It’s hard to believe that having a 3rd party inspection service show up twice a year, maybe once per quarter (we very rarely see this), has a big impact on the daily execution of operations.  Anyone can be great for a day or a shift with some notice. But to be great every shift …
Erik Tversland
Slower Restaurant Employment Growth in San Fran & Seattle
A preliminary look into employment data by Forbes Contributor Stephen Bronars points to slower employment growth since the minimum wage increases in San Francisco and Seattle. In the article Higher Minimum Wages in San Francisco and Seattle Mean Fewer Restaurant Jobs takes a look at year over year quarterly changes in employment averages. Here are …
Will Minimum Wage Increases Accelerate the Robot Invasion?
There’s an interesting article in the Washington Post, “Minimum-wage offensive could speed arrival of robot-powered restaurants”, suggesting that $15/hr minimum wage will accelerate the move to robots in restaurants. It mentions that shedding labor in the restaurant industry isn’t a new phenomenon. According to the article in the late 60’s a McDonald’s would have 70-80 …
Norm Macdonald Takes Over as the Colonel
I caught an article on entrepreneur.com about KFC bringing in Norm Macdonald to replace Darrell Hammond in their attempt to revive Col Sanders as part of their latest marketing campaign. The author focusing more on the marketing aspect of the change, but he’s a little harsh on some points. Probably trying to get some shock …
Early Job Loss Results From Seattle
We have been actively following the minimum wage hike in Seattle very closely at OpsAnalitica.  We have written four blogs about it this year. We found this article from the American Enterprise Institutes that discusses restaurant job losses in Seattle since the beginning of 2015, it is only 3 paragraphs so I encourage you to read …
Over 29k Restaurant Jobs added Across Segments in July
A press release from the National Restaurant Association today reported that the restaurant industry added 29,300 (seasonally adjusted) jobs in July. This is the 17th time in the last 18 months that the industry posted job growth of 20,000 or more. Here are some more stats from the article: The industry is on pace to …
You Are Only As Good As Your Staff
In our business, the people business, we rely heavily on our vast staff who service our customers with the same passion that we do when we’re on the front lines.  Guest perception will make or break your business. You need to make sure that each and every customer interaction is at it’s highest level …
The Hidden Benefit Of A Consumer App
I heard an ad on the radio today for Subway’s new app. It’s another app aimed at making the dining/user experience better at Subway. There are a ton of apps being developed in the industry right now in this space. Interacting with the customers in a digital way to make things quicker and easier thus …
Total Number of US Restaurant Units Decline
Read an article today on Blue MauMau regarding the decline in the number of restaurant units over the past year. Independent restaurants are the culprit as chain restaurants saw growth in the number of units over the same period. It seems to be getting tougher and tougher on the independent restaurant operators to compete these …
CEOs Discuss $15/Hr Minimum Wage
This past week or so we have seen a lot in the news about Restaurant CEO’s speaking out on the $15 minimum wage push. The one that got the most press was Nigel Travis of Dunkin’ Brands, calling it “outrageous”. CNN Money posted an article today on the subject with thoughts from Sally Smith of …