“Some people say vanilla is boring,” says Matthieu Destandau, restaurant director of Vanilla, a recent arrival on the London restaurant scene. “But who doesn’t like vanilla? It’s a default flavor, but it can be quite exotic.”Destandau collaborated...
LOS ANGELES California Restaurant Association. —Proposals to overhaul California’s health care system are among several swords of Damocles hanging over the heads of restaurant operators as they gather...
BELLEVUE WASH. —Kemper Freeman’s efforts to convince restaurant operators that this Seattle suburb had the potential to be a dining destination are finally paying off. After years of promoting Belle-vue, Freeman, a developer and...
MELBOURNE Australia A company here that held the Australian franchise rights to the Quiznos Sub concept has agreed to refund fees to 20 franchisees who complained that the local franchisor had made misleading claims about the business and violated...
PHILADELPHIA Walnut Street Capital, a private real estate development and investment company based here, has acquired Saxbys Coffee, a 27-unit gourmet coffeehouse chain based in Atlanta. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Saxbys...
DALLAS The La Madeleine Bakery, Café and Bistro chain has named menu-development veteran Philip Costner chief operation officer. Costner most recently was vice president of food and beverage for Carlson Restaurants Worldwide of Carrollton...
Branding a restaurant company’s concept—touting its food, service, ambiance and personality—is a no-brainer for operators. Observers long have said that, especially in times of declining sales, concepts with a compelling identity and a unique...
Charlie Trotter, who has become an internationally recognized chef and restaurateur since opening his namesake fine-dining restaurant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood 20 years ago this summer, is not resting on his laurels. Although he and...
Close to 80 percent of surveyed restaurant operators encourage employees to participate in community service activities, and half report better morale and retention when workers volunteer in the community, according to the 2006 Survey of Unit...
LONG BEACH CALIF Sbarro Inc. chief information officer Richard Guariglia said the “most important change was to corporate culture.” —Explaining the impact of collecting and analyzing...
