Casseroles Making a Comeback on Restaurant Menus

Restaurant casserole sales rise during corona.

Attention restaurant owners: If you are looking the latest recipes to add to your menu, think casseroles! The quintessential oven-baked creation is making a comeback, and for good reason. Budget-friendly and family friendly, casseroles can be as rich or as simple as your customers’ palates desire. They are easy to prepare, nutritious, delicious, and are typically made from many of the staples you already have in your pantry. Think cost-effective ingredients such as pasta, rice, flour, canned or frozen vegetables, canned soup, beans, and a choice of meat, cheese, fish, or vegetarian options. Moreover, casseroles make plenty of servings and are easy to freeze and store.

Many Types of Casseroles

Boost restaurant revenues with comforting casserole dishes during corona.

Here’s more good news for restaurateurs: With a trove of tried-and-true casserole recipes available, and with an endless variety of dishes your chefs can concoct on their own, it is no wonder the casserole has become the “go-to” dish for many restaurants these days. Continue reading Casseroles Making a Comeback on Restaurant Menus

Cater to Your Customers with Stress-Relieving Foods and Beverages

Add stress-relieving foods to your menu during covid pandemic.

If you are wondering what restaurant-goers are hungry for these days, think immune-boosting, health-promoting, and stress-relieving foods and beverages.

Let’s lift the lid on stress-reducing ingredients to learn how you can help your customers eat and drink to optimize their health. At the same time, we’ll dish out a healthy serving of menu ideas, including a decadent stress-reducing recipe that will cater to your customers’ demands and drive traffic your way.

Can Eating the Right Foods Reduce Stress?

Scientists and nutritionists confirm that if one feels anxious, stressed, panicky, has difficulty sleeping or concentrating, suffers from racing thoughts, or feels off-balance, eating the right foods can have a calming influence.

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How to Spice Up Your Restaurant Menu with Spices!

Chefs maximize the use of spices and herbs in the wake of the coronavirus.

If you are looking for ways to enhance your restaurant menu look no further than using everyday spices and herbs. We all know that seasonings add ‘the spice of life’ to cooking and baking and can transform any dish from bland and boring to flavor-filled, fabulous, and unforgettable. They are also a great way to make food taste better without the addition of fat, salt, or sugar, and are compatible with almost every type of diet (vegetarian, vegan, Paleo, Keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, salt-free, and more). Continue reading How to Spice Up Your Restaurant Menu with Spices!

How to Keep Your Catering Business Alive in the Wake of Corona

Caterers and wedding planners get creative in the wake of corona.

If you are wondering how caterers have been impacted by COVID-19, or how your catering business can move forward in the post-corona era, you have come to the right place. Like restaurants, the catering industry was hit hard by the pandemic, coming to a near-grinding halt when the lockdown to combat COVID-19 began. Social distancing rules made cooking for weddings, corporate events, religious ceremonies, and other large gatherings almost nullified. At the same time, pre-booked events – a caterers’ bread-and-butter – had to be postponed at best or canceled altogether in the atmosphere of uncertainty.

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Restaurateurs Sell Groceries to Stay Financially Sound During COVID-19

Add selling groceries to your restaurant's menu to sustain busciness despite corona

The corona pandemic has wreaked havoc on the restaurant industry, forcing business owners to restrict their operations or shut down altogether. Around the world, foodservices relying on dine-in customers have had to scramble to keep their businesses afloat. With social distancing regulations in full force, many have turned to now-familiar solutions such as transforming their brick-and-mortar into a take-out and delivery service. Continue reading Restaurateurs Sell Groceries to Stay Financially Sound During COVID-19

How to Show Your Customers You Care During the Corona Crisis

Get tips on how to provide customer service despite the corona crisis.

The restaurant industry as we know it has come to unprecedented stand still due to the global crisis of the coronavirus. Otherwise known as COVID-19 or ‘corona,’ it will surely be infamously recorded in the annuls of time as one of the most epic and devastating pandemics the world has ever experienced. Yet, although it is affecting every continent, country, and industry, everyone is doing their best to not only survive but to thrive in spite of the odds with the hope and prayer that the crisis will soon end and that order and prosperity will be restored.

Cater to Your Customers

So, what can you do, as a foodservice professional, to keep your business alive despite corona? And more importantly: Is there a way to continue to connect with your customers and even foster relationships while your brick-and-mortar eatery is shut down? The answer, fortunately, is a resounding YES.

Ironically, during this very time of imposed isolation that restricts the public from traveling, interacting, and eating out, there has never been a more opportune time to show customers that you care by making concerted efforts to connect with them and even cater to their needs. You were granted time now, time you never thought you would have, to tap into your creative juices and take your restaurant’s customer service level to new heights and earn some major, long-lasting loyalty points in return.

Read on as we share some of our suggestions to help you stir your own creative culinary juices.

Continue reading How to Show Your Customers You Care During the Corona Crisis

What’s New in Food Trucks

New in food truck trends

If you work in foodservice and thought food trucks were a thing of the past or a fading trend… think again! Not only is the food truck industry still booming, but according to some experts, it is growing faster than traditional restaurants. From entrepreneurs to seasoned restauranteurs, food business owners continue to use mobile truck services to expand their businesses.

Upscale Food Truck Offerings on the Rise

While traditional fanfare is still on the menu (think sandwiches, salads, pizza and fast food), rising in the popularity charts are upscale food trucks featuring gourmet burgers, seafood, sushi, and even all-lobster menus. And while yesterday’s mobile beverage offerings treated customers to freshly squeezed juices, smoothies, tea, coffee, and fruit salads, making the rounds today are cocktail bars, appearing at classy shindigs in posh vehicles such as limousines and one-of-a-kind vintage cars. These bars-on-wheels are in demand at weddings, rehearsal dinners, graduations, birthday parties, corporate events, fundraisers, and more.

The win-win business paradigm is hard to beat, catering to demand and pleasing customers’ palates while serving as an exciting talking point that garners attention and valuable marketing points for restaurant owners.

Dessert Trucks Take Decadence to the Streets

If you have ever dreamed of starting a bakery business or of offering consumers new ways to satisfy their sweet tooth, dessert food trucks may be right up your alley. One of the hottest trends in the ‘biz, mobile bakeries are proliferating, providing melt-in-your-mouth offerings that range from ice cream, cupcakes, cookies, and cakes to crepes, pancakes, waffles, scones, beignets, brownies, cheesecakes, tarts, pies, donuts, and other to-die-for delights.

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How to Tap into Beer Sales Success

Boost beer profits with craft beers and learn about other updated beer marketing strategies.

Looking for new ways to up your bar, bistro, brewery, or restaurant’s beer game? Then you’ve come to the right place. With the global beer market projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.5% between 2020-2025, and with the rising popularity of innovatively flavored craft beers, there has never been a more opportune time to increase your alcoholic beverage sales. As every restauranteur knows, the drinks you serve as an accessory to meals offers a higher return on investment (ROI) than your food.

Fortunately, there are myriads of time-proven and new strategies to boost beer sales in your establishment. Moreover, you are going to need updated tactics to attract the ale-loving crowds since competition in the bar and pub industry is off the charts. So, prepare to drink in the following tips and tricks that will help your biz’ stand out from the pack and attract a steady flow of thirsty customers.

Ensure a Variety of Beer Types

With consumer interest in beer going strong, there has been a proliferation of beer types available, as well as a segmentation of selections into categories that include: Lagers, Ales, Standard Beers, Premium Beers, Super Premium Beers, Draught or Draft Beers (aka On Tap), Bottled, and Craft beers. The latter, in particular, represents one of the most sought-after items on the market, and savvy bar and restaurant owners are flocking to craft beer brewers to take advantage of what they have to offer.

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More Uncommon Facts About Common Fruit and Vegetables

Update your fruit and vegetable knowledge with this handy guide,

Welcome back to our series for foodservice professionals where we are discovering and uncovering details about the produce used every day in your commercial kitchen.

From fun facts to functional food tips, this guide is an opportunity to expand your culinary repertoire, learn about fruit and vegetable varieties you may not be familiar with, get practical tips on cooking and baking with various produce, and stock up on new recipes that are sure to dazzle and delight your customers.

What You Didn’t Know About Cucumbers

As we discovered in Part I of this series, contrary to popular belief, cucumbers are officially a fruit and not a vegetable. Either way, however, they are nutritious, delicious, and have been part of the human diet since ancient times. Originally grown in India and used for both culinary and medicinal purposes, some of cucumber’s therapeutic values include its soothing and cooling effects on the body which can alleviate sunburn, reduce swelling, reduce skin irritations, and nourish the skin. It also has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-diabetic properties (helping regulate blood sugar levels), while its high water content helps hydrate the body and get rid of toxins and waste materials.

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Non-Alcoholic Drinks Revolution and Evolution

Discover the allure of non-alcoholic zero-proof spirits and how to add to your menu.

The soaring popularity of non-alcoholic drinks continues to revolutionize the brewery world as industry titans, esteemed bars, and well-respected bartenders board the booze-free train. Various formulations of the newcomers include terms such as mocktails, faux spirits, alt-gin, and zero-proof drinks and beverages. Yet while the cocktails might be ‘mock,’ they are bringing in real bucks – and big bucks to boot.

The non-alcoholic (NA) beer industry, in particular, has proliferated with sales expected to surpass $25 billion by 2024, according to research firm Global Market Insights. The year 2019 also witnessed the astronomical rise to success of the first non-alcoholic gin and whisky products from company Ritual Zero Proof. Its six-month startup inventory sold out in a mere six weeks, necessitating a 400% increase in production to meet demand. The company’s success has since garnered the attention of Diaego, the industry giant whose brands include Smirnoff, Crown Royal, Johnnie Walker, and Don Julio. It now has a small ownership stake and major cash investment in the company, enabling Ritual to expand significantly.

Sober Bars

And it’s not just non-alcoholic drinks which are experiencing an upheaval: sober bars, an oxymoron within itself, are popping up nationwide, along with the newly-coined term “sober curious population.” This refers to the growing population who are decreasing or altogether ceasing their alcohol intake and questioning everything about their relationship with alcohol and the societal pressures that have always caused them to consume alcohol.
The bottom line? If you own a bar, or if your restaurant or catering service provides alcohol, your business can no longer afford not to sell mock drinks and zero-proof beverages.

Continue reading Non-Alcoholic Drinks Revolution and Evolution