Modern Restaurant Management

DECEMBER 31, 2024

From salted egg yolks and chili crunch fusions to mushroom-infused teas and freeze-dried fruit powder garnishes, Kimpton’s in-house experts share the standout ingredients, menu items and techniques that will come to the table in 2025.

Beverage 450

Beverage 2025 Fine Dining Guest Recovery 450

Modern Restaurant Management

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

Across the globe, and largely amongst younger age groups, more and more people are choosing to go out to eat by themselves. With solo dining on the rise globally, consumers are fundamentally changing the way they dine out. With solo dining on the rise globally, consumers are fundamentally changing the way they dine out.

Customer Experience 450

Customer Experience Fine Dining Seating Catering 450

Modern Restaurant Management

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

If a fridge breaks down, for example, IoT ensures that an alert is immediately sent out. Around 33 to 40 percent of food goes to waste each year. A large chunk of that comes down to complex problems in global food supply chain management that most restaurants have little control over. It’s the cost of waste.

Food Supply 442

Food Supply Supplies Waste Management 442

ChowNow

MARCH 27, 2025

Menu pricing isnt just about covering costsits about finding that sweet spot where profitability, customer perception, and operational reality meet. Understanding the Key Factors in Menu Pricing Before you develop your menu pricing strategies, its important to ground your decisions in the numbers.

Pricing 195

Pricing Menu Point of Sale Customer Experience 195

Modern Restaurant Management

APRIL 16, 2025

Unique tableside services at a variety of restaurants are taking the experience factor to the next level. " Photo by Parker Hospitality Bringing a refined twist to a nostalgic favorite Urban Hill in Salt Lake City has a tableside s’mores experience with every element made in-house.

Back of House 340

Back of House Customer Experience Customer Service Hospitality 340

Modern Restaurant Management

OCTOBER 23, 2024

Restaurant operators searching for something versatile that will cross the dayparts need to look no further than their breakfast menu as waffles have been breaking out of the morning. Profitability: Waffles are a low-cost, center-of-the-plate item and one of the most profitable breakfast item menu offerings.

Back of House 221

Back of House Seasonal Menu 2024 Customer Experience 221

Modern Restaurant Management

APRIL 3, 2025

When planned out carefully, it’s possible to take routine care measures, as well as clean and sanitize equipment, with minimal downtime and no interruption to food prep or service. Wipe the mixer base with a clean, damp cloth, taking care to remove any residual food from under the planetary.

Equipment 309

Equipment Food Back of House Food Order 309

Modern Restaurant Management

JUNE 27, 2025

percent menu-price inflation rate. With households increasingly treating dining out as a luxury, every menu item and service interaction becomes a potential make-or-break moment. With households increasingly treating dining out as a luxury, every menu item and service interaction becomes a potential make-or-break moment.

Loyalty Program 371

Loyalty Program 2025 Customer Experience Customer Service 371

Modern Restaurant Management

DECEMBER 17, 2024

– Salad House CEO Joey Cioffi In 2025, restaurant chains will increase their usage of connected equipment to be more responsive, resilient, and ready to meet evolving customer expectations in a data-first, efficiency-focused world. At the same time, technology is poised to play an even bigger role in the coming year.

2025 419

2025 Loyalty Program Customer Experience Online Ordering 419

EATER

OCTOBER 21, 2024

The tool from the East Coast vegan chain — a digital take on a split-flap mechanical display that appears on its website and in the chain’s ordering app — estimates the amounts of water, land, CO2, and oil saved by eating vegan burgers. These numbers are largely hypothetical. Congratulations. The environmental mission can come later.

Sustainability 326

Sustainability Sourcing Consumer Goods Compost 326

ChowNow

JUNE 12, 2025

And no, increasing restaurant sales doesn’t mean turning your restaurant staff into pushy upsellers trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of every order. Think seasonal menu items, weekend-only bundles, or one-day-only discounts; the urgency motivates guests to take action soon.

Loyalty Program 195

Loyalty Program Social Media Online Ordering Email Marketing 195

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 7, 2025

Tipping expectations have skyrocketed, and consumers are pushing back. Restaurants that set up solid tipping programs see fewer employees walking out the door. Standardized Tip-Sharing: A Team Win Tip pooling helps level the playing field, ensuring that both front- and back-of-house staff benefit. Timing is key.

Tip Distribution 251

Tip Distribution Front of House Customer Service Back of House 251

Modern Restaurant Management

DECEMBER 18, 2024

Foot traffic or heat mapping, menu item engagement, or consumer demographics by time of day. The quicker businesses can feed that information back into operations, the better, whether for personalized dining, staffing optimization, or advertising and marketing.

2025 419

2025 Loyalty Program Social Media Fast Casual 419

Modern Restaurant Management

MAY 5, 2025

Staff Appropriately When restaurants cut employees or reduce tables, they don’t end up with fewer expenses–they end up with burned-out, disgruntled team members who aren’t operating at their best. Replacing a front-of-house employee costs an average of $1,056, while back-of-house replacement jumps to $1,491.

Operations 251

Operations Front of House Back of House Customer Service 251

Modern Restaurant Management

AUGUST 26, 2022

In the back of the house, rampant inflation and ongoing supply chain disruptions are cutting into margins. Simultaneously, staffing is an urgent and ongoing front-of-house concern. It is even more so for independent restaurants, which usually have one manager for all front- and back-of-house duties.

Front of House 520

Front of House Back of House Food Supply Supplies 520

Modern Restaurant Management

FEBRUARY 5, 2025

The new system has simplified oil changeouts at the restaurants, while also saving the franchisee money and taking a literal load off employees’ hands. This helps the business manage its bottom line – especially given the higher cost of cooking oil in recent years – and the quality of the food coming out of its kitchens.

Kitchen Safety 221

Kitchen Safety Back of House Food Safety Technology 221

Modern Restaurant Management

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

This can help restaurants meet mandated accessibility requirements and guests’ safety concerns, while simultaneously reengineering the overall menu for a better, more modern experience. Here are three ways that digitizing menus can help improve accessibility. Think about it. Get Rid of PDFs. For example, QR codes (remember them?)

Front of House 547

Front of House Certification Back of House Menu 547

ChowNow

MARCH 28, 2025

These are tools that can help you streamline operations, easily schedule staff, and make sure you never run out of ingredients for your best-selling menu items. It allows AI to understand and respond to human language, which is how virtual assistants can answer customer questions or take online orders.

Front of House 195

Front of House Back of House Online Ordering Email Marketing 195

Modern Restaurant Management

APRIL 9, 2024

A chief reason is due to caution or uncertainty exhibited by conscious consumers, with 48 percent saying they are taking the ‘wait and see’ approach and holding back on spending in 2024. Moving to Multichannel Dining Experiences Dining out is… back? So, what’s the solution?

2024 508

2024 Mobile Ordering Front of House Back of House 508

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 18, 2021

While there are clear benefits to an all-digital menu system, to get the most out them, you must first take a step back to re-examine what your menu means to you. Your menu: Part love letter, part manifesto, instructions for use and a bill of goods, all rolled into one. Should your menu move to the cloud?

Back of House 474

Back of House Seasonal Menu Customer Experience Fast Casual 474

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 22, 2021

How do you successfully reenter the world of service, sales, and most importantly, profitability as we bounce back from COVID-19? Start with Your Menu. Assuming your operation was open at all during COVID-19, you probably removed a number of items from your menu. It’s easier for the front-of-the-house to present.

Front of House 493

Front of House Back of House Customer Service Beverage 493

ChowNow

JANUARY 23, 2025

You need ideas that will wow new customers and get the regulars excited to come back in. We searched high and low for every restaurant event idea out there, then boiled them down to what we believe are the most exciting and effective restaurant events to keep regulars ecstatic and new customers talking.

Events 195

Events Seasonal Menu Social Media Customer Experience 195

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 28, 2025

Leverage Automated Email Marketing ChowNows Automated Email Marketing helps your restaurant bring customers back and increase orders with minimal effort. When a customer hasnt ordered in a while: These Bringback emails go out to diners who havent ordered anything in 21 daysheres an example below.

Ordering 195

Ordering Email Marketing Social Media Online Ordering 195

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 21, 2025

With the rising costs of goods, consumers growing more conscious of spending habits, and private equity-backed brands popping up in communities large and small, mom-and-pops are in danger of adding to the failure statistics. Take a busy corner café, for instance. The result?

Technology 221

Technology Front of House Customer Service Back of House 221

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 28, 2025

Customers expect to browse menus, place orders, and pay for their meals with just a few taps of their phones. Whether its takeout, delivery, or even in-house orders via QR codes, customers want a seamless and convenient way to order online. Third-party delivery apps take a big cut of every salesometimes as much as 30%.

Online Ordering 195

Online Ordering Ordering Email Marketing Mobile Ordering 195

Modern Restaurant Management

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

Hospitality operators are rapidly turning to contactless ordering and payment solutions to help navigate the long road back to normal from COVID-19’s impacts. With so much focus on “going contactless”, it’s important to take steps to make sure guests feel welcome and supported in their dining experience.

Hospitality 576

Hospitality Ordering Front of House Customer Experience 576

ChowNow

MARCH 14, 2025

Every day, youre juggling staff, food quality, inventory, customer service, purchasing, and moreall while trying to cultivate a dining experience that wows your customers enough to keep them coming back. Its not just about putting out fires when problems arise; its about building systems that prevent those fires in the first place.

Operations 195

Operations Management Management Front of House 195

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 17, 2025

Building a Competitive Menu We’ve seen that with chains building out a competitive menu featuring specialty items and showing off their culinary skills to attract customers. So let’s take this a step further. This makes business tight causing a hard look at any extra costs.

Food Supply 221

Food Supply Back of House Customer Service Small Business 221

Modern Restaurant Management

JULY 10, 2024

Among the reasons restaurants fail (poor location, inadequate marketing, lack of staff and inventory control, uninspired menu, unreasonable pricing), customer theft is rarely on the radar. And yet, the diner who walks out with your logo beer mug is damaging your restaurant’s bottom line. And yet, as a Washington, D.C.,

Back of House 491

Back of House Fine Dining Take-out Social Media 491

Modern Restaurant Management

APRIL 7, 2025

The 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report revealed that 22 percent of restaurant operators plan to invest in technology like POS software, back-of-house systems, and data analytics in the near future. Meanwhile, an additional six percent will invest more in automation like kiosks and robotics.

Loyalty Program 282

Loyalty Program Mobile Ordering Customer Experience Customer Service 282

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

With a modern cloud-based POS, restaurants can streamline order taking, reduce human error, and improve the overall speed of service. Many systems now offer mobile ordering capabilities, allowing servers to take orders tableside or giving guests the ability to order and pay directly from their phones. Consider your budget.

2025 195

2025 Technology Loyalty Program Mobile Ordering 195

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

New concepts, ghost kitchens, and delivery-only brands are popping up constantly, making it harder for any single restaurant to stand out. If your restaurant isnt showing up in search results, maintaining strong reviews , or engaging on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, youre missing out on a huge segment of potential diners.

2025 195

2025 Marketing Email Marketing Operations 195

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 28, 2025

The next step to optimizing your online presence is to take advantage of SEO so more customers find you. This includes hours of operation (including holiday updates), your website link, phone number, and menu. To get started collecting Google reviews, check out our article on How to Get More Google Reviews from Customers.

2025 195

2025 Email Marketing Social Media Loyalty Program 195

ChowNow

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

In fact, its going to be a lot easier than you think, and there are steps you can take starting today that will give you real results by tomorrow. Optimize Your Website and Online Ordering Experience If your restaurants website isnt easy to use, youre probably losing out on online orders. Next, take a look at your menu.

Online Ordering 195

Online Ordering Ordering Email Marketing Mobile Ordering 195

Modern Restaurant Management

OCTOBER 1, 2024

Digital platforms can help time-strapped operators address their historically difficult questions by minimizing operational complexity, giving their crews more time to assist guests, and providing staff with the freedom to accomplish more in both the front and back of the house. ” Mix more drinks or turn more tables?

Bar 449

Bar Operations Back of House Front of House 449

Modern Restaurant Management

MARCH 23, 2020

Offering a free kids’ menu item with the purchase of an adult meal is a great tactic for gaining business and increasing check amounts, especially with most schools being closed during this time. Customers may not feel like dining out right now, but many people still are searching for ways to support their favorite local businesses.

Marketing 507

Marketing Back of House Employee Relations Social Media 507

Modern Restaurant Management

JANUARY 13, 2023

Just as the pandemic fueled digital transformation via no-contact delivery apps, QR code menus, and digital ordering, restaurants challenged by lack of staffing will likely turn to technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to alleviate pain points. Demand for Dining Out Isn’t Going Anywhere.

Front of House 528

Front of House Back of House Online Ordering Food Order 528