Peter Romeo

A look back at Day One of the Association and its constituency.

The decade brought a pressing need for restaurateurs to revamp their vocabularies.

The National Restaurant Association undertook a program to polish the industry’s image.

When war broke out with Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait, U.S. restaurants braced for a downturn in traffic.

The decade would be regarded by many as a golden age for the restaurant industry. The business itself grew by leaps and bounds.

The decade kicked off with an industrywide promotional campaign that would live on for years and whose tagline would ultimately be “borrowed” by the city of Chicago for its tourism promotion efforts: “We’re Glad You’re Here.”