This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches, and Bret Thorn spoke about the new report from the New York Times detailing the National Restaurant Association’s alleged lobbying efforts using ServSafe money. 

Earlier this week, there was a report from the New York Times that accused the NRA of using the $15 ServSafe fee required to take the food-safety training – which the publication alleged all servers were paying for themselves — for lobbying efforts against minimum wage increases. The next day, One Fair Wage released its own version of ServSafe after being a key piece of the New York Times report. The team discussed what this means for the industry and why the report was bad journalism. 

Next, the team discussed loyalty programs. It seems like with the new year comes new loyalty programs (along with salads), with six chains announcing new or revamped loyalty programs ­ and some even joining the metaverse. The editors discussed what this means in the podcast.

And finally, the team discussed the financial situations of Subway and Wendy’s. The former disclosed it would be open to a sale, and with a $10 billion valuation, the NRN editors discussed who would possibly buy the brand and what they would have to do to turn it around