Restaurant Rewind

Restaurants’ appreciation of air conditioning is likely to be at a high point this week as a major heat wave rolls across the country. For at least the next few days, and likely at a significant number of additional points during the summer, no other piece of technology is likely to be as highly valued by the trade. Just ask operators in Phoenix, where temperatures hit 111 degrees on Friday. How d...

Domino’s is tweaking its ad strategy to tout the quality of its food—a complete 180 from the ground-breaking campaign it ran 16 years ago in what proved a seminal move by the pizza giant. Back then, it acknowledged that its pies were abominable; the ads spotlighted customers who asserted the pizza was the worst they had ever tasted, and they disparaged the product as little better than cardboard s...

A&W fast-food restaurants in Canada will start serving Pret A Manger-branded products this fall, under a just-announced 10-year collaboration deal. A cross-selling situation like that might have been inconceivable 20 years ago, as this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind reports. But, as the podcast installment explains, the lines of competition have been blurring for some time as restaurant l...

All-you-can-eat deals can be risky, as  Red Lobster’s current plight attests . But there was a stretch 50 years or so ago when the danger extended beyond business fallout, to actual physical peril for customers and neighbors using the same roads. This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind looks back at that era when a flurry of upstart concepts used the promise of unlimited beer and wine as their ma...

Federal regulators have brought a new battery of charges against Andy Wiederhorn, chairman of Twin Peaks and Smokey Bones parent Fat Brands. It’s not the first time he’s been accused of violating federal security regulations. Nor is he the lone high-level restaurant executive to have served jail time, as this week’s episode of Restaurant Business’ Restaurant Rewind podcast reports. The installment...

The Beatles were still newcomers to the music scene when Scoma’s served up its first bowl of cioppino on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The Fab Four would disband in less than a decade, but the restaurant remains a star of the local restaurant scene at age 59, the payoff from navigating the latest currents in dining while remaining true to the operating philosophy and standards set by founder...

With summer just a few heatwaves away, the restaurant business is within a Maraschino cherry toss of prime ice cream season. Is there any better time to retrace how a treat that began as honeyed snow has morphed into an all-American restaurant staple? This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind is betting “no.” The installment looks back at the origins of the frozen treat and its twisty evolution ove...

Even the name suggests a climb out of a rut: TGI Friday’s, as in it’s time to cut loose and have some wicked fun. The casual-dining trailblazer didn’t disappoint, aiming from Day One to offer a different sort of experience to children of the conformity-conscious '50s.

If you’ve been in the chain restaurant business for an appreciable stretch, chances are you’ve either attended or heard about the Restaurant Leadership Conference. It’s the top-to-top event where you might see Magic Johnson jump off the stage to give someone a hug, two chain builders lay the groundwork for a merger (Cava and Zoes Kitchen, 2018) or a big-name CEO careening around a Go Kart track. B...

Popeyes is emerging as a tough bird to beat in the quick-service fried-chicken market, a distinction that would have delighted its late founder, the flamboyant and pugnacious nonconformist Al Copeland. Had Copeland done nothing more than create Popeyes, he’d deserve a prime spot in a restaurant industry hall of fame. But his leadership of that chain is only one of the reasons he should be remember...

It’s probably a myth that tax-code writers refine their knack for inscrutability by taking a whack at state and local liquor regulations. The complexity and illogic of the rules governing alcohol sales are enough to make a restaurateur long for a seat on the other side of the bar, knocking back Jell-O shots with fellow scofflaws. In New York and other areas, theirs would be an outlaw’s life, the r...

America loves its pranks, as fast-food chains learned years ago in turning April Fool’s Day into a major marketing opportunity. Consumers have brought considerable gullibility to the day, while big brands like Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald’s have gone to extreme lengths to hoodwink the public, with remarkable success. The combination has turned several of the put-ons into major news stories...

After Wendy’s charge and retreat on dynamic pricing, the restaurant business can’t seem to talk about anything else. Perhaps that’s because variable pricing is as much a part of the business as knives and forks. Indeed, you may not be aware of the various forms dynamic pricing has taken over the years. In this week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind, we take a look at some of the forgotten manifestati...

True crime stories have become a major entertainment genre, delivered in big numbers by podcasts, streaming TV shows and even several whole networks. It’s about time Restaurant Rewind, Restaurant Business’ retro-focused podcast, made its contribution to the field. In this week’s episode, we look back at the small role a restaurant played in the assumed murder of Jimmy Hoffa, the labor leader and k...

If Mad Men’s Don Draper was trying to impress a prospective client, he may have taken the target to New York City’s cathedral of French cooking, La Pavillon—the 1960s landmark, not the modern reincarnation opened by Daniel Boulud. There, he would have sampled the fare of a young French chef who’d leave more of an imprint on the American dining scene than mere memories of outstanding meals. By that...

The restaurant industry has seen a number of big-name chains reveal widespread closures within their ranks in recent weeks. Outback parent Bloomin’ Brand alerted Wall Street that it  intends to close 41 stores , while adding another 45. Denny’s recently acknowledged that it  had shut about 60 stores in 2023  because the units were no longer financially sustainable. As dramatic as those closures mi...

As any fan of "The Sopranos" knows, mobsters love good food almost as much as they relish ill-gotten money. No wonder organized crime is constantly rumored to be intertwined with the restaurant business. For veterans of New York City, those insinuations are far from fanciful. Long-timers know the dining landmarks where Mafioso kingpins were whacked after a meal, and where you have to be...

Restaurants will be hearing the name again and again as one of the industry’s premier awards program draws closer to its early May conclusion for 2024. Yet few in the business may know who James Beard was, now that he’s been gone for nearly 40 years. This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind answers the question of why Beard should be remembered, particularly within fine dining. Even those familiar...

Tipping has been villainized by organized labor as a vestige of slavery, an assertion that strains credibility. What makes the assertion even more difficult to accept is the background of the restaurant company that’s likely more dependent on tipping than any other employer in the business. Bill Darden is well-known to any student of the business as the founder of Darden Restaurants and Red Lobste...

Casual dining roared back as pandemic conditions lifted and dining rooms reopened, dispelling assertions the segment was cooked. But that doesn’t mean the full-service chain market has been on cruise control, as this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind attests. The retro-focused podcast looks back during the installment to what the casual market looked like 10 and 20 years ago, and how that compar...

It’s not unusual for a newly hired restaurant-chain executive to spend time in a unit as a line-level employee. Seeing an operation from the perspective of a customer or worker often provides insight and a reality check c-suiters might not get otherwise. In general, being in stores is a great thing for the CEO.  Except, that is, when they don’t have a clue as to what’s really happening in their re...

About 84% of the United States’ adult population carry a credit card, or roughly 191 million American consumers, according to the research company Experion. That shouldn’t be a surprise to today’s restaurateurs, who’ve seen the use of cash be challenged pointedly in recent years by the surge in digital ordering. No wonder the expense of accepting plastic has soared into one of operators’ biggest c...

Restaurants have been pressed since at least the 1970s to provide menu options for customers looking to lose weight and eat more healthfully. That pressure might reach its peak every January, when patrons are hellbent on following a set diet in hopes of shedding a few pounds. What diet might that be this year, given the weight-loss schemes currently in vogue? Chances are it won’t have as much of a...

The restaurant industry seems as if it’s going backward in its efforts to promote diversity within its top executive ranks. If it goes all the way back to the mid-20th century, it’ll find that the role of women in particular was far more pronounced in those formative years. Indeed, women played key roles in the development of the chain sector, in part because those early ventures were largely fami...

McDonald’s created a stir last week with the opening of a second concept, a drive-thru drinks operation called CosMc’s. But it’s far from the first time the Golden Arches has tried to find gold from a second venture. It’s been tinkering with possible additions to its single-brand fold almost from the time Ray Kroc got involved with the chain. The possibilities have included everything from a beer...