Fast Casual published a useful feature about how restaurant operators can use trend monitoring and customer feedback to surprise and delight restaurant visitors. Coming up with new ideas that are fun and unexpected is essential to retaining a solid customer base and ensuring that the same people keep coming back to your restaurant.

Paying attention to what customers are saying on social media and reviews sights is obviously incredibly important. Addressing negative feedback is of course crucial, but responding to praise with a personal thank you can also be a great tool because it makes loyal customers feel special.

Another way to leverage social media to your advantage is by making your restaurant’s appearance shareable. If a customer sees a joke they like written on the sandwich board or a cute piece of decoration, they will be likely to snap a picture and share it online. This gives you free advertising, and will make the customer who took the picture remember your restaurant favorably.

You must always pay attention to external factors that could affect your restaurant’s business. Keep your eye on food trends and the demographics of your neighborhood to make sure that you’re serving customers exactly what they want. Staying ahead of the trends will keep customers coming back again and again.

Read the full article here: 3 Ways to Surprise, Delight Customers

It’s no secret that coffee and tea are trendy now, and restaurant operators at all price points have been working to take advantage of these beverages’ cultural cachet. On the higher-end side of things, restaurants like Eleven Madison Park have been asking their sommeliers to create tea pairings for their dishes that mimc traditional wine pairings. Tea is especially suited to this application because, like wine, it contains tannins and is grown in many different locations with their own terroirs. High-tannin black tea roughly corresponds to red wine, lighter green tea is reminiscent of white, and oolong can be thought of like high-quality rosé.

Introducing pairing menus for beverages that don’t usually get this sort of treatment is a sound strategy for operators to increase check averages and encourage customers to try out things they wouldn’t order or are unfamiliar with. Servers should be trained to know the pairings and be able to talk about them in their own words. This gives customers the sense that unique beverage pairings are authentically adding value to their meals, and will often lead them to spend more.

Read the full article here: Brewing Coffee and Tea Pairings

Eater release a big feature today that follows everything that happens in a Panda Express in the suburbs of Los Angeles over the course of one day. Eater reporters watch the workers at the restaurant start the day with hours of prep, and observe how the staff deals with the crazy lunch and dinner rushes. The reporters also talk to customers throughout the day, trying to glean how people feel about eating at Panda Express.

This piece is great because it shows the inner workings of life in a quick-service restaurant to readers who may have never held a quick-service job and have no idea of the challenges and joys of working in the industry. The article showcases how people from all stages and walks of life work in the quick-service industry, and how much pride can go into providing food even at the quick-serve level. One great character from the story is Rui Xi, an immigrant from China who is the Panda location’s lead chef and is proud to work at the chain despite offers he’s gotten from fancier restaurants.

Customers don’t necessarily appreciate how hard it is to keep a quick-service restaurant running efficiently, and how much love goes into preparing quick-service food. Everyone who’s ever eaten fast food would benefit from checking out this article to get a taste of what life is like behind the griddle.

Read the full article here: One Day at Panda Express