Jeremy Julian
Jeremy Julian
Few restaurateurs and even fewer consumers know about the behind-the-scenes battles that affect food labeling. From the calorie count of your morning coffee shop fix to the shrink-wrapped meat at the grocery store, interest groups are fighting to define what information consumers should have and why. Two movements have held the food labeling spotlight in recent years – those in favor of adding calorie counts to menus, and those who want labels on genetically modified food (GMOs). One movement has been successful, the other less so, and the reasons why might surprise you. Food Labeling Legislation Calorie Counts Calorie count laws compel chain restaurants and other places that serve food to display the estimated caloric total for each menu item. These requirements, which are designed to ‘nudge’ consumersContinue Reading …
Monitoring and recording food temperatures often and accurately is critical to your restaurant’s operations. It’s the only way to be sure that your staff and your business are providing customers with safe food. Restaurant Technology for Food Temperature Tracking Many restaurateurs today are looking for a more efficient and accurate way to track food temperature, both in the restaurant and throughout the supply chain. Just like cloud-based POS systems and other advances, a new generation of wireless, sensor-based “smart” systems can be used for this purpose. These sensors can be placed in holding areas, refrigerators and food preparation spaces to track temperatures, as well as the humidity and refrigerator door status. Wireless and automated devices can provide continuous monitoring and recording, reducing the risk ofContinue Reading …
How much time have you spent staring at your restaurant’s menu, trying to perfect the item placement, prices, images and countless other details? If the answer is “more than I can count,” there’s a better way. Menu engineering provides the tips and tactics you need to improve and upgrade your menu – increasing both profits and customer experience along the way. What Is Menu Engineering? Menu engineering is the way that restaurateurs place items on a menu to maximize profitability per guest. You probably do a version of this already. Placing appetizers at the beginning of the menu and desserts at the end, grouping similar courses together, and recommending popular items are all common-sense forms of menu engineering. Many menu engineering supporters rely onContinue Reading …
Minimum wage increases are all the rage today in places like Seattle and Los Angeles, where local governments are phasing in a $15-an-hour minimum for labor over the next few years. While some can look forward to a slightly bigger paycheck, restaurant owners and employees alike are concerned about what these increases will do to their industry. In June, the Wall Street Journal estimated that profit margins for restaurants in cities or states with rising minimum wages could shrink by one to four percentage points, based on a study by Moody’s Investors Service. Now, minimum wage staff typically don’t make up most of a restaurant’s team. So why the lost profits? Moody’s says that employers will probably introduce across-the-board raises to keep veteran workers happy and maintain theContinue Reading …
If you ask most restaurant managers and owners what their top ongoing concern is, you’ll usually get the same one-word answer: labor. Food and labor present the largest opportunities for saving money and cutting costs in the restaurant business. About two-thirds of restaurant operations costs go to these two components, regardless of service or price level, according to an Operations Report by the National Restaurant Association. And while food costs have some built-in price controls, the cost of labor is set both by the government (through minimum wage laws) and the fickle laws of supply and demand. In Part 1 of this post, the Restaurant Technology Guys offered some recommendations and best practices to ensure that the food side of your business is asContinue Reading …
The Melting Pot has announced that all 125 of its locations across the United States will be integrating CBS’s tablet ordering system known as NorthStar Order Entry. The change is expected to happen over the next three years. The Melting Pot tested NorthStar Order Entry at several of its locations and experienced positive results and feedback, including faster service and better tips! So they decided it was a worthwhile investment that would have an excellent ROI by increasing profits, reducing waste, and improving the customer experience. Win-win! NorthStar Order Entry is a POS (point of sale) system that offers five ways to take orders: staff-facing POS, guest-facing (tabletop), lobby kiosk, online, and mobile devices. NorthStar Order Entry also features WorldView monitoring, putting all your locations on a singleContinue Reading …
