Restaurants that don’t grow and change usually wither and die. Eventually, the people with a taste for a particular type of menu or concept will get bored or die off. It’s important for restaurants to keep attracting the next generation.
Here is an article on how the youngest generation, millenials, will be affecting alcoholic beverage trends…
Technomic: Millennials drive restaurant drink trends | Nation’s Restaurant News.
Big hauls of Maine Lobsters are leading to a drop in their price. While we still have to see how much of that drop will make it’s way outside of Maine, this may present restaurants, country clubs and other food services a great opportunity to drive sales by featuring Maine Lobsters at a price point they could not previously.
Check out the following article on the price drop…
Contact O’Dell Restaurant Consulting for many ways to drive more profit to your restaurant or food service’s bottom line.
Short read about hosting special events at your restaurant such as wine dinners, fund raisers and holiday parties.
Why hosting events at your restaurant can be a good marketing move | SmartBlogs SmartBlogs
According to a recent poll, only 36% of Americans favor the new healthcare legislation. It has far reaching potential affects into the food service industry and could burden heaviest on independent restaurants and their employees with more than 50 full time staff members. If the “mandate” is upheld, what are your plans if you are one of the thousands of larger independent restaurants, food services or chains that this would directly affect? Are you prepared for the additional record keeping regulations?
You can never get enough advice on how to keep yourself out of trouble with the IRS. Here are some “tips” for full service restaurants on what you need to be doing to track and manage your employee tip records…
Tip Reporting Advice for Full-Service Restaurants – Restaurant Management (RMGT).
For more help for your restaurant, visit www.bodellconsulting.com
Some unscrupulous 12 year olds hard at work making New Yorkers fat off “sugary drinks”
Not just a ban on Big Gulps and Super Sizes, Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on large sugary drinks is helping to protect New Yorkers from evil 10-year olds and their obesity causing lemonade stands…
Debating the Proposed City Regulation on Drink Size – NYTimes.com.
Here’s a good article from Restaurant Management Online on hiring for restaurant employees. I’m not sure I agree with the stated cost of losing an employee though. Those numbers seem exagerated to me. Either way, turnover sucks and this article has some great tips to help reduce turnover, including advice on what questions to ask in an interview. Feel free to comment on our blog about questions and tactics you’ve found useful in your interview process.
How To Interview and Hire New Workers – Restaurant Management (RMGT).
Interesting article on the www.DailyStar.com website about pairing wines with Chinese food. Chinese food bring some interesting flavors to the table that may not be easy for many experienced Sommeliers to match with wines….
THE DAILY STAR :: Culture :: Lifestyle :: Shiraz with your Peking Duck or Kung Pao? Sacre bleu!.
I would like to share a very inaccurate and damaging post from the Mayo Clinic website from two dietitians, Jennifer Nelson, M.S., R.D. and Katherine Zeratsky, R.D.
The author(s) claim that the “average” burger size in the U.S. is now 12 ounces, without toppings, the “average” fry portion being 6.7 ounces, and the “average” soda portion being 42 ounces. They may or may not have gotten their information from a CDC report they cite but don’t reference. These “averages” really represent the largest portions available in most markets and are nowhere near accurate. McDonald’s, the largest burger seller in the country, has a 2 ounce, 4 ounce and 5 ounce burger, with 2 – 4 ounce buns. The most popular pre-formed patty sizes sold through distributors are 4 ounce and 5 ounce sizes.
It’s articles like this that lead to regulations like what is being proposed in New York City by Mayor Bloomberg to limit the sizes of soft drinks available for purchase.
They wrote the article implying that restaurants might be responsible for making people eat larger portion sizes, as opposed to the real relationship between customers and restaurants of restaurants responding to customer demands and doing whatever it is that will keep customers coming through their doors so they can simply keep those doors open. This blame game starts with finger pointing and ends with the government eventually stepping in to tell you what you can and can’t sell in your restaurant, as witnessed currently with the proposed regulations in New York City. These regulations limit competition, drive up pricing and put independent restaurants out of business.
I urge all of you to comment on the Mayo Clinic article (no registration necessary) and express your disagreement with the mis-stated facts, and even urge the Mayo Clinic webmaster to take the inaccurate article down. If these statistics are actually contained in a CDC report, we need to get the National Restaurant Association involved in reviewing the study these “facts” are cited from as they are grossly inaccurate.
Here is the article, please comment: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/comments/MY02121_comments#post
Here is the Mayo Clinic “Contact” page to request this inaccurate article be removed: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/contact-us/contactus
If you are a National Restaurant Association member, contact them to ask that they look into possible damaging and inaccurate CDC reports that restaurants need amended: http://www.restaurant.org/login.cfm
Please help myself and others work to protect our industry.
Brandon O’Dell
O’Dell Restaurant Consulting
brandon@bodellconsulting.com
www.bodellconsulting.com
Restaurant-Hopitality.com has an article with a link to a free dining room layout tool developed by a Cornell researcher that is supposed to help restaurant operators optimize their dining room layouts. I have not used it yet, but you can’t beat free.
Free tech tool optimizes your dining room layout
Here is the link to go directly to the Cornell website and download the tool. You’ll need to register with Cornell as a “user” to download it. You’ll can also then selecd to recieve their School of Hospitality newsletter which I strongly suggest:
Dining room layout optimizer
For help with other restaurant or food service issues, visit www.bodellconsulting.com.
O'Dell Restaurant Consulting's Blog 