The Week in Ideas, October 22, 2012
This week: Chick-fil-A has a poor choice of words for a party tray promotion. Nutella gets mad at a burrito chain. A Manhattan restaurant embraces Instagram. And others continue to wrestle with cell-phone bans.
Romano's Macaroni Grill closes all Missouri locations, including Columbia restaurant
The struggling chain is exiting the market as part of a revitalization effort.
More than half of the restaurant industry’s $491 billion in sales come from the Top 500 chains. And these giants grew at a modestly stronger rate, both in terms of sales and store counts, than the industry overall. Restaurant Business focused on the leading 250 performers to identify trends for our first-ever special report delivering lessons from Technomic’s annual Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. This special package includes lessons for all operators from the largest chains by segment, menu category and more.
History teaches that the decline of many ancient civilizations was in part due to non-renewable farming methods. Many modern farming methods appear to be similarly depleting our natural resources. At the same time, the world’s population is growing at an unprecedented pace. This raises serious questions about whether our present agricultural systems will be able to support this increase.