The restaurant industry is expanding at a strong pace again, but there's a difference to the growth and the strategies driving it. Chains are creating opportunities by peering further into the future and anticipating the trends in consumer preferences, restaurant recruitment, financing, politics and restaurant operations. They're hungering for ideas, innovation and insight.
Energy saving may not be “an overly sexy conversation to have at eight in the morning,” acknowledged OSI Restaurant Partners’ vice president of procurement, Kristin Brooks. But a standing-room-only audience showed up at that hour during the Restaurant Leadership Conference to hear the Outback Steakhouse parent’s experiences in cutting utility costs.
Founder and owner Louis Basile says they only hire A+ or “A+ potential” recruits using Wildflower’s “five core truths of hiring”:
Food trucks fill the streets and parking lots of New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Austin and Portland, Ore. Los Angeles alone counts 9,000 food trucks and carts, including branded vehicles from California Pizza Kitchen and Carl’s Jr. Yet when Ray Villaman, moderator of a trucks panel at the Restaurant Leadership Conference, asked who in the audience has or plans to launch a food truck, only a few hands were raised.
After steering McDonald’s through a key period in its domestic development, Ed Rensi is building a next-generation burger chain that’s widely hailed as a concept to watch. He’ll draw on both aspects of his career for a candid look at how the strategies for chain success have changed, a rare appearance slated for the 2012 Restaurant Leadership Conference.