Restaurant news

With the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl win and Mardi Gras festivities already under way, February promises to be a good month for Louisiana. The icing on the cake—or the okra in the gumbo—is that the state was recently singled out by the International Culinary Tourism Association (ICTA) as one of the premier destinations in the country.

In a report earlier this month, the association homed in on Louisiana because, while New Orleans’ culinary reputation is well established, “if you dig a little deeper you start to see the whole state has great food and drink,” says ICTA managing director Erik Wolf.

The report sought to assess the strategies that different destinations around the world had in place to foster culinary tourism, not solely the quality of food in a given place. While Washington, Michigan, Oregon, and Ohio all have good programs, Wolf says, Louisiana stands out as the “primary hot spot” in the country.

“A lot of states are doing a little, but Louisiana is doing a lot, and they’re doing it well,” he says.

Click HERE to keep reading at qsrmagazine.com.

In the aftermath of the massive earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12, the restaurant industry has responded with various fundraising initiatives to help the devastated Caribbean island nation.

The destruction was “unimaginable,” in the words of Haitian President René Préval, whose presidential palace lay in ruins after an early-morning earthquake that may have killed as many as 200,000 people. The earthquake razed large sections of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, burying countless bodies in the wreckage of collapsed buildings.

As the images of devastation flooded television sets across the globe, U.S. restaurants large and small sprang to action. Two days after the earthquake, McDonald’s announced a $500,000 donation to be matched by Arcos Dorados, the company that operates nearly 1,700 McDonald’s locations in Latin America.

Click HERE to keep reading at qsrmagazine.com.

As one of the toughest economic years in decades comes to a close, restaurant operators have to take solace in having survived it. The recession meant scant profits, fewer customers, and constrained innovation. But the arrival of a new year is a time to look ahead. With that in mind, QSR asked several industry experts to look into the near future and describe what they saw -— the good, the bad, and the ugly -- on the horizon in 2010.

Obviously, the state of the economy will continue to determine the fortunes of the restaurant business. The unemployment rate, which is now above 10 percent, is one of the most important numbers to watch, experts say.

“The bottom line is that as people continue to be unemployed and don’t have discretionary money to spend, that’s going to affect the restaurant industry,” says consultant Bob Sandelman, who does not expect an uptick for at least the first half of 2010. “The main challenge for chains is to continue to find ways to attract customers by providing and communicating value without cheapening their image.”

Sandelman stresses the need for restaurants to stay true to themselves while finding innovative ways to lure cash-strapped consumers through the door.

“Restaurants need to not abandon what they stand for, what their key strategies are and what they’ve been known for over the years,” Sandelman says. “They need to stick with it.”

Quick serves can benefit from a certain level of unemployment, as customers who still want to eat out opt for cheaper meals. But, according to consultant Dennis Lombardi, double-digit joblessness surpassed that level.

“There’s a good rule of thumb,” Lombardi says. “When times get tough, you trade down. But when you lose your job, you trade out.”

Click HERE to keep reading at qsrmagazine.com.

In the latest sign of a possible wage-dispute trend in the restaurant industry, five Houston-based restaurants agreed to fork over more than $334,000 in back pay to 154 current and former employees after the Department of Labor found minimum-wage and overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The Department’s Wage and Hour Division discovered that non-exempt employees, entitled to “time-and-a-half” pay for overtime under the FLSA, “were being paid straight time for all hours worked, including those worked over 40 in a workweek,” according to a press release issued Friday. “Additionally, the companies did not maintain the required recordkeeping.”

“It is a top priority of this department to ensure that all workers receive the wages they have earned,” said Cynthia Watson, regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division in the Southwest, in the release. “In these cases, employees were found to be earning hourly rates that fell below the federal minimum wage. This is illegal.”

Click HEREto keep reading at qsrmagazine.com.