The omnichannel disruption that upended retail has finally come to the restaurant industry. Restaurateurs must shift how they think, behave, and invest to survive and thrive. Today's consumers are well-conditioned in their expectations: they want the same tech-savvy, on-demand, and frictionless interactions with restaurants that they get in every other vertical. If you think your 1,000-unit restaurant chain is too big to fail, remember that 1,000-unit Sears closed nearly all of its stores after it filed for bankruptcy in February 2019. If you think your local family independent restaurant is too beloved to fail, remember the Amazon effect changed the face of main street and traditional retailing. Delivering the Digital Restaurant explores the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of food industry veterans and start-up entrepreneurs innovating the future of food. Combining sociological observations, rich industry data, and insider knowledge, Delivering paints a picture of how food is evolving and how you as a leader, owner, or operator can successfully innovate and meet the new consumer demands to capitalize on the opportunities ahead. Those who understand this digital disruption will be better positioned to embrace the innovation that consumers are demanding. Those who resist will surely be left behind.

Mobile computing and wireless technology have grown at a phenomenal rate in recent years, and so has artificial intelligence. The most advanced software applications that the world ever witnessed can be realized through a combined aspect of these disciplines, capable of delivering high level support to various industry sectors and to people’s quality of life in general. Currently, many countries are facing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most impacted industries by the pandemic is that of tourism and hospitality. It is time to explore and leverage the power of mobile and wireless intelligence to assist with the recovery of the tourism and hospitality sector during and after the pandemic, which constitutes a need for relevant research in the field. Mobile Computing and Technology Applications in Tourism and Hospitality presents the latest research and development in mobile and intelligent computing with a focus on tourism and hospitality sectors. The chapters discuss the role of research on innovative technologies and applications for resilience to return the tourism and hospitality industry back to its normal state. This includes research on topics such as sensor-based technology, smart tourism, virtual and augmented reality, mobile travel applications, and more. This book is ideal for managers, executives, museum and cultural heritage specialists, app developers, IT consultants, tourism and hospitality professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

This book offers the first methodological synthesis of digital food studies. It brings together contributions from leading scholars in food and media studies and explores research methods from textual analysis to digital ethnography and action research. In recent times, digital media has transformed our relationship with food which has become one of the central topics in digital and social media. This spatiotemporal shift in food cultures has led us to reimagine how we engage in different practices related to food as consumers. The book examines the opportunities and challenges that the new digital era of food studies presents and what methodologies are employed to study the changed dynamics in this field. These methodologies provide insights into how restaurant reviews, celebrity webpages, the blogosphere and YouTube are explored, as well as how to analyse digital archives, digital soundscapes and digital food activism and a series of approaches to digital ethnography in food studies. The book presents straightforward ideas and suggestions for how to get started on one’s own research in the field through well-structured chapters that include several pedagogical features. Written in an accessible style, the book will serve as a vital point of reference for both experienced researchers and beginners in the digital food studies field, health studies, leisure studies, anthropology, sociology, food sciences, and media and communication studies.

RESTAURANT SERVICE basics The essential guide to great service skills and techniques —now in a second edition No matter how excellent the food, guests will not return to a restaurant with poor service. On the other hand, great service leads to both a pleasurable dining experience and a successful restaurant. Whether as a server or restaurant executive, anyone entering today’s foodservice industry cannot afford to ignore the significance of excellent service. Restaurant Service Basics, Second Edition offers a practical and up-to-date guide to professional table service. Authors Sondra Dahmer and Kurt Kahl provide extensive, step-by-step instructions on everything a truly excellent server must do, from proper attire to order taking methods to dealing with difficult guests. This revised and updated Second Edition features: New coverage of technology use in restaurants, including POS systems Plentiful photos and diagrams that illustrate table settings, service styles, and much more Updated information on upselling from the menu, food allergies, food trends, safety and sanitation guidelines, and alcohol service New teaching and learning features including learning objectives, key terms called out in the text, mini-cases, a resource of menu and service terms, and an expanded glossary End-of-chapter review questions and projects that incorporate real-life situations A comprehensive and concise resource for building a top-notch waitstaff, Restaurant Service Basics, Second Edition is an essential manual for servers-in-training, those who train them, restaurant managers, and hospitality students.

In this authoritative and immensely readable insider’s account, celebrated cookbook author and former chef Joyce Goldstein traces the development of California cuisine from its formative years in the 1970s to 2000, when farm-to-table, foraging, and fusion cooking had become part of the national vocabulary. Interviews with almost two hundred chefs, purveyors, artisans, winemakers, and food writers bring to life an approach to cooking grounded in passion, bold innovation, and a dedication to "flavor first." Goldstein explains how the counterculture movement in the West gave rise to a restaurant culture characterized by open kitchens, women in leadership positions, and a surprising number of chefs and artisanal food producers who lacked formal training. The new cuisine challenged the conventional kitchen hierarchy and French dominance in fine dining, leading to a more egalitarian and informal food scene. In weaving Goldstein’s views on California food culture with profiles of those who played a part in its development—from Alice Waters to Bill Niman to Wolfgang Puck—Inside the California Food Revolution demonstrates that, while fresh produce and locally sourced ingredients are iconic in California, what transforms these elements into a unique cuisine is a distinctly Western culture of openness, creativity, and collaboration. Engagingly written and full of captivating anecdotes, this book shows how the inspirations that emerged in California went on to transform the experience of eating throughout the United States and the world.

Winning the Chain Restaurant Game Are you ready for success?... Find out what it takes in this insider's guide to making it intoday's most exciting growth industry. In this instructive and inspiring book, award-winning authorsand foodservice industry experts Charles Bernstein and Ron Paultell how the most successful restaurant companies win withbottom-up management, putting the customer on top. Based oninterviews with more than a hundred industry executives and packedwith enlightening examples as well as a few historic failures, thisunique book teaches important lessons for restaurateurs and otherentrepreneurs: * Presents the first authoritative, in-depth look at therestaurant chain industry as a whole * Tells how successful chain CEOs produce results with variedwinning styles * Isolates and clearly describes the eight crucial factors, orstrategic "links," vital to restaurant chain success * Tells how chains can capitalize on bulk purchasing, brandidentity, consistent execution, an individual sense of styleand--most of all--finding unique ways to please thecustomer Few success stories so thoroughly embody the twentieth-centuryAmerican dream as those of restaurant chains such as McDonald's,KFC, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Little Caesar's, and Taco Bell. Butbesides the "true grit" demonstrated by entrepreneurial heros likeMcDonald's Ray Kroc and Wendy's Dave Thomas, what does it take tobuild and maintain a successful restaurant or retail chain? Findout in this first book to give a broad, long-term perspective onone of the nation's leading growth industries and to offer cruciallessons for all entrepreneurs, no matter what the business. Winning the Chain Restaurant Game, by award-winning authors andnoted foodservice industry experts Charles Bernstein and Ron Paul,documents the critical success factors required for one of thetoughest, most competitive industries. Highlighting the winning styles of more than a hundred chainexecutives, their triumphs, trials, disappointments, andturnarounds, this fascinating and instructive book identifies theeight strategic "links" that lead to victory in the chainrestaurant business. With surgical precision, Bernstein and Paulexplore such key factors as leadership, motivation, bulkpurchasing, marketing, identity, consistency, and expansion. Butthey place focus ahead of everything and conclude that theentrepreneurial passion of an executive who deeply believes in hisconcept is the ultimate catalyst for success. Small- to medium-size chains are going public at a dizzying paceand there are enormous financial opportunities for savvy restaurantowners. Winning the Chain Restaurant Game arms operators with thevital know-how needed to win the game.

This one-stop guide to opening a restaurant from an accountant-turned-restaurateur shows aspiring proprietors how to succeed in the crucial first year and beyond. The majority of restaurants fail, and those that succeed happened upon that mysterious X factor, right? Wrong! Roger Fields--money-guy, restaurant owner, and restaurant consultant--shows how eateries can get past that challenging first year and keep diners coming back for more. The only restaurant start-up guide written by a certified accountant, this book gives readers an edge when making key decisions about funding, location, hiring, menu-making, number-crunching, and turning a profit--complete with sample sales forecasts and operating budgets. This updated edition also includes strategies for capitalizing on the latest food, drink, and technology trends. Opening a restaurant isn't easy, but this realistic dreamer's guide helps set the table for lasting success.