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  Fr ee training is available by ServSafe that specializes in training restaurant and hospitality staff. With restaurant owners faced with the challenges of preparing to re-open, ServSafe offers a number of courses such as ServSafe Delivery-COVID-19 Precautions and   ServSafe Reopening Guidance: COVID-19 Precautions . The real advantage is that this training   provides participants a certificate to hang on their door to reassure customers  that the establishment takes safety seriously and is adhering to a standard of service . Many professionals in the field of hospitality may already be familiar with ServSafe Food Handling as many health departments require it. You can register for the courses available here .   

By Allen Graves From Bplans In today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, restaurants have the challenging and sometimes unenviable task of making their brand stand out from all the others. For newer businesses, it can be even more difficult due to a smaller budget and fewer loyal customers. In comparison to online retailers, brick-and-mortar businesses are typically short on what has become the most important component of marketing today—actual customer data. Customer data—the kind you get through market research—is essential to understanding who your customers really are, where their interests lie, and how they prefer to spend their money. It also helps businesses assess the feasibility of new products, services or menu items before putting them on the market.

By Sarah Buder From Afar Immigrant-owned restaurants have long enhanced the flavor of food scenes in cities across the United States. But in recent years, as refugee resettlement and immigration issues have fueled some of the country’s most divisive political debates, various eating establishments are redefining what it means to “break bread.” Global initiatives such as the Refugee Food Festival encourage local restaurants to open their kitchens once a year to chefs from war-torn countries, allowing them the resources to prepare and serve traditional meals from their homelands. Since its 2016 inception in Paris, the festival has reached 14 cities worldwide, including San Francisco and New York City. Now, across the United States, an increasing number of “food incubators” are supporting refugee and immigrant chefs in even longer-lasting ways. These refugee-powered restaurants provide newly settled U.S. residents with the language, business, and culinary skills necessary to pursue...

Written by Kendall Little for Bankrate We’ve all been there: You go out to dinner with a set budget, having already decided what to order and set aside the perfect amount for a tip. Then, your bill comes at the end of the night and you’ve somehow spent way beyond your limit. Don’t be too hard on yourself. There’s science behind persuading you to spend more. You can scope out the city’s best happy hour deal, take advantage of online coupons and even save on your first round of drinks at home, but restaurateurs and menu engineers have nearly perfected the psychology of making you spend money during a night out. Here are some common tactics restaurants use to get patrons to fork over more cash.

From the New York Times The balancing act plays out every day in restaurants across America: Servers who rely on tips decide where to draw the line when a customer goes too far. They ignore comments about their bodies, laugh off proposals for dates and deflect behavior that makes them uncomfortable or angry — all in pursuit of the $2 or $20 tip that will help buy groceries or pay the rent. There was the young server at a burger joint in Georgia whose customer held her tip money in his hand and said, “So you gonna give me your number?” She wrote it down but changed one of the digits. There was the waitress in Portland, Oregon who swallowed her anger when a man patted his lap and beckoned her to sit, saying, "I’m a great tipper." "You can’t just say, 'No, don’t talk to me that way,' or else you won’t get a tip."

From Tasting Table : When Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson debuted LocoL, a revolutionary fast-food chain with a social mission, it seemed they could do no wrong. With locations in Oakland and L.A., as well as a food truck, the beloved chefs were riding high. LocoL serves healthy alternatives at low prices to underserved neighborhoods. The mayor of Los Angeles even attended the opening of the first location last year. Leave it to New York Times dining critic Pete Wells, who spares no one, to bring the LocoL chefs back down to earth with a no-star review published this week... So was Wells feeling restless since his last feather-ruffling review? Or is LocoL too good to be true? Choi could have picked a fight if he wanted to but instead...

From Hotel News Now : In the digital age, music is omnipresent and access is immediate. Hotel operators, eager to improve the guest experience and elevate their brands, are assessing and enhancing the presentation of music at their properties. But along with the rise of online streaming, satellite radio and curated playlists comes the risk of copyright infringement. The hospitality industry is an easy target for such claims. A hospitality establishment generally must have a license to legally play music to the public, regardless of the method of play, which may include hosting a live band in an on-site club or bar, streaming a playlist from an internet music service, or even playing music that you purchased and stored on your own iPod. This license requirement is both administered and enforced by performing rights organizations. There are three such organizations in the United States: Broadcast Music; The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; and The Society...

A hamburger is from a fancy restaurant. It costs $17. And it probably tastes good. No, it has to -- who would pay $17 for a burger and fries which didn't? No one, at least not twice. That makes sense: in order to stay in business with an expensive menu, whatever your selling better make for a good dining experience. But at some point, our palates can't really discern between foods. When that happens, other signals take over. And at times, those signals can be so powerful that it overwhelms the rest of the experience. For example, would the same burger and fries taste as good if it cost, say, $4? Maybe not. More from Now I Know .

Franchised limited-service restaurants (NAICS 722513 ), sometimes called fast-food restaurants, employed 2.6 million people in 2012 and had sales of $129.2 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. New car dealers (NAICS  441110 ), an industry solely comprised of franchises, employed 973,745 people and had sales of $672.5 billion in 2012. The  2012 Economic Census Franchise Report  is only the second comprehensive and detailed report by the Census Bureau on this segment of the U.S. economy, with the first being released for the 2007 Economic Census. The report presents data for selected industries on the number of businesses with paid employees engaged in franchising, annual sales for these businesses, and employment and payroll. These data are broken out by industry in three categories: franchisor-owned businesses, franchisee-owned businesses and all businesses. The data are primarily national level, although state-level statistics are provided ...

On a bright day in the flats of San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles, the busiest restaurant around is a Panda Express tucked into a shopping center dominated by a Walmart. Running a fast-food operation isn't like other restaurants — here, we dive into the big picture, the tiny systems, and the daily struggles of keeping a quick-service shop humming. Walnut Grove Avenue is a relatively barren stretch between the 10 and 60 freeways in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley, some 12 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles. There are two big anchors to the suburb: a large Edison utility headquarters, and the corporate headquarters of Panda Restaurant Group, parent company of Panda Express. One of LA's few Walmarts looms at the end of a huge parking lot, flanked by a strip mall with a collection of standard-issue retail slots. While many diners still think of Panda as a shopping mall staple, the chain — founded in 1983 inside the Glendale Galleria mall just a few miles to the northeast — ...

Danny Meyer, head of the New York City-based Union Square Hospitality Group LLC, set off a nationwide conversation last week when he announced that he planned to do away with tipping at his 13 full-service operations. Numerous restaurants across the country add standard service charges of around 18 percent to 20 percent, particularly for larger parties, to their checks, and a few restaurants, such as Alinea in Chicago and Lazy Bear in San Francisco, have done away with traditional reservations and have switched to all-inclusive, non-refundable tickets. Meyer is taking a different approach by raising menu prices and telling his customers that “hospitality” is included in the price. “I’m not waging a campaign on behalf of our entire industry. I’m doing what I think is right for our company,” Meyer told Nation’s Restaurant News. However, Meyer clearly hopes to change the way full-service restaurants compensate their employees. In fact, he said for his plan to work, his staff needs to ...

According to a study published in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, approximately 60 percent of restaurants fail within their first year of business. If you are dreaming of becoming a restaurateur, you can increase your chances of success by honestly answering all of the questions proposed in this article, as well as checking off everything suggested below. More from BPlans.com

Going out to dinner can be a pricey experience — a few dollars for an appetizer, another ten or more per entree, and maybe even dessert. The only good news for your wallet is that at most restaurants will give you a glass of tap water for free. That’s tradition, at least, and customers are used to it. But if you’re the restaurant — or if you’re a not-free beverage-maker — you’d prefer they choose otherwise. Which is how Coke and Olive Garden got into a little bit of hot water about a decade or so ago. The story begins in the late 1990s. The soft drink giant and the restaurant chain teamed up to create and implement something called “H2NO.” (Clever, right?) H2NO was an “education kit” for Olive Garden’s waitstaff training them in “beverage suggestive selling techniques” — in short, it taught waiters and waitresses how to get a customer off of the free tap water and into a more lucrative, paid-for drink choice. More from Now I Know .

The restaurant industry posted its best sales results in more than two years during the third quarter of 2014, amid continuing signs of economic growth, according to the latest Restaurant Industry Snapshot from TDn2K’s Black Box Intelligence and People Report, based on weekly sales from more than 20,000 restaurant units representing more than $45 billion in annual revenue. Same-store sales grew 1.6 percent during the quarter, a 1.3-percent increase over second quarter results and the best quarter for the industry since the first quarter of 2012. The industry saw positive same-store sales for the second consecutive quarter — a first since the second half of 2012. The gain came on the heels of strong industry performance in September, when same-store sales rose 2.2 percent. More from Nation's Restaurant News .

Different industries are having different reactions to the Affordable Care Act.  Below are some articles on different industries and how they say the ACA will effect them How latest change in health care bill impacts restaurants Manufacturers warn of ObamaCare fallout New Obamacare Regulations Spark Growth in Vending Industry Companies Say Obamacare Is Slamming The Health Care Industry I've tried to provide a mix of industries above.  If you are interested in finding information on an industry that I haven't touched on, please comment below, and I will try to find information for you.  If you would like to search on your own, I advise looking at an association website.  Associations are valuable sources of up-to-date information on specific industries.

The IRS has clarified how the 50-percent limitation on deducting meal and entertainment expenses applies to reimbursement arrangements involving three-party situations (e.g., employee leasing companies) and to independent contractors. The new rules provide options for claiming these deductions and offer planning opportunities that should be explored with your tax advisors. More from the Business Owner's Toolkit .

The Forty Hours is Full Time Act of 2013, or H.R. 2988, which was introduced by Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., would expand the definition of a full-time employee from the ACA’s current 30-hour-per-week threshold. The ACA currently establishes that businesses with more than 50 full-time workers must provide health insurance for full-time employees who work either 30 hours a week or 130 hours per month. Many in the foodservice industry have been working to convince policymakers to increase the number of weekly hours worked to 35 or 40 since the ACA was passed in 2010. This newest measure mirrors a similar bipartisan bill that had been introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., earlier this year. Like the House bill, the Senate version redefines a full-time employee as one who works 40 hours a week or 174 hours a month based on a 52-week year. More from Nation's Restaurant News .

Perceived pay fairness for employees is just as important as the reality of it. Employees need to feel that the hard work they put into their job matches what they get back from it—and pay is an important part of this evaluation. The importance of pay fairness to employees is obvious in its relationship to employee engagement, turnover intentions, work stress, psychological and physical health, and life satisfaction. But fair pay isn’t just important to employees—it’s also in your company’s best interest. Go HERE to download your complimentary WorkTrends Report, “Perception is Reality: The Importance of Pay Fairness to Employees and Organizations. *** To that end: New York Sushi Restaurant Eliminates Tipping Because It Pays Waiters A Salary With Benefits : Most restaurants use tips as an excuse to pay their servers less, even though surveys find employers often duck the federal requirement that only allows them to pay below minimum wage if tips make up the difference. As a resu...

To date, the New Business Acceleration Team has assisted over 650 restaurants to reach kitchen ready status. What you will find in the map below is an interactive map that illustrates the locations of each of those establishments. Once you click the map, you will be redirected to a screen where you can scroll over each location with your mouse and a pop-up will appear providing the location's address and website.

As supply costs in the food and beverage industry are inflating at alarming rates, now is a good time for effective food service managers to revisit their menus and develop some pricing strategies to position them for continued success in the marketplace. Quite a few operators are rightfully concerned about recent price increases. Still, this actually provides a nice window of opportunity to make some changes to menu prices and actually increase profit. While I would like to provide a tried and proven formula food service managers could use for pricing their menus, the fact is that menu pricing is more of an art than a science. There are just too many different factors that come in to play and probably one of the biggest mistakes managers make is to price their menu offerings based on formula rather than thinking about some of these factors.Any business that is considering their menu prices should not only consider their supplier costs, but also a competitive analysis and some form of ...