By Joshua Bowman In July 2014, Zack “Danger” Brown famously launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter website. To his surprise, he raised ten times the desired amount in the first day. Within a few months, Mr. Brown raised over $55,000 from 6,911 different complete strangers. Mr. Brown’s idea? Potato salad. Mr. Brown’s crowdfunding campaign […]
By Jan Whitaker American women have long been involved in public eating places. In Early America a common pattern was set as wives partnered with husbands in operating dining rooms in taverns and inns – and then carried on alone. Elizabeth Fraunces, wife of Samuel Fraunces whose career is commemorated in New York City’s historic […]
By: Rachel DeSimone Photography: Kristen Tieg Formal restaurant reviews made their debut back in 1941 when Duncan Hines, known today for his boxed-cake mix, put out his first restaurant guidebook, Adventures in Good Eating. The intention was, “to guide travelers and protect them from eating poisonous food from unsanitary places,” according to his biography by […]
By: Stanley I. Buchin, D.B.A. Last year, restaurant trends stretched from a rise of dining in retail stores to paleo and gluten-free menus. According to Baum + Whiteman 2015 Food & Beverage Forecast, this year’s trends will include technology like tablets immersed into the dining experience, expanding on diners restless palates who have had enough […]
By: Rachel DeSimone At the historic intersection of Cambridge Street and Brighton Avenue in Allston, Mass., you might find yourself wondering if you’ve been blasted back in time, say, to the ’50s. Before you stands a small retro-diner style building with a shiny silver overhang and an enormous sign towering over the roof that reads, […]
By: Christopher Muller, Ph.D. A century of commercial competitive conflict between the grocery (food at home or “FAH”) and restaurant (food away from home or “FAFH”) distribution channels is now being fought on an unexpected but previously contested battlefield: who will own the “convenience” of delivery in the consumer’s mind. Just one hundred years ago […]
By: Nicco Muratore Tastes, purchasing and consuming habits, cooking methods, and customer expectations; they’re all changing. The farm-to-table trend is a growing trend and for some, it’s a demand when cooking at home or eating out. Dan Barber’s book, The Third Plate, Field Notes on the Future of Food, reflects on the history of thriving […]
By Lauren Greenfield It seems that people are more willing than ever to share their lives as a series of photos on the Internet. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram make it easy to share every little detail with our friends and family and even with people we don’t know. We share photos of major […]
By Christopher Muller A conversation between Mr. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, and Dr. Christopher Muller during the September 2011 12th annual European Food Service Summit in Zurich, Switzerland (edited 2014). [Muller]: So we get to just have a conversation. Can we talk about Starbucks and social responsibility, the leadership of how you drive not […]
By Bradford Hudson A popular cultural narrative suggests that hospitality chains are a product of modern America. Although it seems clear that multi-unit hotel and restaurant brands proliferated in the United States during the twentieth century, historical research demonstrates that the phenomenon is actually much older. The origins of hospitality chains can be traced back […]