No matter how you measure sales in your tableside-service restaurant, such as by check average, sales per hour or revenue per customer, a different way of managing sales is by the square foot. Do the math:
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Bitter times for French wines
Wine consumption in France is losing out to a growing taste for beer and a newfound responsibility behind the wheel. The rest of the world’s winemakers are catching up to and surpassing French standards. Government legislation and decades-old self-imposed regional quality standards have put many French winemakers at a competitive disadvantage.
https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002031592_frenchwinewoes10.html
1,000 Soup Kitchen International franchises to open
Over the next five to seven years, Al Yeganeh, the inspiration for the “Soup Nazi” character on “Seinfeld,” plans to have 1,000 Soup Kitchen International franchises open around the U.S. It’s doubtful soup servers will be barking the “Seinfeld”-famed “No soup for you” line because Yeganeh does not want the franchises to promote any association with the sitcom, which he finds offensive.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Raw food fad sprouting nationwide
Eating raw food is nothing new – it’s basically humanity’s oldest cuisine. But interest in raw food diets has been sprouting recently beyond the usual fad cradles like Manhattan and southern California.
A number of (un)cookbooks have been published recently offering recipes for “raw pot pie” and “lemony tofu pate?? High-profile adherents like actor Woody Harrelson and model Carol Alt have added to the buzz. Author and raw food evangelist David “Avocado” Wolfe said he now speaks to packed houses in places like Coldwater, Mich., and Wichita, Kan.
Flexi Eating….
“With the rise of ?flexi-eating, food consumption is increasingly fitting around people’s needs and lifestyles, rather than people fitting their lives around structured mealtimes,” commented Daniel Bone, consumer analyst at Datamonitor.
?The growing number of out-of-home occasions does not mean British dislike eating at home. It is a lifestyle driven trend with time-poor consumers increasingly embracing innovative meal and snack solutions that facilitate on-the-go consumption,? Bone said
https://foodanddrinkeurope.com/news/ng.asp?id=54492&n=dh247&c=nicyrpmcbktrgxu
"Demographic time bomb"
“An aging labor force is beginning show itself in Pittsburgh, which could provide a glimpse of a nationwide problem on the horizon. One economist says companies can continue to dip into the unemployed population for younger workers, but there is concern about a labor shortage in the restaurant and other industries. ”
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/business/yourmoney/29old.html
Many European countries are facing similar demographics
High-tech Linc tag is Eagles' cash card
https://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/9258077.htm
PowerPay is like an E-Z Pass for sports fans, a cashless technology for buying beer and food in a hurry. Starting with tonight’s soccer match at Lincoln Financial Field, fans can get a free, thin plastic tag that has an Eagles logo printed on the outside and a tiny antenna and radio-frequency identification chip embedded inside. It can be used like cash at the more than 300 permanent concession stands at the Linc.
Fans can link the tag to any existing credit card, but if a fan also signs up for the Eagles’ new Extra Points MasterCard, each dollar spent accumulates one point toward prizes, such as autographed jerseys or even dinner with a player. And 3,000 of those new MasterCards will be available with the chip technology built in, eliminating the need for the separate tag. They’ll go first-come, first-served at the stadium or at www.eaglesextrapoints.com
It is more fun to eat in the bar than to drink in a restaurant
Seems that what we in the industry have known for year is now… well trendy… i guess
“Drinkers v. Diners. “You can’t be just a great mixologist — you have to provide hospitality,” says Paul Grieco of Hearth, a N.Y.C. bar and restaurant, commenting on a trend toward people having dinner at the bar, as quoted by William L. Hamilton in The New York Times. “You can’t be a bartender anymore … You have to be a top-notch sommelier, a top-notch waiter, a top-notch food runner,” he says. It’s not that Paul Grieco is unhappy about that, though. In fact, Hearth anticipated bar diners in its design, including “stations for plates, napkins and silverware below the bar as well as for barware. And bars, from front to back, are wider, to accommodate table settings.” Indeed: “According to bartenders, managers and owners across New York, bar space at most restaurants has become de facto dining
space.”
Read the article at https://reveries.com/cool_news/2004/august/aug_18b.html