The restaurant industry is expanding at a strong pace again, but there's a difference to the growth and the strategies driving it. Chains are creating opportunities by peering further into the future and anticipating the trends in consumer preferences, restaurant recruitment, financing, politics and restaurant operations. They're hungering for ideas, innovation and insight.
Every chain has A, B and C units. A key to growth—without actually building new stores—can be in turning C’s into B’s and B’s into A’s.
Darren Tristano felt the need to apologize for a key point in the data he presented to attendees of the Restaurant Leadership Conference.
Energy saving may not be “an overly sexy conversation to have at eight in the morning,” acknowledged OSI Restaurant Partners’ vice president of procurement, Kristin Brooks. But a standing-room-only audience showed up at that hour during the Restaurant Leadership Conference to hear the Outback Steakhouse parent’s experiences in cutting utility costs.