Leadership
Franchisee of the Month: Chris Partyka
Chris Partyka bought into the Pizza Patron franchise system seven years ago with three units in San Antonio, intent on developing that market.
How Urban Belly got menu consistency, retail products and flavor in one move
As a classically trained chef who came up through the ranks of fine dining (Bouley, Charlie Trotter’s, Tru), Bill Kim knows about building flavor and...
C-store operators have a valuable demographic to target, according to “Making the Grade: Student Consumer Impact on the Retail Fuels and Convenience Marketplace,” by the NPD Group. The report, which collected 12 months of data ending in June 2012, found that the 19 million college student population accounts for billions of dollars spent each year on C-store products.
The CEO of 7-Eleven could have boasted about the inroads his chain has made into a market that was once owned by attendees of the Restaurant Leadership Conference. Joe DePinto certainly had the sales numbers to support a little braggadocio: $2.7 billion from fresh food, $5 billion from beverages, 1 million cups of coffee, 100 million fountain drinks.
Over 100 years ago, when Restaurant Business magazine was founded as Soda Fountain News, signature soft drinks were the only kind around. Back then, the “soda jerk” was a carbonated confection artist similar to today’s coffeehouse baristas. They juggled jugs of syrups and jerked the handle (and thus the term) of the fountain to dispense soda water, mixing up “phosphates” right in the glass.