Population: 6,392,017

Projected Population Gain by 2020: 17.7%

Number of Full-Service Restaurants: 3,479

Full-Service Restaurants per 100,000 Residents: 54.4

Arizona Restaurant Association: www.azrestaurant.org

Projected 2012 Growth in Restaurant Sales: 3.3%

Business Tax Index: 33.177

Unemployment: 9.0%

Median Household Income: $47,279

Bolstered by weather and tourism, Arizona’s dining landscape has been blessed with consistent year-after-year sales growth, including an $800 million jump in 2010 sales alone, says Arizona Restaurant Association president and CEO Steve Chucri.

“Restaurants in this state are certainly pushing food out the door,” Chucri says.

Jeff Flancer, who owns Flancer’s in Gilbert, Arizona, identifies Arizona’s surging population numbers–the state is expected to add more than 1 million residents from 2010 to 2020–as the driving force behind the state’s 21st century restaurant growth.

New residents, Flancer says, “are looking for the same sort of great food establishments and convenient location of restaurants just like they had in their previous home states.”

Both Flancer and Chucri tout Arizona’s opportunity, especially as the state holds but 54.4 full-service restaurants per 100,000 residents, among the nation’s least-saturated states.

As an added bonus, the Arizona Restaurant Association sponsors Arizona Restaurant Week each May and September. Nearly 200 restaurants across the state participate in the multi-day event that showcases the state’s expanding restaurant landscape and promotes culinary tourism.

While the U.S. economic recovery remains fragile, there is much for the restaurant industry to celebrate, according to market research firm Packaged Facts. “The Foodservice Landscape in the U.S.,” its outlook report for the restaurant industry, projects that sales will grow 4.2 percent to $487 million in 2012, on the heels of 6.1 percent market growth in 2011.

Despite forecasting moderate restaurant industry growth in 2012 and 2013, Packaged Facts warns that operators must continue to experiment aggressively with menu pricing strategies and focus on courting minority racial/ethnic groups-and prepare for profit margin compression.

The onus of food commodity price increases is sizeable enough to threaten the restaurant recovery, unless restaurant operators are prepared to bite the bullet on profit margins.

Continuing a trend that gathered momentum in 2011, many operators will need to maintain menu prices at the expense of higher margins or risk losing customers.

Moreover, according to David Sprinkle, publisher of Packaged Facts, “demographic-specific employment trends will continue to have disproportionate consequences and create distinct opportunity micro-climates by restaurant industry segment and geographic zone.”

Although the housing market remains in a trough, consumer spending is rising modestly. Household debt ratios have declined, which bodes well for the discretionary income growth needed to increase guest traffic and perk up guest check averages.

Food and accommodations spending is outpacing other personal consumption expenditures.

Moreover, restaurant companies will increasingly leverage the technological and marketing power inherent in the smartphone. Location-based services such as Foursquare are a relatively new aspect of social media, but Packaged Facts expects quick uptake to continue among consumers and foodservice operators.

By segment, full-service restaurants posted the highest growth rate, at 8.1 percent. Fine dining had a moderate rebound in 2011, though the hill back to 2007 spending levels remains very steep.

Growth in the restaurant breakfast (5 percent) and snack (8 percent) customers has outpaced population growth since 2008, and the overall percentage of consumers using restaurants for these occasions has increased–although the reverse trend holds among Generation X.

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February 6, 2012 By: Dave Dronkers

With more than 10 million users, FourSquare may be the most-used social network, behind Facebook and Twitter. If you own a nightclub, bar or restaurant, you most likely serve guests who check in on FourSquare. But are you strategically engaging your customers? Review the checklist below to see if you are up to date on three of the most important FourSquare practices.

Claim Your Location

To those well versed in FourSquare, this is a no-brainer. Venues on FourSquare fall into two categories, “claimed” and “unclaimed.” Claimed locations have been officially identified by the owners of their establishments to the corporate FourSquare office, which then gives claimants the special privileges of running promotions, editing the page’s information and retrieving statistics on visitor usage. Unclaimed locations, though unmanaged, allow visitors all the same options of checking in and leaving tips but without promotional incentive.

Claiming a location is a simple and painless process that involves clicking a button on your venue’s page and submitting some electronic forms to FourSquare. If you are new to FourSquare, this should be first on your to-do list.

Remind People to Check-In

This tip, like the one above, may seem fairly obvious to heavy FourSquare users. Yet it is important that a business not rely solely on customer word-of-mouth to attract traffic to its FourSquare page. Remember that a check-in is a visit to your establishment, so the more you get people to check-in to your venue, the more business you will receive.

Proactively encourage check-ins by posting the Foursquare logo in your establishment and on your website, reminding people to check in.

Run Promotional Offers

After claiming your location, give people a concrete incentive to visit your establishment by offering them a free drink or appetizer on their first, fifth, or tenth visit. Such practices can end up turning any initial loss in resources into a profit by attracting a greater number of customers to your establishment. These need to be strategically executed with an eye toward increasing current sales.

Following initial competition from other geolocation applications, such as Facebook Places and Gowalla, FourSquare has emerged as the No. 1 GPS-determined location-sharing service. Don’t waste your resources by checking out these other websites; focus on catering to customers on FourSquare by following these tips and tricks.

For a complimentary list of effective Foursquare promotions, contact Dronkers Solutions at ddronk@gmail.com.

By: Dave Dronkers

——————————————————————————–

Facebook takes the issue of underage drinking seriously. The site requires that all alcohol-related advertisements use tools and demographic targeting options to restrict the ad’s visbility to users who are over the legal drinking age.

While that statement is targeted to “Facebook ads,” it also applies to any alcohol-related wall “posts.” As a consequence, many operators have stayed away from promoting alcohol beverages on Facebook. This is unfortunate, as adding alcohol beverage posts to your restaurant’s Facebook page has many benefits, including:

• Creates excitement about beverage products/recipes/specialties.
• Generates quick feedback so you know what’s important to your customers.
• Promotes beverage offers and contests.
• Tests new beverage recipe ideas.
• Keeps your finger on the pulse of beverage trends.

According to our surveys and discussions with restaurant chain operators, many want to know how to promote alcohol beverages and stay within Facebook policy or the law. Here are some guidelines:

1. General Rule: What can be printed legally to promote alcohol also can be posted on Facebook. Never use the words “free” or “complimentary” when promoting alcohol, and check state and federal beverage laws before proceeding.

2. Pair Beverage with Food: Post a picture of an appetizer/entree and a beverage. Work with your chef and lead bartender to ensure proper taste pairings.

3.  Show Off: Post an invite visitors to extol the virtues of the Margarita and invite them to become fans at the same time!

4.  Educate and Offer Value: Convey product education about alcohol beverages and promote the purchase by posting a value.

5.  Keep It Simple: Buffalo Wild Wings got 6,000+ responses simply by asking people to “Like this if you could use a Guinness now.”

6.  Attach a Video: People love to see videos, but make sure it’s short (2 minutes), informative and entertaining.

7.  Facebook and Website Integration: Here is a post describing Margarita Mondays. If a visitor clicks on the ad, they are sent to the main website for additional detail.

8.  Beverage Surveys: Asking fans to fill out surveys gets a remarkable response rate. Use surveys for fun or have fans vote on a drink-recipe name for the next summer feature. Don’t forget to post the results of the survey!

Don’t let the fear of the legalities or regulations surrounding alcohol beverage promotion or misunderstanding of the Facebook policy keep you from integrating beverage into your social-media marketing tactics. Yours is a food and beverage company, so make sure to tell your visitors about the virtues of both through all of your marketing outlets. Follow these eight tips and enjoy the benefits!

If you want more insights on presenting your alcohol beverages program via Facebook, contact Dronkers Solutions at ddronk@gmail.com.

1.Artisanal everything: Not new, but still going strong, “artisanal” originally referred to handcrafted foods but is now springing up everywhere. The term has even trickled down to quick-service restaurants, with major chains like Jack in the Box touting “artisanal” breads as a selling point. One product that’s not quite so mainstream: artisanal marshmallows.

2.So cool it’s hot: Ice cream (especially, you guessed it, artisanal ice cream) shows no signs of slowing down. (And why should it—who doesn’t love ice cream?) Next up, restaurant consulting firm Andrew Freeman & Co. predicts “snow ice”–a dessert with the flavor and creaminess of ice cream but that has a light, airy texture—will hit big in the U.S. for 2012.

3.One potato, two potato: They may have been banned from school lunchroom menus, but they’re showing up everywhere else. Andrew Freeman & Co. says the big trend will be “have-it-your-way” potatoes, such as make-your-own mashed potatoes with customized mix-ins, fries where you can choose the cut, degree of crispness and dipping sauce; and chips with custom “dustings” and dips. If plain old potatoes sound too unhealthy for your customers, try offering sweet potato fries and dishes.

4.Breakfast anytime: Customers want what they want when they want it—and for many, what they want is breakfast. Restaurants are happy to oblige, since breakfast food ingredients are typically cheaper than other meals. Some are serving breakfast menus all day long; others are reinterpreting breakfast foods for dinner with items like sandwiches made of waffles, egg dishes or French toast bread puddings.

5.Juicy news: Depending on where you live, it might seem like juice bars are oversaturated. But Howard Schultz doesn’t think so. The Starbucks entrepreneur recently bought Evolution Fresh, a super-premium juice maker with a brand presence in grocery stores on the West Coast. He plans to sell the juice to more retail outlets, put it on the menu at Starbucks and launch juice bars in 2012. If Schultz thinks this market has more room for growth, maybe you should, too—especially if you’re in an area where juice bars (or Starbucks) don’t have a strong presence.

6.Sweets from Swedes: Scandinavian sweets, which have long been popular in places with lots of Scandinavians, like Minnesota, are now becoming trendy in urban areas like L.A. and New York. What’s behind the popularity? Americans are craving small sizes and natural ingredients, both features of Scandinavian treats. One to watch: a dark treacle syrup called stroop, used in Dutch desserts.

7.Healthy eating: Trends like gluten-free foods and products catering to diners with food allergies will continue to be hot. Watch for whole grains, a wider range of salads, selection in portion size, and low-sodium options to grow in popularity as well.

8.Appetite for appetizers: Whether you call them tapas, small plates or appetizers, smaller-sized portions are going to keep growing strong for several reasons. They’re less expensive for cost-conscious diners, offer smaller portions for health-conscious diners, and are made for sharing, which appeals to people’s desire to make eating out a social experience. Chefs like them, too, because appetizers allow them to experiment with new recipes and ingredients without committing to a full-scale meal.

9.Mostly Mediterranean: In a recent Technomic poll, 60 percent of restaurant-goers said they are open to trying Mediterranean food, and sales of Greek, Spanish and Middle Eastern menu items grew by nearly 2 percent between 2009 and 2010. A growing interest in eating healthfully, vegetarian foods and ethnic foods are among the factors in Mediterranean food’s popularity—so break out the chickpeas.

10.Familiar favorites with a twist: One overwhelming trend that will continue into 2012 is a yen for familiarity. Consumers battered by the economy want comfort food. But that doesn’t mean plain old mac-and-cheese. Americans are eager to try new tastes, as long as it’s couched in something they know. So smart chefs are putting new twists on old formats, like pizzas, wraps and sandwiches, or using exotic ingredients in familiar foods (wasabi ice cream).

From a restaurant’s curb appeal to a customer’s exit, sales opportunities abound
September 23, 2011

The stock market keeps declining, unemployment remains stubbornly high and talks of a double-dip recession continue to permeate. Looking at consumer trends, many say they want to spend less, save more and are have become more fearful of the economic environment and their jobs.
What’s a restaurateur to do? Ignore it.
In this special report — found in-depth in the Sept. 26 issue of Nation’s Restaurant News and previewed here — you’ll find 10 ways to drive business from within your four walls.

Looking at just 10 major touch points consumers experience when they look to dine out, this report outlines ways capitalize on customer interactions with the objective of growing traffic and repeat business, and improving guest service and customer satisfaction.

Restaurant companies count online impressions — some in the millions of page views — from website redesigns or social-media campaigns as a way to calculate their marketing return on investment. But for increasingly Web-savvy consumers, the most important impression is the first one foodservice brands make on the guest’s computer or mobile phone screens.

Consumers don’t want restaurants merely to sell to them online, but rather to connect with them.

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August 9, 2011 | By Ron Ruggless

U.S. commercial restaurants closed at a faster rate than new openings, creating a two-year pattern of decline, according to the latest restaurant census released Tuesday by The NPD Group.

The Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm found U.S. restaurant unit counts declined by 2 percent, or 9,450 restaurants, between April 1, 2010, and March 31, 2011, compared with the same time frame a year earlier.

Independent restaurants comprised most of the decline, with 8,650 closures, NPD said. Chain restaurant unit counts remained relatively stable.

“The decline in independent units is the steepest we’ve seen since NPD began conducting the ‘Spring ReCount’ census in 2001,” said Greg Starzynski, NPD’s director of product development-foodservice. The census is conducted each spring and fall.

“A volatile economy, frugal consumers and a lack of financial backing have made it a difficult business environment for independent restaurants,” Starzynski added.

In the most recent ReCount census, NPD found the total number of restaurants fell to 574,050 from 583,500 in the previous-year period.

However, the NPD CREST study, which tracks consumer usage of commercial and non-commercial foodservice outlets, found that for the year ended May 2011, visits to U.S. restaurants held stable compared with the previous year, when visits were down 3 percent.

The CREST study also found consumer spending at restaurants improved by 2 percent for the year ended May 2011, compared with the same period a year ago, when dollars were down by 1 percent.

According to NPD’s ReCount census, the number of quick-service restaurants declined by 1 percent, or 3,495 units. Full-service restaurant units, which include casual-dining, mid-scale and fine-dining restaurants, fell by 2 percent, or 5,965 units, from the Spring 2010 ReCount census.

By comparison, the total number of domestic restaurants fell about 1 percent, or by 5,551 outlets, to 579,102 locations in NPD’s Fall 2010 ReCount.

And in the Spring 2010 ReCount, the number of restaurants fell by 5,204 units, a 1-percent decline from the total number of eateries recorded a year prior, NPD said.

While unit counts were down through March of this year, NPD said restaurant traffic trends were improving.

The Workforce Index shows hiring uptick, but increased challenges for restaurant recruitment

August 9, 2011 | By Ron Ruggless

The latest People Report Workforce Index, a quarterly barometer of market pressures on restaurant employment, has risen to its highest level since the third quarter of 2007, meaning restaurant operators see a tougher environment ahead for recruitment and retention.

Data from the third quarter People Report Workforce Index, which surveys restaurant human resources departments and recruiters on the state of employment trends, shows continued industry job growth, but high levels of recruiting difficulty, a rise in vacancies and turnover are beginning to increase.

“The recruiters are the ones that are telling us it’s getting tougher,” Joni Doolin, founder of the People Report, said. “They are surfing through hundreds of applicants for positions, but they are telling us that it is becoming progressively more difficult to find the right people with the right skill set.”

The Workforce Index measures from a baseline value of 50, with results over that level indicating increased pressures on the five components: employment levels, recruiting difficulty, vacancies, employment expectations and turnover.

The overall third-quarter reading rose to 67.7, an increase of 3.6 points over the prior quarter and 5.9 points above the same quarter a year ago. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, the increase was 12.9 points.

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Industry experts give tips to improve beverage menus and help bars shine in a competitive market

July 22, 2011 | By Sonya Moore

From creating signature sodas to taking a chainsaw to ice, seminars at the 2011 Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans touched on a variety of topics to give beverage programs an innovative upper hand. The professional series of seminars geared towards those who work in the foodservice industry provided insights for operators and beverage program managers who want to push their beverage program.

The following are highlights from some of the seminars:

How to build a cutting-edge ice program
Chad Solomon and Christy Solomon, Cuffs & Buttons Cocktail Catering & Consulting
Joseph Schwartz, Little Branch
Richard Boccato, Dutch Kills, Weather Up Tribeca and Hundredweight

Moderated by Chad Solomon and Christy Pope, this seminar explained how to develop an ice program. Panelists Joseph Schwartz and Richard Boccato lent their expertise, while all four speakers drew on their experiences working with Sasha Petraske of Milk & Honey bar empire fame. They reveal what they learned about ice, and how they adapted and developed ice programs in their other ventures.

Why use ‘good’ ice? Ice does matter, especially when it comes to shaking, the panelists said. A solid piece of ice will remain whole for a longer time in a shaker. When Schwartz teaches his bartenders how to shake, he instructs them to “hit the top and bottom of the can” with the ice. A larger piece of ice can take such abuse without breaking apart. It also has a larger surface area, which means a slower melt rate. Since it won’t break apart or melt as fast in a shaker, it allows the bartender to chill the ice for longer and aerate the drink without excessively diluting it. It also preserves the drink for a longer time in the glass before turning into what Schwartz called a “watery mess.”

While good ice is isn’t so much about making a drink colder, Boccato added, “It really does maintain the optimal temperature.”

“Good ice can help create consistent quality, even if different bartenders are shaking,” Schwartz said. “Let’s not forget, it looks sexy.”

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Fads come and go, but these movements have potential to impact your business in the long run.

1. Basic, Only Better.

Farm to table, artisan, from-scratch, house-made, house-cured, house-aged and plenty of other terms suggesting not-from-a-box get tossed around on menus, but it’s clear that chefs and diners are more ready than ever to embrace ingredients and time-honored preparation techniques.

Every week, it seems, we hear about another chef opting to cure sausage or age cheese in house, a move that can put a new place on the map. In Dallas, David Uygur’s Lucia has quickly achieved hot-spot status, thanks in part to his house-made salumi. A favorite is ‘nduja, a brick-red, spicy-hot spreadable sausage served on crusty bread.

In L.A., the two Michelin-starred Patina is inviting farmers to the table. This past spring executive chef Tony Esnault brought in the owner of Harry’s Berries and a forager to help assemble a special five-course vegetarian menu that included heirloom tomato soup, stuffed zucchini blossoms, glazed vegetable mosaic, poached duck egg with wild mushrooms and asparagus and, of course, Harry’s Berries crepes with white chocolate lemon sorbet. “Our seasonal menu is only as good as the ingredients we receive from our local farmers,” Esnault acknowledged.

The farm-to-table trend trickles all the way down to ice cream cones: Salt & Straw Ice Cream, opening in Portland, OR, this summer, sells hand-made frozen treats using local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients from Oregon farmers, producers and chefs. The cream comes from traceable cows at a local dairy, and flavors tend to have local pedigrees: double-fold vanilla using Singing Dog Vanilla from Eugene; chocolate with gooey brownie, with Holy Kakow Chocolate from Portland; brown ale with bacon, using beef from Laurelwood Brewery and bacon from Olympic Provisions. A similar philosophy is followed by the popular and expanding Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, with a half-dozen stores in Columbus and Cleveland. The chain’s recipes incorporate fresh ingredients found in the Ohio countryside as well as “responsibly raised” exotics from around the world.

It isn’t something you’re likely to see at the neighborhood hangout, but head-to-tail cookery continues to attract the interests of chefs, especially in larger markets. Todd English just opened CrossBar, his modern interpretation of the genre, with a focus on retro snacks, composed entrees, shared plates and whole roasted suckling pig dinners. A sampling of executive chef Robert Rubba’s menu: puffed pigs’ ears, crispy pork tongue, pork belly with octopus and BBQ pig’s tail.

Pizza is yet another food that keeps getting tweaked and made more authentic. American chefs have spent time in Italy learning the secrets of the real deal; they’ve installed coal-fired ovens and pricey imported models designed to yield pies beyond compare; and they follow a less-is-more approach to toppings. And the bar on pizzas continues to climb. The most recent entry in this competition to be more real than the the next guy comes from Pizzeria da Marco, a Washington, DC-area pizzeria with a 4,500-pound handcrafted customized S.F. Allestimenti brick oven, which flash cooks pizzas in 60 seconds at 900 degrees.

2. Korean: East Moves West.

The Kogi Taco truck routinely gets credit for making mobile restaurants trendy, but the food, not the vehicle, has had a more lasting impact on American palates. Korean tacos, kimchi, Korean-style barbecue and other components of this Asian cuisine continue to influence menus at both white tablecloth and casual places such as Happy Dog, a hot dog-only concept in Cleveland that offers 50 toppings, including kimchi.

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