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Independent Restaurants

Food

R.J. Grunts' famous salad bar gets a digital makeover

 By Patricia Cobe on Jun. 29, 2021

The Lettuce Entertain You restaurant, largely credited with inventing the salad bar 50 years ago, is reinventing it as the Digital Chopped Salad Bar.

Operations

Restaurant owners are frustrated, angry after new round of RRF grant reversals

 By Heather Lalley on Jun. 24, 2021

The U.S. Small Business Administration, which oversees the awards, is quiet about why operators’ promised funding is being rescinded for the second time this month.

Leadership

Campanile co-founder and chef Mark Peel dies

By Heather Lalley on Jun. 21, 2021

Peel, 66, was widely regarded as a pioneer of California cuisine.

Operations

Creative and innovative Lettuce Entertain You turns 50

By Heather Lalley on Jun. 18, 2021

The Chicago-based multi-concept operator is gearing up for its next half century with the same spirit of inventiveness that has made it an industry leader for decades.

Marketing

How one Baltimore restaurant owner wants to make Juneteenth as big as St. Patrick’s Day

By Heather Lalley on Jun. 16, 2021

Keyia Yalcin of Fishnet enlisted 10 other Black-owned restaurants in her city to mount a major promotion to mark Emancipation Day.

Leadership

Seattle’s Edouardo Jordan indefinitely closes his two restaurants following abuse allegations

By Heather Lalley on Jun. 14, 2021

The Seattle Times talked to 15 women who accused the award-winning chef of Salare and JuneBaby of unwanted sexual conduct.

Operations

How Houston’s Cleburne Cafeteria has endured for 80 years

By Heather Lalley on May 26, 2021

The iconic restaurant, which opened just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, “continues to try not to change,” its owner said.

Emerging Brands

Lettuce Entertain You is eyeing Florida as a big growth market

By Heather Lalley on May 25, 2021

The Chicago-based multi-concept operator has a couple of restaurants in the works in the Sunshine State, with the first up being an expansion of its Mediterranean restaurant, Aba.

Operations

Outdoor dining goes from stop-gap to full-time

By Heather Lalley on May 21, 2021

Around the country, cities are building on the al fresco dining programs they hastily launched last year to keep restaurants afloat during the pandemic.

Operations

Ark Restaurants: Events are coming back, but NYC remains a ‘problem’

By Heather Lalley on May 18, 2021

The multi-concept operator said it is seeing sales and traffic pick up in many parts of the country, and that it is looking to add one to two restaurants a year to its portfolio.

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