Restaurant Rewind

Editor's note: This will be the final episode of the Restaurant Rewind podcast. Thank you for listening. KFC recently opened Saucy, a chicken fingers concept that aims to compete directly with the fast-growing Raising Cane’s. But this isn’t the first time the fast-food chicken concept has created a new brand to compete with a quick-growing rival, and in this week’s episode of the Restaurant Rewind...

Restaurants are no strangers to violent crime, as any reader of local news would attest. Occasionally the offenses are so appalling that they snag national attention. And then there are the atrocities that can haunt the public for weeks because of the brutality. This week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind looks at two of those nightmarish events, the seven-person murder in the Chicago area that took...

Before burritos became as commonplace on menus as sandwiches, Chi-Chi’s was selling the Mexican staple as something called a burro, a novelty to the consumer mainstream those many decades ago.  The option shared space on the bill of fare with a chili pie, an item that’s hardly a must-have today for Mexican chains. If a Chi-Chi’s customer wanted something more familiar nearly 50 years ago, they cou...

Enough with all the adulation of Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father. Don’t people realize he was also the hero brought mac ‘n cheese to the American dinner table? The safe answer is an emphatic “no.” Yet as this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind reports, the author of the Declaration of Independence came to love the dish while serving as the fledgling United States’ second ambassador to Franc...

Even after a year of hints that a deal might be in the works, Monday’s announcement of a change in control at Jersey Mike’s was a stunner, particularly for anyone who’s kept close watch on the sandwich chain. Few decisions of import have been made without the active involvement of owner Peter Cancro, the sixtysomething who’s been running the operation since he was 17. What happens now, with a shar...

These haven’t been the easiest of times for the restaurant business, with chains closing hundreds of units and bankruptcy providing a last lifeline for former powers like TGI Fridays and Red Lobster. But those tribulations are nothing compared to what’s befallen the marketing icons who’ve filled such big shoes for the trade in the past. And we mean literally big. Like Ronald McDonald’s 29EEEs.  Th...

Plenty of restaurant upstarts pin their hopes on building a better mousetrap. They’re not so much bringing something new to the market as promising an improvement over what consumers already know and love. Look at the better-burger pack, or the now-wheezing fast-casual pizza market.  TGI Fridays took a sledgehammer to that approach. It owed its initial success to mating rituals and sheer irreveren...

More than three decades have passed since the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, yet it’s still the yardstick used to gauge the impact of a food-safety crisis. Hours after McDonald’s revealed its problems with Quarter Pounders, commentators were already recalling the contamination in the Northwest that left four children dead, another 200 persons permanently impaired and nearly 750 sickened in tota...

The widespread closings announced this week by family-dining chains underscore the transformation that’s underway in that venerable segment of the restaurant business. Old-guard brands are hacking off the dead wood of their systems in hopes of clearing the way for fresh growth. They’re striving to recapture the momentum that kept them kings of the sector for decades. The greybeards are painfully a...

If the restaurant industry is such a horrible place to make a living, why do so many youngsters follow their parents into the business?  It’s a question that blunts dismissal of the field as the career choice of last resort. The second generation knows exactly what the work entails, having witnessed it firsthand, drawbacks and all, in the people they love.  Yet they plunge ahead, also appreciating...

The devastating force of Hurricane Milton has drawn comparisons to the fury Hurricane Katrina unleashed on New Orleans and its famed restaurants nearly two decades ago. Indeed, the 2005 storm has become the benchwork against which all major hurricanes have been gauged in the years since. And there’s no doubt Milton was a major one. Initial assessments say at least six people in Florida were killed...

Many of the recent hires for restaurant CEO positions share a common listing on their resumes: Somewhere along the way, they logged time at Yum Brands, parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and The Habit. For reasons that go beyond the sheer size of the franchisor, it’s become a major prep school of sorts for a new generation of chain chiefs, from Brian Niccol at Starbucks to Rob Lynch at Shake Shac...

The restaurant industry abounds in rags-to-riches stories, but few of the accounts illustrate the theme as vividly as the tale of Carl Karcher, the onetime feed store worker who founded Carl’s Jr.  In the process, he pioneered practices and policies that are still being adopted 83 years later. Ever wonder who came up with the standard fast-casual model of running orders to a fast-food customer’s t...

The restaurant business has had its share of pitched political battles, but few were as intense as the industry’s futile effort to fend off smoking bans. The issue divided the trade and put many operators on the wrong side of a movement that was not to be stopped. It may be difficult to imagine some 20 years later that the matter of lighting up—what the industry posed as a customer right—would be...

Anyone who’s ever taken a history class covering World War II (or watched more than hour of the History Channel) is likely aware of the crucial role Winston Churchill played in saving Great Britain. His leadership skills and mastery of the English language kept hope alive, even during what he termed the United Kingdom’s darkest hour. Yet even many Brits don’t know the eloquent statesman also midwi...

Ask any veteran of the casual-dining market to name the segment’s best-in-class operation and they’ll likely cycle through two or three dominant players before a dark horse comes to mind: How about Hillstone or its previous incarnation, Houston’s? They know the restaurants as the standout delights in their rounds of visits to competitive concepts. They may even know the company was co-founded and...

Three years ago, the restaurant industry was stunned by the news that the employees of several Starbucks units in upstate New York had banded together to form a union. The drama deepened as store after store followed the lead of those Buffalo stores. Before long, the unionization effort had surged into a true organizing drive within the coffee giant, and a number of smaller competitors were dragge...

Starbucks’ coup in stealing Brian Niccol from Chipotle to serve as CEO had the restaurant industry abuzz this week. Seldom has the restaurant industry been as enthralled by an executive change. Or maybe we should say never. Has there ever been a high-level appointment that matched the sizzle of this one? This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind aims to answer that question. We look at the two high...

If half the people who read about Buca di Beppo’s bankruptcy filing had frequented the concept, the operation might never have hit a financial skid. Despite the brand’s initial market splash 30 years ago, it’s hardly top-of-mind among today’s dining-out public. Few consumers know more about the concept than its odd name. This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind aims to raise that level of awarenes...

McDonald’s has tried for decades to come up with an oversized premium burger that would slide easily into its operations and win a following among consumers accustomed to paying far less for a Golden Arches meal. News arose this week of yet another stab, a limited test of a new option called the Big Arch. As this week’s Restaurant Rewind reports, most of those past efforts have sorely missed the m...

Red Lobster has certainly been in the news lately. But not one of the stories recalls the remarkable person who built it into an institution deserving of so much ink. And, no, it’s not Bill Darden, although he gave the brand its start. The individual who turned Darden’s concept into the cultural icon it is today was an Air Force veteran who left his family’s farm in rural Georgia to make his mark...

As we’ve learned firsthand, if some yahoo airs a myth or outright lie about your operation, fellow wingnuts are going to listen and believe it, no matter how outrageous the assertion might be. Remember the reports that Paul McCartney had died? Restaurants seem particularly vulnerable to those attempts to smear reputations, a likely result of employing and serving so many people. The chances of ali...

With traffic ebbing through much of the business, restaurant chains are resorting to the sort of deep discounting the industry hasn’t seen for a while. Sonic is hoping it can win back lapsed users with the enticement of a $1.29 chili cheese hot dog. Applebee’s is touting 50-cent fried-mozzarella sticks (though bargain-hunters have to purchase at least four of the gooey treats). Even Starbucks is o...

Imagine if the inflationary pressures forcing restaurants to hike menu prices were halted with the swipe of a pen. As far-fetched as that might sound, a government-directed halt to all cost increases was tried once, roughly 50 years ago. And the results didn’t exactly meet expectations. There’s a reason the move was known as the Nixon Shock. That’s Nixon as in Richard Nixon, the president whose na...

The restaurant industry has lost two standout talents in less than two weeks: Solomon Choi, the founder of 16 Handles and an investor in other ventures, and James Kent, the gifted New York City fine-dining chef. Choi was 44, and Kent just 45. Both apparently died from heart issues. Misfortune comes at random. But there’s no denying the industry is less than a leader in addressing the issue of heal...