https://retailtrafficmag.com/ar/retail_setting_menu/index.htm
Restaurants and retail complement one another like a fine red wine and a juicy steak. Just ask any mall owner who has watched droves of stuffed customers migrating from Cheesecake Factory throughout the rest of the center after a meal. Moderately priced, full-service restaurants (which comprise 20 percent of the casual dining market) are in-demand anchors now that department store sales are slumping.
Patients' Rx: fast food?
Giving the term ‘hospital food’ a whole new meaning
Craving a juicy hamburger? Can’t live another second without a cup of gourmet coffee?
Don’t let a minor inconvenience like being in the hospital get in your way.
More and more Dallas-Fort Worth hospitals are resembling shopping-mall food courts, with retail kiosks and counters offering everything from Subway sandwiches and McDonald’s fries to Starbucks coffee.
The trend “has a lot to do with customer satisfaction and our enduring love of comfort food,” said Johnny Sue Reynolds, a professor at the University of North Texas School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management. “When in times of stress, it feels good to go get a McDonald’s hamburger or something else familar.”
For the hospitals, restaurants and food kiosks can help ease budget pressures while pleasing patients, visitors and employees alike.
At the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas kiosk, which sells Starbucks coffee, java sales have been so strong that operator Blue Mesa Coffee Co., a division of Dallas-based Mesa SW Restaurants, has proposals out to operate similar kiosks at four other North Texas hospitals.
“We are trying to be on the forefront of the trend, and are targeting every major hospital that doesn’t have existing contracts for their food services with a third-party provider,” said Jim Baron, a co-owner with his wife Liz Baron of Mesa SW.
“There’s typically a fairly lengthy approval process,” Baron added. “These deals tend to take a long time to pull off.”
Since opening the Presbyterian kiosk in October 2002, Blue Mesa has gained space in the front lobby of the hospital’s main building at a reduced rent, with utilities provided. Jim Baron said it’s a good marketing opportunity that grosses about $200,000 a year.
The kiosk, which also serves light breakfasts and lunches, is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week and is staffed by three of Mesa’s nearly 400 employees.
Jeff Light, administrative director of guest and support services at Presbyterian, said the fact that Blue Mesa supplies everything, including trained employees, ma [Read more…] about Patients' Rx: fast food?
Critical Conditions (washingtonpost.com)
Critical Conditions
A professional restaurant-goer’s tips for getting the most out of the experience
By Tom Sietsema
The place: a restaurant somewhere in Washington. The maitre d’ welcomed me and my friends as if we were longtime customers, and the room — all smooth wood, soft banquettes and flattering light — was precisely where we wanted to find ourselves on a winter evening when the thermometer had plunged to near-Arctic numbers. Even before our water glasses were filled, the restaurant was making a fine first impression. read the full article [Read more…] about Critical Conditions (washingtonpost.com)
Fast Company | The King Of Curry
The King Of Curry
Sir Gulam Kaderbhoy Noon has built one of the world’s largest ethnic-food factories, cooking and shipping close to 1 million packaged meals a week. Starting at 6 a.m. every day, 1,000 workers cook from a menu of more than 800 dishes. Just don’t call it fast food. [Read more…] about Fast Company | The King Of Curry
Pizza pro sees future in take-and-bake line
Consumers could see new types of pizzas this year as the industry tries to boost sales in the face of the low-carbohydrate diet craze, a top industry consultant says.
Dave Ostrander, an Oscoda-based pizza consultant known in the business as the “Pizza Doctor,” said many pizzerias in Michigan are likely to introduce low-carb pizzas in the next six months. He also expects to see more take-and-bake products that allow customers to take pizzas home and bake them at their convenience.
https://www.freep.com/money/business/doc1_20040301.htm
The lush life, plus a restaurant
In the newest wave of gilded urban life, an independent restaurant on the premises of luxury condominiums is de rigueur, as essential to the perks as a doorman or a covered parking garage. The right kind of restaurant, says Ronald M. Druker, developer of the South End’s Atelier 505, will “add a certain level of vitality” to the premises and “set a tone for the lifestyle of the building.” That lifestyle is costing condominium owners between $600,000 and $2.75 million. [Read more…] about The lush life, plus a restaurant
Restaurant pacifies kids with DVD players
Rather than having the kids throw food, or tantrums, parents can toss a cartoon into a DVD player provided free to diners at a restaurant in Belleville.
[Read more…] about Restaurant pacifies kids with DVD players
Not a word is said…
According to French magazine Elle the next thing to hit the singles scene after ‘speed-dating’ is ?quiet parties?. This is already the craze at the Parisian hot spot Tanija. Participants are united in a room in total silence. It is forbidden to speak a word. To order a drink or chat up a date participants need to use a pencil and paper supplied by the venue. Leftover scraps of paper show conversations ranging from the simple: ? Hi may I offer you a drink?? to the more creative ?Your beauty leaves me speechless?. Two hours later it?s all about body language and maximum decibels as everybody gets on the dance floor.
Tanija 23 rue Ponthieu 75008 Paris www.quiet-party.com