Shake Shack takes pride in being the first in its category to launch on-trend menu items, according to Nancy Combs, SVP of culinary and calendar innovation at the fast casual.

Although Shake Shack was founded in New York City by Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group in 2001 and still has headquarters in the Big Apple, the chain recently built a second headquarters in Atlanta. Combs is based down South, where she oversees a state-of-the-art test kitchen that opened earlier this year. 

Guest insights drive menu development, she said, which is focused on Shake Shack’s core menu of burgers, shakes, fries, chicken sandwiches and hot dogs. But the team of chefs is always thinking outside the box, like the new onion rings launched in September as part of a larger French onion soup-inspired menu rollout. And in the Spring, the chain was one of the first to jump on the Dubai chocolate trend with the debut of its Dubai Chocolate Shake.

Combs said at the end of the day, everything she and the culinary team introduce is something they would be proud to eat themselves. Listen as she shares Shake Shack’s menu strategy, how innovation differentiates the brand in a crowded segment and what’s next on the calendar. 

This episode of Menu Talk is brought to you by TABASCO®. With spice, garlic and subtle heat, TABASCO® Salsa Picante is rated superior to leading Mexican-style hot sauces.

David Utterback wanted to be a punk rocker, and like many aspiring musicians he started working in restaurants to make money. He was quickly hired at Blue Sushi Sake grill, which was the coolest restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska, at the time, because, with a Japanese mother, he looked the part. 

But it turns out that he also liked working in restaurants, and was good at it, so he stayed with that company, Flagship Restaurant Group, opening sushi restaurants across the country before he decided to try his own hand at entrepreneurship. 

He funded his first restaurant, Yoshitomo, in 2017 with a bunch of credit cards that had promotional 0% interest rates. 

He couldn’t afford proper kitchen equipment, like a stove and a range, let alone a hood, so he developed a menu based on what he could do with a toaster oven and a blowtorch.

The gamble paid off, the restaurant was a hit, and he paid off those credit cards.

And now he also operates Koji, a slightly larger and more casual restaurant, also in Omaha, with a dedicated grill program using Japanese binchotan charcoal.

Utterback talks about his operations and hints at more restaurants to come.

This episode of Menu Talk is brought to you by TABASCO®. With spice, garlic and subtle heat, TABASCO® Salsa Picante is rated superior to leading Mexican-style hot sauces.

Zaxbys has been in the chicken finger business since 1990, six years before Raising Cain’s and decades earlier than Wendy’s. But with the competition getting fiercer with every new chicken tender or wing to hit the market, the fast casual had to build more awareness about its DNA. Enter Patrick Schwing, chief marketing & strategy officer for the Atlanta-based fast casual and this week’s guest on Menu Talk.“We wanted our sauce equity to be more prominent, and we made that very visible by restructuring the menu,” said Schwing. “Famous fingers and sauces is our core, so that is the focus.”Limited-time offers have also become a bigger part of Zaxbys' menu strategy. Tacos, a surf ‘n turf box and a Zappetizer Trio are a few standouts.Schwing is also leading the charge to expand digital menu boards systemwide and partner with pop culture figures for marketing campaigns. Rapper Omar Epps was recently enlisted as the “Sauce Boss” to promote the chain’s limited-time Sauce Boss Box combo meal. Listen as Schwing talks about how Zaxbys is differentiating itself in the crowded chicken space through upgrades in menu, operations, marketing, service and more.

Jeffrey Bank is CEO of Alicart Restaurant Group, which owns Carmine’s and Virgil’s in New York City, as well as one location of seafood concept Mermaid Oyster Bar.

Carmine’s is an Italian-American concept that was founded on Manhattan’s Upper West Side 35 years ago and now also has restaurants in Times Square as well as in Las Vegas; Atlantis in the Bahamas; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C.

Virgil’s is a barbecue restaurant in Times Square, Atlantis and Las Vegas. 

These are large, consistent, high-volume restaurants, generally 18,000-20,000 square feet, with 700-800 seats and, at Carmine’s, annual sales between $14 million and $30 million.

Carmine’s Times Square location alone serves 3,000 people each day.

Their success depends on consistency and volume, maintained by a steady hand that understands not to mess with what already works. 

Bank, who has been CEO of the company since 1999, says his biggest fear is what he calls “death by a thousand cuts” — making changes that seem small but end up damaging the system. 

He explains why food that’s consistent and delivered with great service in a nice setting is harder than it looks, but is basically all you need for a successful restaurant business.

He also explains why the Carmine’s location in Times Square closes on the biggest party night, New Year’s Eve.

The Korean Wave or “Hallyu” has popularized barbecue, fried chicken, K-pop and K-dramas in the U.S., but Bonyeon in Chicago set out to elevate the trend.

Kate Park, co-founder of the restaurant and the guest on this week’s Menu Talk, discusses how she and Chef Sangtae Park are introducing guests to a higher-end experience. In traditional Korean barbecue restaurants, diners cook meat, seafood and other ingredients on grills set into the tabletops. 

Instead, Bonyeon serves a steak omakase, offering a 14-course tasting menu of premium beef, each cut prepared with care and precision in the kitchen. A couple of seafood and vegetable preparations are also included, and house-made kimchi powders and miso bone marrow are just a few of the chef-driven ingredients that add to the experience. 

Listen as Kate Park talks about the unique omakase experience at Bonyeon, her favorite parts of the tasting menu, the origin of the restaurant’s name and how she and the chef are educating Chicago diners about a different aspect of Korean culture through food and drink. 

Frankie Solarik’s sources of inspiration range from molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià to Marco Moreira, the chef of Tocqueville, a fine-dining restaurant in New York City, where he was deemed too scruffy to work in the front of the house and was shunted into the kitchen. 

He's the author of “The Bar Chef: A Modern Approach to Cocktails,” published in 2013, and was a judge on the Netflix series "Drink Masters," whose artistic director, Tim Luke, also developed Prequel.

Solarik recently discussed his career, his approach to mixology, and his advice for operators who want to open in New York.

Levain Bakery, a New York City obsession among cookie lovers, started as a bread shop 30 years ago. The famous gooey and crispy 6-ounce cookies came about by accident.

The founders, Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes, were triathletes as well as bakers, and they developed an oversized chocolate chip walnut cookie to fuel them during training. Word got out about that cookie and lines formed around the block. Now there are several more cookie variations and many more Levain locations, stretching from New York City to LA, Boston, metro D.C. and Chicago. 

Donna Magen joined the company about two and a half years ago as senior manager of specialty channels. She recently expanded Levain’s catering arm, partnering with ezCater to reach cookie monsters in the workplace. Magen sees great potential in the burgeoning treat culture, where consumers are craving affordable indulgences—like cookies. But Levain is also going back to its roots, baking up breads, muffins, scones and the like to grow breakfast catering and other occasions. 

Listen as Magen talks about Levain’s growth strategies beyond its retail shops into nontraditional channels and how the bakery is preserving its legacy as it grows. 

Scott Conant has been working in restaurants for 40 years, since he was an eager 15-year-old teen in Waterbury, Connecticut. Since then he has opened restaurants in New York City, Miami, Las Vegas, Toronto, and elsewhere, as well as a new restaurant in the Bahamas at the Baha Mar resort slated to open later this fall. 

His restaurant L’Impero won the James Beard Foundation Restaurant & Chef Award for best new restaurant for 2003 and Conant has been moving forward ever since. His Scarpetto concept launched in 2008 and is still going strong with seven locations, although Conant is no longer involved. He does have Cellaio Steak in New York and The Americano in Atlanta as well as the forthcoming Leola at Baha Mar. 

And of course he’s also a celebrity chef, currently hosting "House of Knives" on the Food Network and also making numerous appearances on "Chopped" and "Beat Bobby Flay."

He recently sat down with Menu Talk co-hosts Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn and discussed his latest projects as well as the inspiration behind them.

Brooklyn-born Eric LeVine started cooking in restaurant kitchens at the age of 12, working the fry station at a neighborhood diner. Although that would be considered illegal child labor today, he loved the work and never looked back.

LeVine fueled his passion as a student at the Culinary Institute of America and as a member of the kitchen team at Brooklyn’s renowned River Café, where celeb chef David Burke was his mentor and inspiration. Many kitchens and awards later, he is now chef-partner in two Long Island, New York, restaurants, 317 Main and Vico. 

Throughout his 45-year culinary career, LeVine has experienced many ups and downs. He cycled through a number of restaurants, fought and survived several bouts of cancer, and gained and lost 180 pounds. Now he is on a health and wellness journey, both personally and professionally. LeVine ran his first marathon last year and is focused on staying healthy and improving and evolving his restaurants. Listen as he shares his journey, past and present. 

Stephanie Izard has a streak of fearlessness in her. She went from being a sous chef to a restaurateur at age 27 and hasn’t looked back. Closing that restaurant, Scylla, in 2007 after a three-year run, she went on to compete in and win season four of Bravo TV’s Top Chef in 2008. From there she launched her goat-themed restaurant empire, now comprised of two Girl & the Goat locations in Chicago and Los Angeles, two units of her Peruvian concept, Cabra (Spanish for “goat”), in those same cities, as well as Little Goat Diner and Duck Duck Goat in Chicago.

At the end of March she opened her first licensed concept, Valley Goat, at the Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, Calif., and last month she opened Lucky Goat at the Hollywood Casino in Joliet, Illinois, with another to come in nearby Aurora. Next up: Cabrito, a fast-casual concept slated to open at Orlando International Airport.

She also recently attended US Foods’ Food Fanatics conference in Las Vegas where she caught up with Menu Talk hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality. She shared her approach to menu development, her plans for the future and the odd but beneficial status of being famous.