Continue to Site >>>

Kelly Killian

Editor

Articles by
Kelly Killian

Page 7

How the busiest restaurateurs do it all

Between brokering deals, managing employees, pleasing customers and weathering the ups and downs of running a business—or multiple businesses—in an uncertain and challenging economy, running restaurants is not for the feeble. Here's how some of the busiest industry leaders say they stay sane.

How to innovate

Chef and creator of the Cronut, Dominique Ansel, didn’t set out to concoct a best-seller. “There was no magic formula or marketing strategy behind this croissant-doughnut hybrid,” he writes in his book “Dominique Ansel: The Secret Recipes.” He was simply trying to make a doughnut, for which he had no recipe.

The next great thing

RestaurantBusinessOnline.com launched around this time last year. Since then, our traffic has nearly tripled and the site was named a finalist for two Editorial & Design Awards. And we're not stopping there ...

Financing

10 sales-building strategies from the top independents

Here are some of the tactics the country’s leading independents—with revenues of $10 million or more—say have been most successful recently for building sales.

Food

Hungry for health

Aiming to deliver healthful, high-quality food, Choi is partnering with like-minded San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson to launch Loco’l in spring 2015.

Steal this idea: Restaurant turns cooking oil into soap to sell in-house

Federal Donuts uses an estimated 400 gallons of cooking oil a week. Now they are working with a local high school where students will use the glycerin to make donut-shape soap that Federal Donuts will sell out of its four Philadelphia units, and the youngsters will help run that side business.

Food

10 successful menu adds from the top-grossing independents

Successful menu additions keeps guests coming back for more, a key strategy in today’s traffic-challenged climate.

Marketing

Get to Know: Allison Hills

On the day it unveiled its new tuition-reimbursement plan for employees, Starbucks was met with a crush of interest from the media and corporate America pushing to know more about CEO Howard Schultz’s latest HR ploy.

Financing

Control heating costs without getting burned

With “frigid and bitter” conditions predicted for the upcoming winter, operators already are preparing, checking systems and making upgrades.

Trends from the top

Fine dining has evolved, adapting a more humble and more accessible attitude to appeal to more wallet-conscious customers.

Technology

Location, location, location

Beacons and other location-based technology already are going mainstream in the retail space. Now restaurants are getting in the game, using geotargeting to deliver hospitality in new ways.

Consumer Trends

Big names vie for a seat at the table

In the past 13 months, four big fish—Priceline, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google—have gobbled up companies in the online-reservations business to the tune of more than $2.8 billion.

  • Page 7