Restaurant Rewind

The restaurant industry’s romance with Wall Street is back on, with chain after chain set to find out how much the stock market loves them. Cava is expected to get a read this week, possibly followed by brands ranging from Gen Korean BBQ to Panera Bread and its sibling concepts, Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels.

Will the stampede set a new high-water mark for restaurant IPOs? Can the volume come close to the torrent of offerings that stock buyers embraced in the go-go 1990s? More than 70 foodservice companies sold themselves to the public that decade, led by steak and eatertainment concepts.

The flood of capital changed the business. Many regarded that time as the coming-out party for casual dining. Others saw it as the first time growth-for-growth’s-sake put the sector in trouble.

Join me on this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind, where we’ll look back at those days of IPO after IPO. What can we learn from those times about what’s ahead for restaurant companies yearning to go public?

The jingle tinkling out incessantly from rolling ice cream trucks is as much a sign of summer as anything Mother Nature flashes. But for the treat purveyors themselves, it might as well be a bugle sounding, “Charge!” It’s time for their turf war to resume.

For decades, the treat-shops-on-wheels have clashed over who has dibs to particular routes and stopping points. On this week’s episode of the Restaurant Rewind podcast, we look at what’s behind that long-running feud, and how it might materialize this season. Will the rivalry escalate again to weapons?

Download the episode from wherever you usually get your podcasts.

Let the swells have their $900 fish whisker souffle. New York City’s true gift to the culinary arts is just fine for me. I’m talking hot dogs, the consummate Big Apple delight. From stockbroker to starving student, New Yorkers have a special fondness for the $2.50 tube steak, especially if it fueled their climb from down-and-out to doing OK.

Come along as this week’s Restaurant Rewind podcast slathers on the onion relish for a taste of what hot dogs have meant to New Yorkers, as strange as that role has sometimes been.

My apologies if you end up with mustard stains and the hint of a New York accent.

Cookie concepts are growing at a head-turning pace. If that sounds like déjà vu all over again, you’re showing your age.

Indeed, the restaurant business saw a similar boom in the segment nearly 50 years ago, when consumers found their indulgence opportunities increasing at a breakneck clip because of upstarts like Mrs. Field’s, Famous Amos and David’s Cookies.

What happened to those champions of the chocolate chip? How did that surge differ from what we’re seeing today from the likes of Crumble or Insomnia? The answer starts with the prior wave’s reliance on the characters behind the brands. They were the precursors of today’s celebrity chefs.

But that’s not the only way the new wave differs from that first manifestation. For the full picture, download this week’s episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And bring your own milk for dipping.

Ever wonder how a high-end restaurant chain could end up with a clunky name like Ruth’s Chris Steak House? If you’re familiar with the Ruth in that moniker, the mystery is about as vexing as picking an even number between one and three. There was no way that a force like Ruth Fertel would not leave her mark on the business, literally and figuratively.

Here’s just a few bulleted items from her life story: She didn’t enter the industry until age 38, looking for a way to pay for her two boys’ college education. Never mind that her education was in chemistry and physics. She’d earned college degrees in each by age 19.

That was before she broke the gender barrier to become a professional racehorse trainer.

Convinced that single moms brought a special touch to service, she built an all-female waitstaff for her restaurant venture. And she literally lived at her workplace, at least until it burned down.

Want more? Join me on this week’s Restaurant Rewind podcast for a look at the extraordinary life and career of Ruth Ann Udsted Fertel.

Restaurants have a notoriously high mortality rate. How, then, did a windowless fish house tucked beneath a New York City train station make it through two world wars, a depression and a steady onslaught of new competition?

Join me on this week’s Restaurant Rewind podcast as we look at how the Grand Central Oyster Bar has remained a Big Apple hotspot without devolving into a museum or a tourist trap. We might not score a dozen oysters for the once-prevailing price of 35 cents, but we’ll see how a decidedly old-guard establishment can keep its currency when it remains true to its origins while making concessions to the times.

The backhand McDonald’s caught from its franchisees last week is proof that friction can erupt between the home office and field operations of any restaurant chain, regardless of its success.

By Big Mac standards, the strife is a low point in relations with a group the franchisor has long lauded as its secret sauce. But the strain is nothing compared to the hostilities that very openly erupted between a hot concept and its licensees 20 years ago.

Join me on this week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind, Restaurant Business’ retro-focused podcast, as we look back at the war that raged in the court of public opinion—and in the actual legal sort—between Quiznos franchisees and their franchisor at the time.

Download the episode from wherever you get your podcasts.  

And let me know of any topic you’d like me to resurrect from the past for additional insight into what’s happening in the business today. Email me at [email protected].

McDonald’s has announced that it’s tweaking its burgers to enhance their flavor and overall appeal. Judging from history, the move will either prove a stroke of genius or one of the worst mistakes Big Mac has ever made.

This week on Restaurant Rewind, we look back at what happened when Big Mac’s chief rival overhauled its main customer lure. Join me as we recount how Burger King’s revamped Whopper was received. (Here’s a hint: You won’t find the updated version on the menu today.)

Even casual listeners can hear plenty of wheezing these days from ghost kitchen and virtual concept specialists. The quick about-face in that sector calls to mind a boom that looked at the start of this century like it would reset competition for families’ dinner business—only to collapse in short order, helped along by the Great Recession.

If you’re not familiar with meal assembly and prep concepts, you either weren’t in the business back then, or you’ve repressed the memory. Join me for this episode of the Restaurant Rewind podcast as we look back at a true flash in the hotel pan: the dozens of ventures that bet parents would welcome the chance to put together a week’s worth of meals in a social setting.

We’ll take a look at the factors that (briefly) made meal assembly concepts a wave to ride, and why it crashed in short order, leaving behind a few brands that managed to recast themselves.

Pop quiz time!

Regardless of a restaurant’s design, menu or pricing, its guests will be provided with an amenity that started as a quasi-blanket, morphed into a marketing tool in 1887, and survived an onslaught of forks as American colonists rolled east.

Name that restaurant staple.

Or, hit the play button on this week’s Restaurant Rewind podcast to trek back to ancient Greece, where the correct answer had its start as an edible remedy for greasy fingers.

Join me this episode for a surprising look at how the restaurant napkin came to be.

But if you plan to make a mess, bring your own linens.