#restaurant-operations

#restaurant-operations

Since 1996, Dunkin' has served up a round baked good besides its signature donuts: The humble yet delicious bagel. Customers have enjoyed jazzing up Dunkin' bagels or eating them as-is ever since, but these doughy treats certainly haven't stayed the same over the decades. For one big shake-up, Dunkin' used to serve fresh bagels, but now only uses frozen ones, which not every customer and staff member is happy about.

The day before I relaunched The Flower Shop as its executive chef, I got a text from my old friend, Stretch Armstrong. "My partner is in commercial real estate and aware of your property hunt. Unsure the status of that but if you'd entertain a convo with a great guy, he'd love to speak to you." I was in a bad place because ICE had grabbed my lead line cook, Daniel, two days before.

Restaurant kitchens are known for being high-pressure environments, but at Bistro Cacao, Valentine's Day brings some of the highest intensity. The Washington Post spent the evening there to see what happens out of sight at a place people seek out for romantic moments throughout the year. Bolukbasi has lost track of how many proposals have taken place at her restaurant over the years. "I can't even count," she said.

The front door is locked and we have the back door locked at all times. People have to wait for us to open the door. There are people of color who work for us who are all trying to do the right thing and go through the right processes, but they can be scared to come to work. We have people that have seen neighbors being snatched. It's no longer a Democrat versus Republican issue. It's a human issue.

"In 2022 and half of 2023, we would do like $40,000 to $60,000 [in sales] a month out of one little stall," says Jamra, whose restaurant, Evette's, was named one of the New York Times' 50 Best Restaurants in the U.S. in 2022. "It was extremely profitable," Jamra tells Eater. "We were making all kinds of money. We had lines every day, every vendor did. Back then, it was a who's who of the Chicago restaurant industry."

I studied hospitality in Switzerland and then came to New York to work under celebrity chefs, Daniel Boulud and François Payard, so I had experience in fine dining. When I decided to open the first Naya in 2008, that was more or less my comfort zone. A week after we launched, we got an amazing article in the New York Times and then we were packed for lunch and dinner. It definitely helped prevent us from shutting down after a few months.

While rain drenched San Francisco's empty streets last Wednesday, the staff at both San Francisco Outta Sight locations had their work cut out for them as dozens of customers turned to DoorDash to place delivery orders for Outta Sight's popular New York-style pizza. Between the Tenderloin and Chinatown shops, Outta Sight had a combined 500 orders placed on the delivery app over a period of 3.5 hours.

If you watch food shows on TV, you'll see a lot of talk from chefs and restaurateurs about working with the freshest in-season ingredients. Which is true, up to a point; we all want to do that. But in practice, we often end up working with what we can get or what we have on hand. The name of the restaurant game is turning a profit, after all.

Darden reported Q1 revenue of $3.04 billion, missing the $3.07 billion estimate, while EPS of $1.97 fell short of the $2.02 consensus. The company still posted 4.7% same-restaurant sales growth and 24.5% net income growth year over year. Olive Garden generated $1.30 billion in revenue during the quarter, and LongHorn added $776 million. CEO Rick Cardenas said the company had "a strong start to the fiscal year with same-restaurant sales and earnings growth that exceeded our expectations."

The idea of doing one thing right and sticking to it works in a variety of fields, but especially cooking. There are dozens of reasons for a restaurant to narrow its focus to one single dish. Aside from the lower cost of ingredients and predictability in kitchen workflow, practice makes perfect. Across the U.S., a growing number of restaurants are joining the herd to specialize in just one dish and deliver the best possible version of it.

At Semma in Manhattan's West Village, executive chef Vijay Kumar and his team of 35 work in sync each night to deliver New York City's only Michelin-starred Indian dining experience. Between grinding spices, slow-cooking curries, and perfecting their signature gunpowder dosa, you'll see everything it takes to prep and execute a full-service dinner for more than 200 guests from a kitchen the size of a studio apartment.

Curate, a Spanish tapas restaurant and one of the best-known eateries in Asheville, North Carolina, sat empty for two days after Hurricane Helene last September. Then co-owner Katie Button reopened it alongside World Central Kitchen to provide meals for many community members who were without electricity and running water. To do so, Curate installed a tank and brought in clean water at the cost of $1,000 a day, racking up $30,000 in water, tank rental and delivery fees.

At home, his kitchen is as functional and ergonomic as those professional spaces, with a bit more room for fun. He's got a wall oven placed to match his stature (he's six foot five, after all), an extra-large fridge to fit both groceries and samples from work, and the internet's latest gadget obsession (the Ninja Creami). And he isn't afraid to play around with it. It's a space tailored for creativity and for indulging in the more delicious side of bringing work home.

The restaurant and hospitality industry loses over $100 billion a year in food waste. And ReFED's 2025 report on food waste in the US found that in 2023, businesses were left with surplus food equivalent to $108 billion in revenue. Of course, the issue isn't just costing companies money - it also hurts the environment, making up 8% of the world's carbon emissions.

Working the pass as an expeditor can be one of the most fulfilling jobs, but it can also fall apart quickly if the person doing it is not organized.

Integrating AI into restaurants doesn't detract from the human experience of dining; it enables more of it, serving as an operational game-changer for challenges like staffing shortages.