#retail--hospitality

#retail--hospitality

Gasoline doesn't have a particularly high profit margin, which is partly why most gas stations double as convenience stores or offer fresh food. If chains like Buc-ee's and Sheetz can make more money by selling food, they can afford to lower their margins on gasoline.

The first clue could be if the server brings your check without it being requested. That's certainly a sign that the staff considers your meal done and isn't expecting (or perhaps wanting) you to order anything else.

Restaurant owners like Panjwani are caught in the middle of a growing battle of new and established reservation platforms vying for their business. The two dominant players for more than a decade, OpenTable and Resy, are now facing a wave of fresh competition from high-end services and even delivery apps all trying to win lucrative bookings at exclusive establishments.

When I tell fellow tech executives that every employee at sunday, from our engineers to our finance team, must complete a restaurant shift before they can fully onboard, I usually get confused looks. "You mean like, shadow someone?" they ask. No. I mean they tie on an apron, take orders, run food, and yes, deal with the 15-minute wait for the check that our product was literally built to eliminate.

In the last decade, AI-powered chatbots have taken the realm of customer service by storm.

As summer school breaks stretch longer and childcare becomes harder to secure, some families are turning to an unexpected solution: hotels offering full-day, structured kids' camps that allow parents to travel, work and keep routines intact.

Picture this: a couple walks into a restaurant on a Friday night. They glance around, choose their table, and settle into their seats. Before they've even opened their menus, their server already has a pretty good idea whether they'll leave 10% or 25%. It sounds like mind reading, but after talking with dozens of servers over the years, I've learned it's more like pattern recognition honed by thousands of interactions.

That is one of several conclusions you're likely to draw after reading an article by Sheila Yasmin Marikar recently published in Air Mail. Marikar takes the reader into the world of small boutique hotels, the sort of establishment that attracts travelers looking for properties with an independent streak and a unique approach to doing business. The challenge here, though, is figuring out where that line exists, as some iconoclastic companies have acquired massive corporate parents over the years.

IoT tech is seeing increased use and paying dividends, fuelling operational efficiency, improving front-of-house guest experiences and reducing downtime in the kitchen, according to research from MachineQ. The 2026 restaurant readiness: ops meets tech report, conducted by independent research firm Censuswide, took the opinion of more than 400 US-based quick service and fast casual restaurant leaders about the effects of technology in their industry, highlighting how technology adoption is transforming day-to-day restaurant operations.

Like most founders, the early days of my company were very much geared towards solving a real problem. I wanted to create products to fill a market gap a loved one had personally experienced: finding effective, holistic and affordable solutions to common foot conditions like bunions. Product development and direct-to-consumer sales were my initial focus as CEO, but as the brand grew and I began to recognize the inherent potential in what we were building, retail expansion became a natural progression.

Media buying refers to the process of purchasing advertising space across various platforms, including social media, search engines, and traditional media. It's about strategically placing ads where they will reach the target audience effectively.

Years later, after countless nights in hotels from budget chains to five-star establishments, I've noticed something interesting. Those of us who grew up in lower-middle-class households carry certain behaviors with us into these spaces. They're not necessarily bad habits, but they're telling. They reveal a childhood where every pound mattered and waste was practically a sin. I've seen these patterns in myself, in friends from similar backgrounds, and in countless fellow travelers over the years.

The technology underpinning retail operations is under scrutiny in 2026 as fashion executives look to streamline systems with the aim to unlock efficiency, cut costs and meet consumer expectations for speed and personalisation in the shopping journey. At the retail event Lightspeed Edge on 12 January, Lightspeed - the unified point-of-sale (POS) and payments platform for SMEs such as Apricot Lane Boutique and Neal's Yard Remedies - convened industry leaders to explore the strategic imperative for integrated technology ecosystems over siloed systems.

On a recent two-week trip to Japan with my fiancé - six cities, six hotels - every stay was gorgeous and perfectly appointed. We wanted for nothing. Except, in most cases, a proper bathroom door. Instead, we spent the better part of two weeks making accidental eye contact through frosted glass and translucent panels while one of us was otherwise occupied. A design choice, apparently. A test of intimacy, definitely.