Predicting the next big trends in restaurants has become a sizable cottage industry. After hacking our way through 15 or 20 of the projections for 2022, and even drafting our own list of what to expect, our spirits were raised by the prospect of certain annoying currents disappearing for good. We think you'll agree, but see for yourself. Here are the trends we hope will fade into bad memories.
Male + pale = stale
It’s pop-quiz time. For a shot at our grand prize, which at this stage appears to be a Restaurant Business shrimp de-veiner, list all the executives of color who currently head a public restaurant company.
That, of course, is a trick question: There are none. Walk into a restaurant at the height of the lunch or dinner rush and you’re likely to find workers of all races, ethnicities, parental status and orientations, not to mention deep representation of both genders. The same holds true for the clientele.
Barge into the office of a public restaurant company’s CEO and the only person of color you may encounter is the security guard who’s dispatched to drag you out.
Things aren’t much better gender-wise. As far as we know, there are only two women currently heading public restaurant companies: Cheryl Henry, CEO of Ruth’s Chris’ parent company, and Sandy Cochran, CEO of Cracker Barrel.
There’s more diversity within private companies, but not much. As an industry, we get an F- minus on this test.
Worst of all, the trend is moving in the wrong direction. The industry never abounded in c-suite diversity. But we’re reverting to a 1960s level, and that’s just not right. It needs to be stopped and reversed.
Hostile customers
Once upon a time, restaurants set all types of prerequisites for entering a restaurant. Men might’ve been required to wear a tie and at least a sports coat. Women were turned away if an establishment felt their outfits were too risqué. Going further back, they couldn’t wear pants in lieu of a skirt or dress. At the very least, shoes were required of all.
Those efforts were aimed at maintaining an ambience and a certain level of decorum. In 2021, the objective of newly imposed entry requirements shifted to keeping people alive. Whether voluntarily or by government mandate, guests were required to wear a mask, show proof they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19, or to stay a few feet away from fellow diners. Otherwise, a clientele could easily come down with a potentially fatal disease.
The upshot was a reminder of how awful some customers can be. They felt it was an intolerable breach of free choice to require they wear a facemask or present proof of either vaccination or a negative COVID test. It wasn’t just a matter of cursing and trying to bully employees who were only enforcing a rule set for them. Restaurant workers were punched, stabbed and shot for doing what their employers and public officials required. People would rather kill or do jail time than put something over their mouths and noses for the walk to their table.
We sincerely hope those people find enough choices in their local supermarkets or c-stores to forego restaurants in the near and long-range future. The business was hard enough in 2021 without that kind of rock-headedness.
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs
Just reading that tag fogs our brains. The phenomenon had been relegated to the nerds who count endless hours of Dungeons & Dragons among their happiest of times. But now it’s spilling into the restaurant industry. Chains are selling NFTs that capture some aspect of their brand, be it a slogan or a picture of a typical restaurant, vis-à-vis what Olive Garden is now peddling. In reality, the depictions are small, proprietary bits of computer coding that conjure up the images. The advantage is that you own the digital picture.
We just don’t see the inherent value of NFTs. And you’re talking about a crowd that’s lived through fidget spinners, pet rocks, mood rings and deeds proclaiming you own one of our galaxy’s stars. Let this one fizzle out.
Plexiglass dividers
Why not just pull out a sandwich and start munching on your side of a teller’s window? The see-through mini-walls were a godsend during the first few quarters of the pandemic, providing the same sort of protection that social distancing did. Instead of yanking out tables to keep patrons X feet apart, operators could use the dividers to provide a safe boundary between parties. Fewer seats had to be mothballed.
But we’re no longer there, and all signs indicate the public is eager for the socializing afforded by a restaurant visit. Peering at fellow diners through a wall of plastic just doesn’t align with that yearning.
Virtual chicken-wing concepts
You’d be sympathetic if you knew how many times we wrote about the ventures during the last 12 months. Yet they keep coming. Apparently, consumers can’t get enough chicken wings delivered to their homes or offices. Or at least that’s the theory for the bandwagon-jumping. But at what point is a chicken-wing fan going to put that term into the search window of a third-party delivery app and pull up multiple choices? Isn’t that going to get us back to the point of customers shopping for specific brands rather than opting for a provider because that’s the one a platform recommends?
There’s also the matter of demand and costs. Forget a better mousetrap. The industry should hope some NFT fan out there is working on a six-wing chicken.
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