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Kelly Killian

Editor

Articles by
Kelly Killian

Page 9

Famous Dave's high-tech remake

Famous Dave's CEO Ed Rensi intends to turn the barbecue concept into a more efficient operation by embracing technology. He provided Restaurant Business with a peek inside the lab for the overhaul, a unit in the Chicago suburbs. Here's what we saw.

Marketing

Applebee’s new marketing strategy: customers’ photos

To boost engagement with its “neighborhood” and generate some social media buzz, Applebee’s, the country’s 10th largest chain by sales, will turn over its Instagram feed to its customers for the next 12 months, Adweek reports, relying in a big way (although not solely) on user-generated content—read: free content—to populate the page.

Fro-yo’s freeze out

Four years after multiple frozen-yogurt concepts landed in our Future 50's top 10, the list is down to one. Has the fro-yo craze reached its cold, swirly peak?

Leadership

Get to know life services expert Laurie beth Jensen

With one foot in HR and the other in marketing, Jensen has the express job of making employees feel good about their positions at Zoës Kitchen, the Plano, Texas-based Mediterranean fast casual with more than 110 units

Technology

Taste Savant

Restaurateurs who dislike being reviewed by rank amateurs may be heartened by the release of an app by a website that calls itself the “anti-Yelp.”

Food

Promoting protein

What will be the next big buzzword on restaurant menus? According to trend-spotting Chicago research firm Food Genius, it just might be “protein.”

Financing

How to be profitable in tough neighborhoods

Employee development and community involvement are key to success in the inner city, operators say. Hear more best practices from the panelists at the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance Operators' Conference this week.

Patent trolls are lurking to gobble up your green

An official-looking letter arrives in the mail claiming that some innocuous product or service you use in your restaurant is covered by a patent, and you’re infringing on it.

Financing

Cautious consumers point to modest growth in ’14 and ’15, Technomic says

In its annual state of the industry forecast, Technomic is predicting moderate growth in 2014 and 2015—mostly in limited-service restaurants.

To market, to market

Shopping for business ideas in the grocery aisle. If our team spends one more hour at Chicago’s Eataly, we’ll have to start forwarding our mail there.

Efforts to curb patent trolls shift to states

When it comes to fighting off patent trolls, restaurants have very few arrows in their quiver. And recent inaction in Congress means they have even less ammunition now.

Marketing

Restaurants jump on @HiddenCash social media trend

People in big cities have been all abuzz over the hidden cash craze sweeping social media, that all started when a mysterious person (@HiddenCash) began stashing money around San Francisco.

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