Taco John's

The Year of the Franchisee

The Great Recession left clear winners and losers in the chain restaurant game. Fast-food places? Burger King wasn’t the only one that could wear a crown.

The Week in Franchising, April 24

Recent developments of interest to restaurant franchisees and franchisors.

Restaurant chains that serve more lower-calorie foods and beverages have better business performance, according to a new study by Hudson Institute. Over five years, chains that increased the amount of lower-calorie options they served had better sales growth, larger increases in customer traffic and stronger gains in total food and beverage servings than chains whose servings of lower-calorie options declined.

Senior Associate Editor Sara Rush looks at the year’s biggest advances in technology and the questions those innovations raised.

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.

With most chains trying to score valuable real estate on their customers’ phones, the Restaurant Business team took a look at 25 restaurant apps to see what’s working—and what’s not.

Here is a roundup of Tuesday meal deals helping drive traffic on that day of the week.

The Mexican category overall saw sales increase by 0.9% to $18 billion and units by 4.1%, to 12,656.

Adds a “West-Mex” flare to its affordable tacos, burritos and signature Potatoes Olés 

It serves made-to-order meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner

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