virginia ham and pork, and yogurt company Dannon defied the traditional supply chain and started carting product from their manufacturing facilities to proprietary quick-service...

Read Full Story // read more about: Menu Development, Menu Innovations, Growth
Industry News
Revamped Salsarita's Prepped for Growth

Some people just have what it takes to turn a brand around. And Phil Friedman, former CEO and president of McAlister’s Corporation, is one of those people. After his Mississippi Restaurant Group purchased Salsarita’s—a fresh cantina that offers a bright and colorful atmosphere featuring signature burritos, Mexican...

Read Full Story // read more about: Salsarita's, Menu Development, Operations, Executive Insights, Growth
Industry News
Pinkberry’s 200th Store is First Co-Location with Macy’s

Pinkberry cut the ribbon on its 200 th location on July 13, in San Francisco’s Union Square shopping plaza. The unit is the chain’s first in San Francisco and also happens to be its first co-location with a Macy’s department store. “One reason we feel our partnership works so well is because the Macy’s...

Read Full Story // read more about: Pinkberry, Desserts, Growth, Emerging Concepts, Expansion, Operations
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
Costa Vida offers fresh Mexican ingredients in a laid back fast casual setting.
Emerging Concepts
One to Watch: Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill

A decade ago, JD and Sarah Gardner returned home to Utah from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, inspired by the surfing culture and local cuisine of the Baja Peninsula Coast. Soon after, the pair opened Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill.

Read Full Story // read more about: Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill, In the Store, 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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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
A Wing Zone franchisee changed his cooking equipment to get better results.
Back of House
The Transformational Franchisee

Army and Air Force foodservice provider The Exchange has been serving U.S. military families since 1895 with meals in cafeteria lines and snack bars. It wasn’t until 1985, however, that it first signed a license agreement with a name-brand food franchisee—at the time, Burger King.

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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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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
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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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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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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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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