The Bottom Line

Jonathan Maze The Bottom Line

Restaurant Business Executive Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze is a longtime industry journalist who writes about restaurant finance, mergers and acquisitions and the economy, with a particular focus on quick-service restaurants. He writes daily about the factors influencing the operating environment, including labor and food costs and various industry trends such as technology and delivery.

Jonathan has been widely quoted in media publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and has appeared on CNBC, Yahoo Finance and NPR. He writes a weekly finance-focused newsletter for Restaurant Business, The Bottom Line, and is the host of the weekly podcast “A Deeper Dive.”

Financing

McDonald's adds doughnuts, and some uncertainty, to the menu

The Bottom Line: Krispy Kreme gets a massive win with its McDonald's doughnut deal. But the payoff is less certain, and a long way off, for the fast-food restaurant chain.

Financing

U.S. pizza chains hit a post-pandemic wall

The Bottom Line: Growth that came so easy to pizza delivery chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns is now much harder to come by. And now two of them are looking for new leadership.

The Bottom Line: The fast-casual burger chain chain lured one of the restaurant industry’s up-and-coming chief executives with $7.3 million in signing bonuses and stock awards.

The Bottom Line: The fast-food sandwich chain's new beverage contract is aimed at breathing life into its drink sales as consumers order fewer sodas with their subs at its restaurants.

The Bottom Line: Restaurant brands want traffic. Franchisees want profitability. The current operating environment is making that a tough choice and the result has increased tension at many franchises.

The fast-casual brand was in freefall before it filed for bankruptcy last year. But improved operations and marketing, and a lot of hard work, have helped the chain turn the corner.

The Bottom Line: Wingstop, Burger King franchisees and robots were the big winners. But maybe count out dynamic pricing for a while.

The Bottom Line: People making $50,000 or less have cut back on dining as prices have soared. But that group remains an important source of industry traffic.

The Bottom Line: The fast-casual chain has wanted to go public for years. But controversies, lawsuits, a menu overhaul and an ingredient downgrade made that a bad idea.

The Bottom Line: The pizza delivery chain’s business with companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash is thriving while its own delivery is slowing. But this isn’t the beginning of the end of self-delivery, CEO Rob Lynch says.

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