Industry News
Hotelchamp builds out platform for hotels through third-party services
Hotel booking specialist Hotelchamp is planning to make more third-party services available to clients through its platform. The Amsterdam-based company works with hotels to help them increase their direct online bookings from consumers and to improve the customer service offered to travellers during the online process. (Tnooz)
CDC expands warnings on romaine lettuce from Yuma, Ariz.
Federal officials on Friday expanded warnings resulting from an ongoing E. coli investigation saying restaurants and retailers should not sell any romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Ariz. As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 53 people in 16 states sickened by the outbreak between March 13 and April 6. (Nation’s Restaurant News)
Waiters can now share tips with cooks and other staff
Cooks and dishwashers at restaurants can now benefit from tips just like waiters and other “front of the house” staff thanks to a rollback in federal law. The policy change enacted last month gets rid of a 2011 rule by the Department of Labor that didn’t allow restaurants to have tip pools to share with “back of the house” employees that wouldn’t normally get tips such as cooks or dishwashers. (Spokesman-Review)
These are the 5 fastest growing restaurants in America
For a long time, restaurants were focused on providing homogenized meals at the fastest pace possible. These days, customers aren’t just looking for uniformity and speed of service, they want an experience. Companies that have been able to adapt to these changing needs have found their booths filled with hungry customers and their sales skyrocketing. (CNBC)
Need a job? Tri-Cities restaurants and hotels need you — and not just for the summer
When SpringHill Suites’ began hunting for a front desk clerk, the Tri-Cities hotel immediately ran into a problem. Not enough qualified applicants. (Tri-City Herald)
A LUXURY HOTEL CHAIN IS MAKING IT HIP TO DITCH SINGLE USE PLASTIC
A night in a hotel is, by definition, single-use. After each guest’s stay, the sheets are cleaned, the minibar restocked, a new keycard issued—with each individual amenity leaving its own impact on the environment. (Quartzy)
Better-for-you beverages sneak up on soda
Sugary sodas are getting kicked to the curb as restaurants opt for alternative beverages infused with flavorful, better-for-you ingredients. No longer relegated to smoothie joints or health-focused concepts, these on-trend beverages with benefits (think natural syrup seltzers, spice tonics and vegetable coolers) are showing up — and selling well — at all types of eateries. (Restaurant Hospitality)
How Christina Lecki Takes Sustainability in the Kitchen to the Next Level
The chef at Brooklyn’s Reynard doesn’t stop at food scraps. Using a 24-hour cooking schedule and encouraging her purveyors to use reusable packaging, she’s pushing the envelope and showing that chefs can be powerful ambassadors. (Food & Wine)
How to Cook Smarter by Cooking Smaller
Some chefs love their tiny kitchens, and not merely for masochistic reasons. Here’s how a smaller space can make for better cooking. (Wall Street Journal)
Seattle chefs source fresh food from rooftop gardens
Chef Taichi Kitamura uses a terrace garden on the rooftop of his Seattle restaurant Sushi Kappo Tamura to grow hard-to-find Japanese vegetables and herbs. French eatery Bastille uses items from its rooftop garden in about half of the items on its menu, and offers four-course rooftop garden dinners twice a week in the summer months. (Seattle Weekly)
Biodegradable pizza box promises restaurateurs cost savings
Among the plethora of challenges pizza brands face, these five are surely near the top of the list: Escalating labor costs, Squeaky tight job market, Soaring real estates prices, Delivery product quality and temperature, Waste and sustainability reduction. The creators of PizzaRound, however, claim that their biodegradable pizza delivery container addresses all those challenges in a single item that pizza restaurateurs use daily. (Pizza Marketplace)