Food
Food trends and recipes to keep menus fresh
Food
Food trucks roll into RLC
Food trucks fill the streets and parking lots of New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Austin and Portland, Ore. Los Angeles alone counts 9,000 food trucks and carts, including branded vehicles from California Pizza Kitchen and Carl’s Jr. Yet when Ray Villaman, moderator of a trucks panel at the Restaurant Leadership Conference, asked who in the audience has or plans to launch a food truck, only a few hands were raised.
Food
The Menu: Your primary marketing tool
One controllable variable is the menu and it is the primary vehicle by which a foodservice operation presents its marketing strategy and helps customers satisfy their needs.
Tomato lovers may start getting gloomy as summer draws to a close, but there are still plenty of reasons to rejoice. Local red, yellow, orange, purple and striped beauties are at their peak well into September and even October, depending on locale. And restaurants are going beyond salads and BLTs to make the most of them.
More and more Americans are patronizing restaurants differently these days, opting to make a meal of shareable appetizers, small plates, inventive bar food or coffee and a snack. According to Chicago-based market research company Technomic, only 5 percent of consumers are now eating three square meals a day.