Brew Pubs are an increasingly popular restaurant category.  The trend has grown as Americans become more sophisticated in their beer and ale consumption behavior.  Starting in the 1980s with California Establishments such as Gordon Biersch and the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, we now find other local and nationwide brew pubs becoming favorite meeting places. Many cities have embraced brew pubs as a way to create a more exciting buzz about their towns.  Even formerly conservative […]

Mobile payment technologies are quickly being adopted by smartphone users.  This means that restaurants will need to adapt their way of processing payments in order to retain the ever growing population of tech-savvy customers.  An unwillingness to alter decades-old payment practices, such as taking a physical credit card to the BOH for processing on a POS, will increasingly result in lost customers. As evidence of this trend, the National Restaurant […]

The Restaurant Industry, along with most in the business community, have reacted positively to the Trump Administration’s Promise to reduce regulations. Requirements have continually expanded for more reporting, disclosures, and expenditures in areas that have gone beyond the basic requirements of core business operations and food safety to include a variety of new regulatory demands. Compounding these challenges is the fact that new regulations have been introduced at an ever […]

For decades restaurants have centered their order and payment processes around the POS. Diners sometimes pay with cash, but a majority have migrated to payment using credit and debit cards.  Among payment cards, debit plays an important role, as 68% of all payment cards and 64% of all card payments are made with debit cards. Of course, consumers are familiar with debit cards, using them at the ATM and major […]

The Trump Administration has been critical of trade deals, including both the TPP (already scrapped) and NAFTA (with threats to alter or scrap it as well).  Additionally, proposals have been floated to implement a 20% “Border Adjustment Tax”. These moves could have a major impact on the Restaurant Industry given significant agricultural imports from countries such as Mexico (NAFTA, #1 foreign supplier of fruits & vegetables), Chile (TPP, #2 foreign […]

In its short tenure, the Trump Administration has adopted an aggressive stance on immigration.  These include two attempts at implementing a “travel ban”, aggressive enforcement actions by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and stepped up deportations of undocumented residents of the United States. Increased deportations in particular would substantially impact the Restaurant Industry, given an already acute condition with industry staffing and turnover.  The Pew Research Center estimates that an […]

The International Franchise Association and the Franchise Education and Research Foundation jointly released their report in January entitled “Franchise Business Economic Outlook for 2017”.  The report shows the major role played by restaurants in creating franchise and employment opportunities for both business owners and workers. Among the key findings of the report are the expanding economic output of franchise restaurants, and the employment associated with this growth.  In 2017 growth […]

Restaurants seem to be in a funk.  Declining sales are often blamed on the economy.  But are there other factors at work?  Of course, hospitality and ambiance are important, along with other factors (e.g. affordability).  Looking deeper limited menu options may be a major issue.  Visit most restaurants in the United States, especially in the casual segment, and in nearly all cases you’ll be limited to one of the following […]

Restaurants have been facing an increasingly challenging environment in recent years.  2016 was an especially difficult year, with declining sales for many brands and widespread talk of a “Restaurant Recession”.  Forecasts for 2017 predict much of the same. Typically, the economy gets the blame for falling sales – although 2016 was a solid year for the economy and job growth.  In some cases, the fault for poor results is attributed […]

Minimum wage increases came with the new year in 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, boosting wages for 4.4 million workers.  Some as a result of ballot initiatives in the 2016 Election, while others had already been slated to occur.  As expected, the restaurant industry is among those most impacted.  What will Trump do (WWTD)? The states have now taken the lead on this issue, as the U.S. Federal […]

Too often the use of technology in restaurants is viewed in simplistic terms.  Some servers view it as a threat.  Something that can eliminate jobs.  In reality, technology is primarily a tool to improve productivity, much like a laptop or a smartphone.  As such it produces a win/win situation for both servers and restaurateurs. Servers benefit, because technology like a tabletop system can allow them to better attend to diners […]

Technology is a tool that can increase hospitality by giving diners more control.  And it’s a factor that has become more critical as consumers have grown accustomed to using smartphones in their daily lives.  Information at your fingertips.  The ability to purchase anything of interest wherever you are.  Ubiquitous new services like Uber that can summons a ride on demand.  Increasingly, consumers expect to have this sort of control.  All […]