By many measures, the recovery of the restaurant industry has been a great success story in recent years. The National Restaurant Association says sales are up (forecast to reach $1 trillion this year), operators continue to hire (adding more than 28,000 jobs in March), and nearly half of operators report that competition is stronger than it was last year. But this success has been uneven, as a recent article in The Atlantic explains, and more common in businesses that have managed to ride the dramatic ups and downs of the economic environment. For instance, The Wall Street Journal reports that from 2019 to 2023, sales at quick-service and other limited-service restaurants increased at twice the rate of those at sit-down restaurants. Independent restaurants have been disproportionally affected too, with about 4,500 more closing their doors last year than opening them. Restaurants that have succeeded are often those that have harnessed technology and maximized efficiencies that have allowed them morph into different models throughout the course of the day – fast-casual café in the morning, limited-service later in the day, and ghost kitchen to fill the in-between times, for example. Such changes will likely alter people’s definition of what a restaurant is and what it is capable of offering. Meanwhile, this landscape is creating openings for new services designed to address the needs of independent restaurants, providing them with digital tools that can help them scale their operations and gain efficiencies in ways more typical of larger chains.
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As challenging as the pandemic made running a restaurant or other foodservice business, it also triggered a wave of creativity among operators as chefs were challenged to find new ways to bring restaurant-quality food to people at home. Now, though consumers are free to return to restaurants, many continue to seek ways of enjoying quality food without the hassle of cooking or leaving the house. A new business stream has emerged from this. On the surface, it sounds like catering, but it’s more about marrying the experience of restaurant dining with the comforts of staying at home – and it’s helping many operators remain profitable right now. In fact, it’s contributed to 2024 being the year of the dinner party, according to Eater. For example, a recent report notes the growing appeal of Moveable Feast, a company that hires chefs to prepare meals for up to 12 people that are then shipped to points around the country. The idea for the business was born out of the pandemic, when Moveable Feast cofounder John Stubbs was looking for ways to support chefs. While participating in the business does generate some in-person restaurant visits, it mainly gives the restaurants an additional means of getting their brand out to hungry consumers. Similar meal packages are popping up around the country in cities featuring high-end restaurants. increasingly, consumers looking to host a dinner party can pay to turn their home into something like a small satellite location of that restaurant, with the multi-course food and drink menu prepared and served by the restaurant’s chef. Regardless of the kind of food and drink you serve, can you envision new ways of bringing it to your guests and their friends on their own turf? |
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