What’s more pleasing than a mouthwatering burger with all the fixings? When you think about it, hamburgers are truly timeless and have become an American culinary icon for decades. Burgers are so popular that most Americans need only drive 5 minutes to the nearest burger joint drive-thru window to satisfy their meaty craving. But these days, consumers have more choices than just a Big Mac from McDonald’s or a Whopper from Burger King, which for a while had become a somewhat “boring” standard.

In today’s restaurant landscape, it is apparent that there’s a resurgence in the interest of the burger. Innovative restaurants such as “The Counter” feature a “Build your Own Burger” menu made from 100% natural angus beef, and “M Burger” goes back to basics focusing on no-frills and big taste with a simple menu similar to In-n-Out’s.

On my latest eating mission, I headed out to the Chicago to take a tour of M Burger. This is a popular new concept by Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (with about 70 restaurants under their umbrella) has a small footprint but huge traffic.  This progressive restaurant group is known for creating restaurants with theatrical flair and good value and M Buger is surely no exception.

It’s clear that the love for the burger will continually fuel great new concepts such as M Burger for years to come.

Burger bonus!

For all you burger lovers who’d like to stay in for dinner but would still like a fancy burger, check out the following recipes from PlateOnline.com

Burger Breakthrough

Who can resist the smell of burgers on the grill? Even if you’re not running a beer-and-burger joint, you can still flip a few patties with upscale options like lobster, lamb and truffles. Get your buns to work on these and other great burger recipes.

Mini cheese burgers with truffle oil

Chef Kerry Sear, Cascadia Restaurant, Seattle

Chicken burger with sage and roasted red pepper mayonnaise

Chef John Lupi, Appalachia Restaurant, Marble Hill Ga.

Lola’s lamb burger

Chef-Owner Tom Douglas, Lola, Seattle

Lobster burger

Chef John Kekalos, The Falls, New York

Char-grilled pulled pork hamburger

Chef-Partner Dean Small, Synergy Consulting, Laguna Beach Calif.

Search for these and more than 2,000 other professional chef recipes at www.PlateOnline.com!

When it comes to nutritious eating, going raw is certainly the healthiest route. If you believe that a salad is the only option, think again! When you’re in a pinch and craving an un-boring, delicious, healthy meal, check out your local raw food bar.

What exactly is raw food dining? As the name implies, this type of cuisine is uncooked, unprocessed, prepared primiarly with vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains. Raw food cuisine is ideal for vegetarians, vegans, or anyone seeking a healthful meal.

118 Degrees in Costa Mesa, California, is the quintessential raw food eatery. What’s with the name? 118 degrees is the temperature which maximizes the nutritional value of the food eaten — now that’s a clever name! Their mission statement, “ to empower the community of Orange County with fresh, organic living cuisine, presented in an artful context, to be enjoyed with family and friends. “  Creative dishes such as the “Living Lasagna : Layers of Marinated Italian Vegetables, Creamy Ricotta and Sweet Basil Marinara. Topped with Crispy Tomato,”  and  “Dos Tacos Plate: Portobello Mushroom Soft Taco in Chili-Flax Wrap, Verde Crispy Taco served on Nappa Cabbage Leaf, Rojo Salsa, Guacomole and Nopales Corn Salad,” leave patrons coming back for more.

Raw food bars are becoming increasingly popular as more people seek healthier lifestyles. You’ll be amazed at how delicious raw can really be!

Synergy Restaurant Consultants, the leading authority in foodservice innovation and efficiencies, further expanded the scope of its services to the industry today, announcing the appointment of human resources and risk management expert Chuck Conine as the newest member of Synergy’s talent team.

Conine, a graduate of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources and foodservice industry executive with over 35 years of experience designing and developing money-saving HR programs in recruitment, compensation/benefits, employee and labor relations, insurance and risk management. Conine’s background includes positions as the senior HR and risk management officer for both public and privately held restaurant and foodservice chains. He has also served as project manager to identify and realize HR, insurance and administrative savings during the merger of two iconic restaurant brands.

Synergy managing partner Dean Small commented: “We see Chuck as a valuable asset to our team who will support our ongoing efforts to be on the forefront of providing our clients with efficiency strategies. Chuck will bring decades of HR experience to our projects, helping our foodservice clients reduce their G&A, benefits and insurance expenses while enhancing their recruitment, retention and reward programs.”

A nationally recognized foodservice consulting firm, Synergy Restaurant Consultants was founded in 1988 and has partnered with over 200 restaurant chains and independent operators to provide winning strategies in restaurant operations and management, design, menu development, training, supply chain, restaurant startups, turnarounds and new concept development.

For more information on Synergy Restaurant Consultants visit our web site at https://www.synergyconsultants.com

Nearly a third of all Americans believe they have a food allergy, making eating out at restaurants difficult.

Up to 90 percent of all food related allergic reactions are traced to just 8 items: milk, eggs, peanuts, soy, wheat, tree nuts (such as almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.,) fish and shellfish.

New regulations in Massachusetts, which will tentatively go into effect in July, require restaurants to display what kind of allergens they have in their food and train food service workers about food allergens, the symptoms they cause and what to do when a guest has a reaction. Restaurants also have to put a notice on their menus asking customers to inform their server if they have a food allergy.

One-third of survey respondents said they had had a reaction to food served in or provided by a restaurant, according to a 2005 Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network study. Of those, almost two-thirds (63 percent) had suffered an allergic reaction to restaurant food on more than one occasion.

In 2006, federal regulations under the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act required consumers to put the eight most common allergens on food labels, but the regulations do not include labels at restaurants.

Certainly other states will follow. However, your restaurant could lead the way by introducing the practice and using the publicity generated to promote your facility. For assistance with food labeling, please contact Synergy Consultants.

 

A tiny restaurant “design” change that will make all the difference!

I hate wobbly tables at restaurants and so do guests.  What you find is managers placing match books and wads of napkins under the tables to stop the tables from wobbling.

When I was at the restaurant show I discovered this product called Table Shox which is a hydraulic  self adjusting table glides.  Every restaurant manager needs to have a few boxes of these in their tool kit.  If you can screw in a light bulb you can install this product.  Why have annoyed guests when the problem can be easily remedied?

 

A  Combo That Can Hurt Your Bottom Line

An increasing problem: restaurants that are so loud that meals become secondary to the decibel level. It breaks down to two factors: acoustics and music.

The interiors of some restaurants contain so many hard surfaces – brick walls, tin ceilings, concrete floors – that the flow of conversation is magnified into intolerable din, especially on busy nights. It’s clear that your restaurant design affect the sound level.

In other places, music is pumped in at such a decibel level that patrons feel more like they’re in a dance club.

In either case, partaking of a meal in a relaxed atmosphere becomes impossible. And some restaurants have sound “hot spots.” If you’re sitting at a table under a domed sky-light, you may have fallen into a black hole of white noise.

Patrons and business people alike will leave a restaurant if it is too noisy since conversation is part of the reason for going to a restaurant.

When there are “intimate” surroundings, the problem gets worse. In some places I have experiences, even a crowd of 10 people creates an echo and din that becomes ridiculously loud. It’s like you’re at a concert. In other places, between the cackles at the bar and the blaringly loud music, no one can have a conversation.

Granted, some restaurants that allow high levels are trying to set a mood and establish a niche, but that niche is the younger consumer; a sense of energy to attract the 18 to 30 year olds.

Restaurant owners: For people with discretionary income the food, service, price, menu, can be perfect. However if the ambiance is not perfect, if the restaurant is too loud, it repels the repeat customer. There’s an index of complete satisfaction that people look for, and if it’s not fulfilled, they won’t go back.

Consider your bottom line need, the type of clientele you wish to attract and keep and how your restaurant design will best accommodate both. Then make that decision.

People with seafood restaurants have been panicking over the oil spill. Authorities started shrimping season two weeks early in the New Orleans area because of the major oil spill. As would be imagined, the alleged danger posed by the Gulf oil spill to the U.S. food supply is estimated as far worse than previously thought, and could make testing of seafood necessary for decades to come, officials and scientists say.

 

How will affect your restaurant menu?

So, here is the good news:

Gulf products account for only about 5% of the seafood consumed in the United States.

In two months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, testing has not found “substantial” quantities of contaminated seafood. Monitoring efforts by the government and the seafood industry make the possibility of significant levels of toxic contamination “extremely unlikely … in anything that gets to market.” Testing includes daily laboratory samples and the use of so-called “sniffers” — people trained to detect the presence of oil in seafood by using their noses. Read more from the original article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-05-18-oil-spill_N.htm

The other piece of good news comes from hindsight.  Remember Hurricane Katrina? Initial, breathless news reports the day after the storm made a glancing blow at New Orleans speculated that

• 100,000 people would be dead.
• The city of New Orleans had been destroyed
• The toxic soup of chemicals and debris would render the region uninhabitable for at least a decade.
• All wildlife and sea life had been contaminated or destroyed.

As it turned out, the city was re-inhabited and celebrating Mardi Gras within 8 months of the disaster. And the fishing has been excellent for quite some time. No, none of the doomsday scenarios played out. And they will not do so here.

Keep seafood on your menu.

Opening a new restaurant concept and creating a design on a budget is the sensible approach to getting into the restaurant business. Doing so requires the owner to carefully plan where their money will be spent. Just because your budget is smaller though, doesn’t mean that you can’t bring your restaurant concept to life!

Before you begin your project steps in opening a restaurant, it is important that the restaurant idea is clearly defined. We don’t want it to become a moving target, or have you spend money on lease space that may not get used right away.

Synergy Restaurant Consultants has supported many entrepreneurs who have considered opening a restaurant with limited funds. One of the common denominators, and fatal mistakes of many of these passionate entrepreneurs, is that they forgo some of the most fundamental and essential steps of planning before their grand opening. The discovery process (brainstorming what kind of food your restaurant will serve, or deciding on staff uniforms) and feasibility studies (whether or not your idea is something that will sell well), are just as important to the success of your business as deciding on what plates to use.

 

Opening a restaurant on a tight budget is also a challenge because there is very little room for error. It’s a big investment and Synergy Restaurant Consultants has a proven process that identifies the strengths and weakness of the concept as well as projected cash flow and a break-even analysis. It’s necessary to work through a “discovery process” and conduct your feasibility study before making big financial decisions… because if your idea is not a good seller, you might as well be throwing money down the drain.

Opening a restaurant is simple. Doing it with a smaller budget is too. It’s making the money and retaining customers that is the challenge. Here is a checklist for opening a restaurant that may be of some help when money is tight:

1. Organize your ideas for business and discover a great niche. If you’re having trouble with this first step, try hiring a professional to assist you – Synergy has 30 years of experience in helping customers brainstorm. They and can help you find the PERFECT idea – and turn it into profitable business.

2. Research that idea to make sure it’s going to make you money (something we’re also great at)

3. Know that if you find a building or location for your restaurant that is not ideal – that’s OK! Walk away, there will always be another site that’s even BETTER than the first

4. Negotiate a lease and try to obtain tenant improvement money to back-end some expenses. If you don’t know how to negotiate, DON’T try it on your own. Working with a professional property negotiator can save you thousands of dollars, and may even allow you some other incentives before you sign your lease

5. Consider purchasing used equipment if it will help you with starting the business. Once the business grows and you start earning more revenue – you can always upgrade and get newer equipment.

6. Use the internet to find suppliers for your business needs. Looking for durable baking pans? Want unique dining tables? How about gold-plated silverware or an in-door fountain? ALL of these things can be found online- sometimes at a discounted price!

7. Keep the menu simple to minimize the cost of labor and ingredients. As with used equipment, the menu can always be re-designed
when you have more cash flow.

8. Consider trading goods for services. A friend of ours needed a photographer to take some pictures of his dining area for marketing purposes, but he didn’t have the funds. So he offered a freelancer free dinner for he and his wife in return for taking the photos – and it WORKED! You never know what opportunities are available to you until you go out and look for them.

9. Develop a marketing and word-of-mouth strategy to make sure your grand opening is a SMASH!

One small business owner in Massachusetts, found that the state’s2006 health care law left him facing $15,000 in fines since it took effect. If you, as a restaurant business owner have even given it a glance, President Obama’s new health care overhaul will bring similar financial woes nationwide.

As business owners across the country weigh the new law, they’re looking to Massachusetts for harbingers of things to come.

Massachusetts’ law, which mandates near-universal coverage and requires that all businesses with 11 or more workers, not just restaurant businesses, offer insurance, provided the blueprint for the health law signed by President Barack Obama. Massachusetts employers who don’t comply face annual fines of $295 per worker.

While there’s been plenty of grumbling among restaurant business owners that the state law has squeezed them financially during a tough recession, there’s little evidence yet that the law is forcing employers to close or sending them fleeing for the border.

The national law doesn’t require businesses to offer insurance but hits employers with 50 or more workers with an annual $2,000-per-employee fee if the company doesn’t insure them and the government ends up subsidizing their workers’ coverage.

The national law also grants tax credits for businesses with 25 or fewer workers with average annual wages below $50,000. For critics, one of the most troubling aspects of the law is the fines. Massachusetts has already fined more than 1,000 companies over $18 million for failing to offer medical insurance to their workers.

The worry is that, if the economy turns up and a restaurant business hires more workers for one or more locations, the owner will face a critical decision when they near the 50-worker mark and is no longer exempt from penalties. The 51st employee could mean $100,000 in costs.

Don Day is worried. Day owns eight small businesses in McKinney, Texas, including two restaurants, a boutique hotel and several retail shops.

Although he employs 125 workers, he offers health care for just a few key employees. Just an extra $200 a month per employee for health care could set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, a cost he can’t afford.

“It’s not just me, it’s every small business across this land,” he said. “A lot of small businesses are going to go out of business.”

We at Synergy will keep you informed on all the latest impacts the Health Care Law will have on the restaurant industry.

Restaurant businesses offering deals, discounts and value meals are more important than ever for encouraging families to go out to eat. A Diner Study found that among respondents who feel restaurants should be more family-friendly, 58% would like to see them offer more discounts and value-based options. A number of operators, including Spartanburg, S.C.-based Denny’s, invite kids to eat free on certain days when parents purchase an entree. Following is a sample of some generous promotions:

Holiday Inn: it was the first hotel brand to create a kids eat free program. As many as four kids ages 12 and under per family can eat free from the kids menu with a paying adult at Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts nationwide. They have even added healthy dishes to the menu, such as grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.

IHOP: Every day between 4 and 8 p.m. at Glendale, Calif.-based IHOP, kids ages 12 and younger eat free.

Read the original article here: http://culturewav.es/public_thought/74980

Now, what can your restaurant do to get kids and families enthused about coming?