According to IBIS World, the juice and smoothie bar industry is booming, with annual sales over $2 billion dollars and steady growth expected. Reasons for smoothie success include an increased focus on fitness and nutrition, as well as the fact that most people don’t want to spend the time buying all the fresh ingredients needed to make the fresh beverages. There’s also the mess that often comes with making smoothies at home. For convenience, people go to a smoothis shop or juice bar, and business is booming.
We are proud to carry brands from vendors who have earned sterling reputations over many years for producing the best hospitality industry equipment and supplies. We’re dedicated to a long-term relationship with each and every customer we serve, and that won’t happen if we sell products that don’t last.
Almost 120 years ago, long before anyone waited in line to feast on eggs benedict and French toast, the word brunch appeared in print for the first time in the United States. “The latest ‘fad’ is to issue invitations for a meal called ‘brunch…a repast at 11 o’clock a.m.,” a column in the New Oxford, an old Pennsylvania newspaper, explained in 1896. Originally conceived for the wealthy as a drawn-out, elaborate affair, brunch, like a runny egg, soon dribbled out into the mainstream.
Starting a new business is challenging, and the restaurant, bar, and nightclub business always ranks near the top for fast exits. We talk with people in the restaurant biz every day, and we go out to eat a lot. Sometimes it’s the common sense things that trip people up, they just don’t think about them, but they are very, very important to getting through that first year and making it.
Everyone has a horror story about being annoyed by a rambunctious child in a restaurant, and probably one of the most difficult decisions a restaurateur must make is whether to permit children or ban them. Obviously a lot has to do with the size, clientele, and ambiance of the eatery, but whatever policy decision is made some people will be happy and others will be not so happy.
Analysts from investment firm Cowen predict a massive 79 percent surge in food delivery over the next five years. For decades people who wanted a hot pizza or Asian food (the most popular) delivered to their home searched for the menu in their kitchen drawer and then picked up the phone to call and order. Today 43% of take-out and delivery orders are online and the number is going up every day.
Prospective diners visit various websites to read reviews written by “Joe the Surfer 420 Dude” and who knows what he’ll have to say about your linguine with clam sauce. I have discussed bad reviews with restaurateurs all over the country and they are frustrated by the powerlessness of confronting inaccurate reviews. For instance, the boyfriend of a server gets mad and decides to trash the restaurant where she works. It’s part of the whole internet phenomena, everyone has a platform and the power to write whatever they want. So, how can you handle these situations?
