Not one to miss a list, here’s one from a restaurant consulting company, (Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman), ready with predictions for next year. Their list recognizes that we are different consumers and diners, and our agenda for the coming year is to match food with our own personal needs. They believe restaurants have to align themselves with the consumer who is still suffering the extreme economic woes that significantly impacted numerous restaurants to close this past year. Time to digest.
Some of the hot buttons are: Economic survival, artisan and hand-made, neighborhood and local, and authentic and real. These are the themes that run through the trends restaurants must focus on: The diner is a different customer than he was not so long ago and missing these concepts may mean missing the proverbial boat.
–Time for more appetizers and small plates that guests can share. Dining is more comarderie; the concept adds to the comfort level of dining out.
–Upscaling the Downscale. With gourmet hamburger sales and artisan hot dog sales increasing and steakhouses sliding, this is the time for chefs to be inventive with their burger options. Lamb burgers have become popular as have the list of homemade condiments and relishes to accompany the popular new foods.
–Get over the “organic”and “natural” labels which the company believes are overused and lost in translation. Instead opt for fresh, local, and hand-made, all terms that have an inherent level of trust. We can visualize the farmer, the farm market and the chef’s garden. It’s about trust.
–Fried chicken is the new pork belly. No more emphasis on getting the diner to crave new foods. Fried chicken has become the norm from all manner of chef including Thomas Keller’s new Ad Hoc Restaurant in Yountville, CA where Monday nights are chicken dinner nites. No one wants to miss this gravy boat.
I’m saving a few from the list for later in the week as they encompass the other type of diner or shopper we have become. Consider this a reflection of our dining habits and styles that are important for a comfortable restaurant experience. As the list focuses us on the new decade, so much of the theme sounds a lot like this year, doesn’t it!
Hope everyone’s listening.
What do you think it takes to get a restaurant to survive the economic elephant that is still in the room?
, it is the modus operandi of the shopping universe.
The food police are probably all smiles about the latest food trend: Smaller portion sizes of an app or an entree. More restaurants are moving into the smaller sizes but maintaining the same price point as a way to survive the economic gargoyles.
The ads show an upbeat flair matching the belief that there’s a lot of anticipation surrounding the intro. Besides seeing it already in full display at Costco, it’s receiving attention from end-of-season campers who feel they have solved one of their biggest fears–no hot coffee. Of course, they could just follow Billy Crystal (”City Slickers”), and grind their own tentside.
A lot has changed since the dreaded Recession/near Depression and economic slide of 2009. We are definitely different shoppers, consumers, diners, cooks, and lest we forget, different drinkers. The specialty wine industry of high-priced labels may be truly limited to the top 1% of the population. They may not even know that there’s been a slowdown, a change in purchasing power. They may not have been affected, but they have to be making purchases or nothing will change.
on the bottom line. With fewer customers, most likely spending less, 
It’s a good news-bad news story: We are moving into a post-Recession universe. We have seen prices drop on important commodities like milk and eggs: That’s the good news. Now flip the coin, and you get the other story. We escaped a near Depression cycle, but are headed onto a collision course of higher food prices. That’s a problem.