The good news keeps on rolling in for the restaurant industry. Preliminary figures estimate that 58,700 jobs were added by the restaurant industry in February. Here are some of the highlights: 60th consecutive monthly increase and strongest gain since December 2012 December – February will represent the strongest three-month payroll expansion on record if the figures …
health inspections
Restaurant Industry Remained in Growth Mode During January
The good news continued through January for the restaurant industry. Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine posted an article on the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index for January 2015. The restaurant industry again showed expansion in January with an RPI of 102.7. Here are some of the highlights from the article: Seventy percent of restaurant …
Businesses Balk at Obamacare Definition of Full-Time Work
US News and World Report posted an article today discussing the new provision in the Affordable Care Act that 30 hour work weeks are considered full time and it’s effects on the service industry and others. There’s a lot of debate on this topic in a lot of industries, but this hits the restaurant and hospitality …
Proposed R.I. bill to regulate restaurant tips draws a crowd
Below is an article from the Providence Journal regarding some proposed state legislation in RI around tips. Here are a few of the items the bill covers: Would prohibit employers from deducting a credit card service fee from a tip left for an employee Would also ban required tip pools Would require that the employee …
Feds roll out new way to analyze food outbreak data
Interesting article from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy about the US Government improving methods for sifting through data to estimate which foods are contributing to outbreaks. They focused the report on the four main outbreaks: Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter. It’s great that the government is focusing on …
How much money do we lose every year?
Having manager’s perform SMART Pre-Shift Inspections every meal period refocuses them on what is important to running a successful operation. The benefit of focus is something that I had to rediscover recently, but it makes so much sense. We don’t do enough as an industry to focus and ground our manager’s every single shift …
New York to raise wages for tipped workers
This story from Nation’s Restaurant News is all over the place. The New York state commissioner approved a 50% rate hike in the minimum hourly wage for tipped employees up to $7.50/hr. With New York City going up to $8.50. This seems to be the trend lately. Local and federal governments are calling for minimum …
Restaurant Tech Restocked For Tomorrow And Beyond
Here’s a great article from TechCrunch on technology in the restaurant industry. A major focus of this article is on POS systems. Mobile POS systems are moving in on long time dominant systems such as Aloha and MICROS. It seems that mobile POS is the future. Either having guests swipe their own cards at the …
With Good News Comes Some Challenges
We’ve been talking a lot about the recent good news from the National Restaurant Association for the upcoming year. With this good news comes some challenges for the restaurant industry. Commodity costs have been increasing pretty drastically over the last 5 years, which “they” are saying should slow down, but with the implementation of the …
Time To End Tips?
Read an article from the local CBS affiliate in San Fran/Bay Area suggesting that it’s time to change server compensation away from tips. The article mentions that this is an archaic way of compensation. I remember when I was waiting tables and tending bar the pay was much better than any other job that I …