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“Outside the Box”
It’s no secret that the restaurant industry is experiencing a labor crisis, and increasing wages does not seem enough anymore. The average hourly wages for restaurant workers passed $15 for the first time this summer...and keeps growing, yet job growth remains stagnant, according to the latest jobs numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Many operators are looking beyond the paycheck to figure out how to attract and retain employees, adding benefits like health insurance, PTO and transportation benefits. At the same time, there are a few operators that are going above and beyond to address the labor crisis.
Here is one restaurant group’s outside the box initiative to address the labor crisis in a creative way. Hot Springs Village, Ark.-based Xplore Restaurant Group is paying their student employees to do homework as they struggle to fill shift slots.
Owner Greg Jones told KARK, a local news outlet, that its restaurant group is down to about 20 employees and that staff have tried everything from employee referrals to thousands of dollars of online ads and newspapers, but nothing has worked.
Jones said he hires many student workers, but with more hours added to their schedule, the students found it difficult to juggle both work and school. So his executive chef came up with an idea he hoped would encourage more of his employees to stay and also attract new ones.
"I said, 'How about I make you a deal, you guys can sit upstairs for an hour before your shift starts on the clock, do your schoolwork, I'll feed you and then when you're done with your hour you can come downstairs'," Executive chef Drake Bielert told KARK. The students will also receive an extra $100 bonus if they receive an ‘A’ and an extra $20 for a ‘B’ grade.
The policy was put into place about three weeks ago, and CEO Greg Jones said it’s already made a difference. Employees have told him that with the adjustment they have been able to keep both their jobs and their grades up. He added that the new strategy has already helped the restaurant retain two student employees.
“Obviously, this increases our labor cost,” Jones told Nation’s Restaurant News. “However, it also allows us to attract some great employees who might be interested in a culinary career in the future. It’s also another way we can give back to the community by providing good jobs, school support, and teaching the kids a great work ethic.”
Seafood consumption is on the rise in America, and between the health benefits, nutritional value and delicious taste, it’s not hard to see why. Here’s one perspective from The Healthy Fish on America’s favorite seafood species. Shrimp tops the list of America’s favorite seafoods, with Americans eating a total of 1.27 billion pounds of shrimp a year. That works out to about 4.1 pounds per person. Shrimp has become a popular choice because of its low cost and versatility. It is often added to salads or stews, or cooked on kebabs. It also has a reputation for being healthy, low in saturated fat, a good source of protein, and one of the best sources of vitamin B12. It is also bursting in potassium and other nutrients like iron and vitamin D. The second most popular seafood in America is salmon, with Americans eating a total of 918 million pounds per year, or about 2.88 pounds per capita. Salmon’s taste and great nutritional content contribute to its popularity. It’s one of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids and is often used in dishes like cedar plank fish and seafood corn chowder. Tuna is popular due to its low-cost canned form and its protein content. At a total consumption of 701 million pounds in America, or 2.2 pounds per person, tuna is the third most popular seafood choice. It is used in ceviche and is often eaten raw in Japanese cuisine. Its texture makes it a favorite among sushi fans. It’s also a classic in sandwiches. Tilapia is the fourth most consumed seafood, and its popularity is on the rise. Americans eat a total 440 million pounds per year, or 1.38 pounds per person. Tilapia fans love it for its versatility, its low cost and its mild and delicate flavor. It’s also popular for its nutritional value and health benefits. Just one serving of Tilapia has 21 grams of protein and is a good source of potassium, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. Thanks to its versatility, Tilapia can be used in almost any recipe that calls for seafood, including lettuce wraps, tacos and soup. It can also be used as a healthy alternative in recipes that call for chicken. Americans are trying to eat healthier, and consuming more seafood is part of their plan. One-third (36%) of adults are eating more seafood in place of meat, according to Technomic's 2021 Center of the Plate: Seafood & Vegetarian Consumer Trend Report. And two-thirds (67%) are looking for more recipes and new products to help them do so, per Mintel’s 2021 Fish and Shellfish—U.S. report. Looks like consumers are catching the seafood wave. Three-quarters of consumers eat seafood at home or away from home at least once a month, and 46% have it at least weekly; only 12% say they never eat seafood, according to Technomic.
The restaurant business is not for the faint of heart ... or stomach. They have a high failure rate; approximately 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and nearly 80 percent shutter their doors before their fifth anniversary. Knowing why can help prospective owners avoid a similar fate. Often, the No. 1 reason is simply location — and the general lack of self-awareness that you have no business actually being in that location. For example, that hip new part of town with cool shops and lots of foot traffic also comes with a price tag. And while it might be nice to sell meatballs right in the heart of everything, those meatballs had better be spectacular because the landlord doesn’t care if it’s your grandmother’s recipe. The landlord cares about rent — specifically that you pay it. Location is just one of many reasons why the restaurant business is not for the faint of heart. And though it may arguably be the most serious concern, it’s just one more thing piled on to a mountain of obstacles that includes low start-up capital, inconsistent food and poor staffing. Really, the list goes on and on, and it’s been that way since forever. But there is also now a very modern concern: technology. It used to be that a restaurant could open fairly quietly. You had time to work out the menu and staffing issues, relative obscurity to find your voice and style, and months of experience to adequately adjust the flow and feel of the front and back of the house. Now, you are one bad lasagna away from wallowing in the depths of Yelp hell. And in a world where buzz is everything, nothing spells trouble like the buzz of bad service and dodgy lasagna. A Harvard Business School study found that just a one-star increase on Yelp saw a 9% revenue rise for a restaurant. And, what's more, restaurants with more reviews than an average eatery can see an increase of 82% more revenue, according to Womply research. With 94% of U.S. diners claiming they’re influenced by online restaurant reviews essentially, it comes down to the fact that … reputation and revenue go hand-in-hand these days.
We swallow it in sandwiches. We scoff it up as sushi. Now the global appetite for tuna has become insatiable. Not only is it the world's most consumed fish, but the seven most commercially important tuna species are also one of the most economically valuable fish on the planet. Tuna is now one of the great, healthy convenience foods of the modern age: unusual and expensive enough to be a treat; new enough to be fashionable and easy to cook. While tinned tuna remains the workaday fish eaten by millions across the developed world, fresh raw tuna now reigns supreme in the culinary world, especially when it comes to sushi and sashimi. From a nutritional standpoint, tuna is a treasure-trove of protein, vitamins, and healthy fats and, as a bonus, it’s a flexible ingredient that is tasty both raw or fresh off the grill. If you’ve ever wondered how many calories there are in tuna or how it fits in with your resolution to eat a more balanced and healthy diet, just read on. One 4 oz. serving of ahi tuna fish contains about 120 calories, 25 g of protein, 1 g of fat, and zero carbohydrates, which makes it an ideal food choice for people on a low-carb, high-protein diet. In addition, tuna is a good source of vitamin B, omega-3 fatty acids, potassium, vitamin D, phosphorous, selenium, and magnesium. Tuna is g0od for weight loss, too. It reduces the levels of ghrelin – a hormone that stimulates hunger - so it fights cravings and keeps you feeling full longer. While tuna is a powerhouse of nutrition, it can also improve your heart health and lower your blood pressure by balancing out the negative effects of sodium. The protein in tuna has been found to boost your immune system and speed up wound healing by promoting the growth of new tissue, while the omega-3 fats reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. The niacin in tuna helps lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and age-related decline in cognitive functions. The fact is - canned or fresh - tuna is tasty and healthy; a winning combination in 2022.
Fresh and frozen seafood hit record sales in 2021 and analysts at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC) at the start of 2022 expect the positive sales trend to continue. “In terms of fresh seafood, we had a massive 2020, where we had so many new buyers come into the category, yet we still managed to stay close to that figure again in 2021,” said 210 Analytics Principal Anne-Marie Roerink. Household shopping trips for fresh seafood increased as well. Roerink reported seeing more grocers merchandising packaged seafood salads, smoked fish, and a variety of seafood cakes, as well as convenient, ready-to-heat or ready-to-cook items like fresh salmon portions on a cedar plank, ready to be grilled. Analysts now believe that grilling, which has been traditionally dominated by the meat category, offers a huge potential growth opportunity for retailers value-added seafood sales, according to Roerink. Americans spent USD 4.5 billion on smokers and grills in 2020. “With all that equipment sitting at the home, I think grilling is a massive opportunity for seafood to get involved in.” Thanks to a shift in consumer lifestyle as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased interest in the health and immune-boosting qualities attributed to seafood consumption, the industry has a big potential marketing point. Seafood sales are predicted to remain strong throughout 2022, aided in part by seafood’s strong linkage to omega-3s in consumers’ minds. Heart disease is now the leading cause of death in the U.S. and one of the foods most strongly associated with reduced heart disease risk is fish. It’s estimated that low seafood intake is responsible for about 84,000 American lives lost to heart disease each year, which makes seafood deficiency the second-biggest dietary contributor to preventable deaths in the U.S. While eating fish has been proven to fight heart disease in several ways, at the present time only about one-third of Americans eat seafood once a week, while nearly half eat fish only occasionally or not at all. This creates a unique opportunity for seafood suppliers to be one of the primary beneficiaries of consumers’ surging interest in eating healthier foods in 2022. Few things are as all-American as a summertime barbecue party - we Americans are particularly fond of them. It’s where Seafood meets Grill has powerful marketing potential.
No one knows how long this situation will last, but one thing you can do is send a message to your customers that your restaurant is a safe haven from the pandemic outside. Make an abundance of caution part of your brand. Put language about your efforts on your site and in your booking flow. If you choose to put more space between tables, broadcast that on social media. Do everything you can to make guests seek out your restaurant as a place of refuge. It’s a good opportunity to minimize no-shows by communicating with guests to confirm existing reservations, reassuring your guests of the precautions you’re taking, and offering any promotions you have to get them to complete the reservation: a complimentary appetizer, drink, loyalty rewards, etc. In general, make sure your team has a plan in place for dealing with a sick customer. Protecting your employees and making the other customers feel safe remains your number one priority. While some diners may end up going to restaurants less frequently during the lingering pandemic, they may still come together for notable calendar events, such as Easter, Passover, Mother’s Day, Graduation celebrations, and so on. This is another reason why it’s essential to market your restaurant as a particularly sanitary environment: if you can convince guests that you’re offering a safe place, where better for families to meet? And because so many businesses have pivoted to a remote working structure, you’re surrounded by a population of confined people going stir-crazy. Think of it this way: this unfortunate crisis has ended up putting an entirely new daytime audience of locals close to your restaurant all day. People still want to connect and help one another out, and they’ll need a venue to do that. Market your restaurant as a safe place to gather. Reach out to your local customers and encourage them to come in for a lunch promotion; print up T-shirts; make it a genuine place of social gathering — again, a refuge — and you’ll probably end up making them into long-term customers.
First, there was the fruited sour beer. Then, the milkshake IPA. Today, we greet the smoothie sour beer. This trending brew is being fully embraced by some adventurous producers from Eugene, Oregon to Fargo, North Dakota, but perhaps the most important thing the smoothie sour is doing is pushing boundaries within beer making. “It’s taking the expectations and direction of beer in completely new ways, as well as the desire to use real ingredients to create flavors that are genuine and noticeable as such, as opposed to using flavorings,” says Dan Russo, Director of Brewing Operations at the Oakshire Brewing in Eugene. The new smoothie sours tend to come in bright colors, looking more like something the kids in Hook ate than a beer. Drekker Brewing out of Fargo has become an ambassador of the style. The brewery makes them in all shapes and sizes, from pineapple, guava, and passionfruit to a sour that’s designed to taste like a PB&J. The Coconut Key Lime Pie beer blends lime, coconut, banana, granola, lactose, cream cheese, and vanilla. In short, when Drekker is short on brewing supplies, what it adds to the grocery list is not very common. Making a smoothie sour can be quite challenging, reports Russ. Fermenting at such a high gravity with more acidity can be tough on yeast. There’s a balancing act, too, with so many ingredients involved. And, because much of this is new, there’s no real reference point. The processing of weird ingredients for the first time is always a challenge as well,” Russo admits. “There are no instructions on the internet on how to add 200 pounds of no-bake cheesecake mix to a beer. So you end up going through some trial and error. Usually it ends up working out OK. It’s definitely always a wild ride, but once you get it right with any of the weird ingredients, then the next time you go to do it it ends up being a piece of cake — sometimes literally.” This trend, which is the continuation of an arc that began about a decade ago when goses and kettle sours grew in popularity alongside fruit-infused beers, reportedly draws on the addition of culinary ingredients to make beers that have as much bite as they do body. This sub-category of beer has grown in popularity because consumers have started to appreciate, rather than fear, the different kinds of flavors found in hazy beer and unfiltered natural wine without being put off by drinks having a cloudy appearance. This new epicurean-influenced beer style has started trending in the US and has been predicted to expand more broadly. Sam Johnson, who manages the two Seattle outposts for Great Notion, claims the smoothe sour beers have been enormously popular since the company started brewing them a couple of months ago.
Even the sharpest tacks among us don't tend to leave happy hour having learned anything new about it. And even though learning isn't really the point, isn't it cool to know that happy hours origins can be traced back to colorful naval slang, Prohibition, and one newspaper article in Rhode Island? History tells us that we can thank the U.S. Navy for the upbeat name. The first documented & happy hours; in the United States were held by the Navy as early as 1914 -- but they had very little to do with alcohol. For Navy sailors during the first World War, a & Happy Hour; was a weekly entertainment program held to help alleviate the boredom that comes with life at sea. News articles dating back to 1914 described the events as having live music, dancing, movie showings or boxing matches. It wasn't until Prohibition (1920-1933) that Americans began using the term specifically for drinking. For those law-breaking Americans who wanted to imbibe in secrecy, a kind of 20th century pre-game emerged. Friends would meet at speakeasies or someone's home before going out for dinner, thus creating the cocktail hour. Eventually, these civilians adopted &happy hour as a euphemism for that secret and festive hour. Though Prohibition was later repealed, the concept of a happy hour stuck around. Some think that a Saturday Evening Post article about the military in 1959, that mentioned the Happy Hour, may have introduced the expression to the public. But, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was a 1961 article in the Providence Journal that sparked wide use of the term, referring to some Newport cops and their “‘Happy hour’ at the cocktail bar.” Eventually, in the 1970s and 80s, it was co-opted by the service industry as the discounted food and drink specials we know today. If you’re wondering what’s in it for the restaurateur, read on... While it might seem counterintuitive to offer discounts as a way to boost sales, according to a 2018 Nielsen study, U.S. bars and restaurants generate 60.5% of their average weekly sales from happy hour – even with major discounts on the table. Moreover, the average happy hour check is $68.99, which is $8 more than the average check during other times of the day. In other words, don’t underestimate the marketing power of a good happy hour deal, and the fact that happy hour, for many, is considered the best hour because its tied directly to that triumphant feeling you get when you realize that the work day is, in fact, over!
Fexitarian, a term used to describe people who eat mostly vegetarian meals but still consume some meat, tied as the No. 2 ranking diet in 2021, according to a recent U.S. News & World Report. “This is the first year we saw the flexitarian diet actually tie for No. 2. It has escalated so fast and really gained momentum. Now it’s quite commonplace, particularly when we look at the millennials and the younger Gen Zs.” These are the consumers between the ages of 25 to 40. U.S. News ; World Report annually lists the top-ranking diets related to health that are evidence-based. The No. 1 diet is often the Mediterranean diet, heavy on vegetables, fish and olive oil along with other healthy fare. The other No. 2 diet this year, tied with flexitarian, is the DASH diet, standing for dietary approaches to stop hypertension. It emphasizes fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy while discouraging foods high in saturated fat such as fatty meats, full-fat dairy foods and tropical oils. As the term flexitarian pops up regularly in media outlets, it turns out that a huge chunk of Americans consider themselves to be flexitarians because they are attempting to add more plants into their diet. One survey estimates that as many as 47% of Americans now consider themselves flexitarians, while other studies place the trend closer to about one-third of consumers. When asked why, people gave different reasons, but they tend to say it’s for personal health or reducing their carbon footprint. Consumers also report moving into a phase where they do a ‘portion’ of a swap. For example, somebody loves burgers, so they’ll make a beef-based burger but actually do a third of that patty with canned black beans or cooked lentils mixed in. It’s sort of that flexible world of, “I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m working to increase my vegetable intake and, to some extent, decrease my meat intake.” According to Food Networks Healthy Eats, while plant-based dieting is still going strong, many consumers just aren't ready to give up meat and other animal-based foods entirely. So, for todays plant-based food consumer who still wants both – the flexitarian diet is gaining a foothold.
Crab cakes were the top seller for Clyde’s Restaurant Group that operates about a dozen restaurants in the Washington region, but the chain decided to yank them off the menu this summer after crab prices tripled. Bart Farrell, the vice president of food and beverage for the company, said, “We couldn’t justify the price that we would have had to charge…We’re already absorbing high prices across the board on all food items, but when you’re talking about a 300% increase on your No. 1 item, there’s just no way that that has any sustainability.” The prices have skyrocketed due to a shortage of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay that is something of a mystery. A winter dredge survey showed that the overall population fell from 405 million in 2020 to 282 million in 2021, driven largely by a sharp drop in the number of juvenile crabs. While it’s normal for the blue crab population to fluctuate from year to year, no one is certain what caused this year’s steep decline. Bill Sieling, executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, however, sees an easy explanation: “There’s good years and bad years. There’s no exposé to be found, and there’s no evil person behind this. Crabs are scarce this year because crabs periodically have been scarce, and prices are high because everybody wants to buy crabmeat here.” In Maryland, where the blue crab is the official state crustacean, many are simply doing without what has become a high-end luxury food they cannot afford this year. Bill Paulshock, the owner of Bill’s Seafood and Catering Co. in Perry Hall, Md. said, “Listen, this affects everyone. Right now, a bushel of crabs is about $75 to $100 more than they were this time last year. We’re really giving the jumbo lump away at cost.” But he says he is keeping it on his menu even though it’s not a moneymaker for one reason: “I’m not going to let one slack year make me lose my customers.” Paulshock also has no doubt the crab population will improve. “Do I think they’re going to come back? A hundred percent. In the Chesapeake Bay they are doing more things to keep it cleaner, it’s a perfect environment for them…It’s just Mother Nature, the way the wind blows. If we get the right wind and the right current, this bay will be loaded with them.” So, while it was a difficult decision for Bart Farrell to pull the top-selling item from the menu at Clyde’s restaurants, he says, “We just felt the time was right.” And so far the reaction from diners has been generally positive. “We’ve put a little blurb on our menu indicating the reason for it...the conservation and the cost. And it’s helped that our corporate chef came up with something new, a great shrimp-cake recipe,” said Farrel.
