All posts by Jennifer Welsh
Reality shows that involve cooking have taken over the airwaves, and it’s hard to switch on the TV without seeing “real” chefs go head to head over a simmering white sauce or lightly braised chicken. But before there was MasterChef and Chopped, there were fictional TV chefs who made us laugh, cry and want to run to the kitchen during commercials to get a bite to eat.
Instagram is everywhere and in a previous post we discussed how to create Instagrammable food to promote your restaurant. However, for a restaurant’s purposes, Instagram is so much more than rainbow toast and unicorn shakes. It’s more than customers coming in, ordering something, photographing it and then sending it off to the digital world known as Instagram.
For those of us old enough to remember the robot from the TV show Lost in Space (or young enough to still enjoy it now on syndication), wildly waving its arms to communicate, here’s a news flash: the world of robots has changed. Robots in the food industry have less to do with R2-D2 or Woody Allen’s Sleeper, than with, speed, automation, efficiency, and customer service.
There’s no denying that French fries are the most awesome of side dishes and that they’re impossible to resist or to have “just one of.” They’ve been around the United States for about 200 years and, contrary to popular belief, a few fries with ketchup are not fatal. While the combination of carbs, sodium and fat may not be ideal, a few fries on the side won’t destroy a diet forever or add an immediate 10 pounds to your waistline.
Offering wines on tap is one of the hottest food-and-beverage trends right now, and many restaurants and bars are expanding their wine programs with on-tap offerings in a variety of ways. Because technology is always advancing, adding wine-on-tap is a possibility for older, existing restaurants, and even more convenient for brand-new establishments.
In the food-service industry, a restaurant’s atmosphere can run the gamut from high-end and elegant to fast and furious. Chances are, though, that your restaurant’s style is somewhere in between – say, casual and laid back, with an emphasis on good food and good times. For many people, dining out means getting together with friends for a long leisurely meal; for others, though, having a good time means inviting along their loyal pet.
If you own or manage a restaurant, you undoubtedly have to deal with one of the most annoying and disruptive phenomena of the industry: customers who don’t honor their reservations and simply fail to show up with no warning. For restaurants in general, and small establishments in particular, a no-show represents a missed opportunity to seat other guests – or a tableful of other guests – which is a painful blow, particularly if it happens night after night.
Instagram has been around for a while and, from its inception, the photo-based app has been positioned at the center of trends in food and beverages in general, and in the restaurant business in particular. Restaurants are offering rainbow-colored “unicorn foods” with Instagram in mind, and creating fabulous and original spaces, and then waiting for the lines to form after images of their products and menus go viral.
These days, more and more people are trying to eat healthy. They are looking to boost their vegetable intake and, at the same time, lower their meat consumption. While the traditional beef burger still has a large and avid audience, there’s more reason than ever to add plant-based burgers to your restaurant’s menu and to attract a clientele that will appreciate your efforts to keep their interests in mind by creating meatless offerings.
For many people – and many restaurants – food and drinks go together. And when we say “drinks,” we mean alcohol. Restaurants that want to offer a complete dining experience have bars that are stocked with the latest spirits and manned by the most knowledgeable and skilled bartenders. However, word on the culinary street is that there is a trend afoot that might alter the food-drink synergy.