Menu Spring Bites

Shifts in American Drinking Behavior

Our collective “adult beverage of choice” in the past has benefited from a diverse variety of options among the three traditional categories of beer, wine and spirits and as consumers we enjoy an abundance of options.  As generational shift continues to morph the acceptance and use of those beverage options we are experiencing a downward trend in consumption of our favorite brews, cocktails and varietals.  We’ll take a look at what’s driving this trend and options for hospitality operators to stem the tide of potential loss for an important sales category.

Help Wanted in 2019

We hope your 2019 is off to a good start but is it really any different than any other recent year in the hospitality industry, here’s a case in point.  Let’s reflect upon an industry headline from just a few years ago, “Hospitality employee turnover rate edged higher in 2016” (NRA, 3/16/17), so what’s any different than the present day?  Facts are that next to retail the hospitality industry struggles annually to recruit, train and retain staff regardless of position.  As we do every month we hope to shed some light on these operator challenges and offer some suggestions to ease the pain!

Adult Beverage Trends for 2019

In the spirit of the season we hope you enjoyed your holidays happily and safely and that the New Year presents you with good fortune.  As we usually offer with every initial entry of the year a review of hospitality trends we’ll continue here and to provide some balance we’ll discuss predictions and trends for the adult beverage category.  Some of what we provide will be from industry observers and we’ll through in dash or sprinkle of our own experiences all of which we hope will spark interest and thought of how to approach these new challenges and opportunities.

Why We Cook?!

Some food professionals might say “that’s a loaded question” OR “that’s a tad presumptuous” and both may be correct. It’s akin to the reasoning that like a family, opinions OR sweeping statements regarding the hospitality business are similar since “everyone has one”.  We’ll do our best to answer this query and review the landscape of cooking and what it may mean to those who perform this art and the point of view of the “digesters” within the consumer core. 

I’ll have the Veggie-Burger Please!

Well its official we are in full swing for “prognostication” regarding the New Year’s food and beverage trends, I received my survey (ACF/NRA) earlier this week (I’m an ACF member so I get to decide what everyone will be eating in 2019 – just kidding).  However, there is a cycle to how food and beverage trends evolve and we’ll take a look so as to create a better understanding of how new food “norms” come into our personal “food space” and general consumer acceptance.