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Fast-casual restaurant brand credits digital sales as it opens more ghost kitchens Ron Ruggless | Jul 29, 2020 Wingstop Inc., with its reliance on digital delivery and carry-out sales, excelled amid coronavirus pandemic restrictions with a 31.9% increase in domestic same-store sales in the second quarter, the company said Wednesday. The Dallas-based fast-casual brand, in releasing earnings for the second quarter ended June 27, said the sales gains, which were on top of a 12.8% same-store sales increase in the same quarter last year, pushed average unit volumes to near $1.4 million amid favorable wing commodity prices. “The topline momentum in our…

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A study of Bank of America credit card spending since March emphasizes the widened gap between recovery for large restaurant chains and small businesses Joanna Fantozzi | Jul 10, 2020 National restaurant chains have largely recovered from the detrimental effects of plummeting consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study of credit card spending from March to July 4 from Bank of America. The research compares the expenditures trajectory between large restaurant chains and the rest of the restaurant industry (which includes small chains and independent restaurants). At the beginning of March just before pandemic-related lockdowns had started to be implemented, consumer…

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This article is shared courtesy of NRN.com and can be found at the following link: https://www.nrn.com/marketing/restaurants-rise-how-marketing-changing-post-covid-19-world Written by Joanna Fantozzi - June 8' 2020 As consumer confidence and priorities change, so should restaurant strategies. What might have worked as an on-brand marketing message before the pandemic hit could be tone-deaf or miss the mark in what has become a changed industry. On day four of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality’s Restaurants Rise digital summit, Chris Hollander, chief marketing officer of Panera Bread, and Gje Greene-Wallace, director of marketing for 20-unit, Texas-based seafood chain Fish City Grill and sister concept…

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This article is shared from nrn.com and was written Mark Hamstra | May 29, 2020 https://www.nrn.com/restaurants-ready/al-fresco-dining-becomes-solution-full-service-restaurants In states and cities where the lifting of dine-in restrictions is still potentially weeks away, outdoor dining has increasingly become a bridge solution for full-service restaurants. Perhaps spurred by growing evidence that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 does not spread as easily outdoors in fresh air, some states — including Minnesota, Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and others — have either limited full-service restaurants to al fresco dining only or specifically encouraged restaurants to serve guests outdoors in their reopening plans. Related: CDC…

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Hospitality Icon Gordon Ramsay recently visited and restored 3 hospitality businesses in Historic Ellicott City, MD in a special edition of his show 24 Hours to Hell & Back: Save Our Town. Check out this article, written by Beth Haven and published at:  https://heavy.com/entertainment/2020/05/gordon-ramsay-ellicott-city-businesses/ Image credit goes to: Jeff Neira / FOX. © 2020 FOX MEDIA LLC. Three Ellicott City Businesses are Rescued by Gordon Ramsay In a special episode of Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back titled “Save Our Town,” Ramsay and the crew renovate three separate businesses in Ellicott City, Maryland, a town that was hit by massive floods…

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ServSafe, the nation’s leader in food safety training, today released ServSafe Reopening Guidance: COVID-19 Precautions, to help restaurant and foodservice employees learn best practices to employ during the coronavirus outbreak. The course provides best practices for employees of a restaurant preparing to reopen a dining room following a state shutdown. The ServSafe Reopening Guidance: COVID-19 Precautions training includes: Knowing the symptoms of COVID-19 Preventing the spread Recognizing actions to reduce employee and guest risk Keeping guests and employees safe Guidelines for face coverings, hand washing, hand sanitizer use, and food handling Guidelines for cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting Changes to maintain…

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Socially distant dining: Here’s how reopened restaurants are updating operations.... By Lisa Jennings, shared courtesy of NRN.com   At three Smokey Bones restaurants in Georgia, both servers and kitchen line workers now wear face masks. Tables are spaced at least six feet part, and only 10 guests per 500-square-feet of space are permitted at one time in each restaurant. The limited food options are printed on disposable menus for one-time use, and utensils are disposable and come to the table pre-packaged. At an Applebee’s in Tennessee, restaurant workers wear masks and gloves. Guests were directed in the parking lot to avoid…

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In today’s news: Along with its Q1 results, Domino’s Thursday offered a window into its Q2 performance so far, which provided some telling metrics. Firstly, the chain’s Q1 same-store sales climbed 1.6 percent, year-over-year, in the U.S., marking 36 consecutive quarters of positive gains. That was Domino’s lowest figure since Q2 2011, but it wasn’t unexpected. What’s happened in the first four weeks of Q2 (March 23 to April 19) has been more enlightening. Domino’s witnessed U.S. company comps jump 10.6 percent. Franchises are up 6.9 percent. Blended, it’s a 7.1 percent year-over-year same-store number. Today, Domino’s 6,156-unit U.S. business…

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As cities went quiet, the chefs who could began converting their establishments from dine-in to takeout. A week ago, I started looking for ways restaurant tech was coming to the rescue and found surprisingly little. Delivery service Grubhub announced $100 million in fee deferment to specific restaurants, an offer that sounded good but got worse when you dug into the fine print. Not only was it a deferment—instead of a fee waiving—for only a month, it obliged restaurants to use Grubhub for a year after signing up for the program. (Grubhub has since revised this policy and now only requires…

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To help keep you and your employees safe, ServSafe is offering the online Food Handler, COVID-19 Takeout and COVID-19 Delivery courses, for free at ServSafe.com now through April 30. Take advantage of this offer to get the essential training every restaurant and foodservice worker needs to keep diners and themselves safe. Additionally, the new ServSuccess Restaurant Professional and Restaurant Supervisor Learning Suites will also be offered free of charge at ServSuccess.com through April 30. ServSuccess certifications provide restaurant employees a way to demonstrate and restaurant employers a way to gauge the skills, competencies and knowledge required for jobs in the…

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