Financing

How your restaurant sales and profits compare to competitors' and what you can do to improve financial performance

Financing

2010 product preview: What's next?

Optimism is in the air as we look ahead to 2010, but product and menu developers are proceeding with caution.

Financing

Your franchisees need a loan? Give their bank an earful

Restaurant franchisees wouldn’t have to scrounge for capital if their franchisors provided lenders with info about the brand’s performance, plans and work-out scenarios, concluded a high-level powwow on the credit crunch.

Casual-dining pioneer T.G.I. Friday’s has invested in elevating its menu ingredients.

So you’ve found a great location at a good price. You’ve still got one hump to get over: signing the lease.

Consumers, on the whole, will be making a bit more in 2014. Combine the predicted rise in disposable income for 2014 with the steadily declining rate of unemployment, and there’s hope that wallets will begin to open more easily.

Operators are making sure business cards, coasters, stickers and other printed materials speak for the brand once they go out the door.

Having an impressive view is a common denominator for many of the highest-grossing independent restaurants in California. San Francisco has five spots in the ranking, trumping SoCal's four (and one in central Cali).

Most of the chains that jumped onto this year's Top 500 list have one commonality: a marketing message and brand ethos pointed at today’s diners.

The decline of full-service chains is palpable. Three of the major casual-dining players—TGI Fridays, Applebee’s and Chili’s—were all down more than 2% in sales.

Unilever has purchased the brand, which Starbucks bought in 1999.

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