November 17, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

   
   Here's a succinct analysis of what's hurting restaurant sales. It comes via Jeffrey Bernstein, a sharp restaurant analyst at Barclay's Capital. In addition to recognizing there remain too many restaurants, Bernstein adds the following:

1) Convenient, ready-to eat, high quality prepared alternatives from other food channels (i.e. supermarkets, warehouse clubs) further pressuring the share of consumer food dollar spen...Read More

Industries: Expansion

November 16, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

   This weekend I dropped by a Kings Restaurant in Monaca, Pa., some 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. I hadn't been in one of the regional chain's restaurants since it remodeled its 35 units two years ago. (It has since debuted a new concept, Kings Hometown Grill, on Neville Island, in the Ohio River.) 
   There's nothing out of the ordinary here; but this iteration is much improved over the dated look that formerly defined the privately held company. One element made me chuckle: the word graphics wall in the last photo. I suppose if it were me, I wouldn't have merely listed items on the menu (especially Country Fried Steak). I'd have copied another approach and used witty quotes about fo...Read More
Industries: Emerging Chains, Expansion

November 13, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

   Here's another chance to test your foodservice IQ, which must pretty high since you're reading this blog in the first place. Still, I want you to increase your knowledge of all things foodservice even if you guess wrong. In this case, you'll be instructed on how to consume a popular item without having to reach for a napkin. Good luck!

1. Which restaurant chain is being blamed for a promotion that led to gunfire in New York City.

--Pret a Manger

--Taco Bell

--Friendly's

...Read More
Industries: Marketing, Operations

November 9, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

   The New York Times published a profile on Saturday of the unusually tight-lipped Ruby Tuesday chain--which had never invited a reporter to its Mayville, Tenn., headquarters. What makes this article worth reading isn't that the 37-year-old restaurant company is doing things differently as it struggles to win customers while upgrading itself in a failing economy. Indeed, its managers are being trained to inveigle the troops in the same way as other casual-dining operators: emphasize service, prepare food properly.
   It's that for the first time, in print, anyway, CEO and founder Sandy Beall, a colorful speaker, publi...Read More
Industries: Expansion, Operations

November 3, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

   Since spring of 2007 restaurant analyst Nicole Miller of Piper Jaffray has been asking high school students (54 percent male, 44 percent female) to list their favorite chain restaurants in order of preference. Some 1,200 students, age 16 on average, are told to write in responses on blank lines, rather than choose them from a list, she says. About a third of the students work part-time jobs. Their weighted household income is $75,000.
   The following percentages reflect the results from tallying each student's top choice.

Fall 2008         ...Read More

Industries: Research