Restaurant Rewind

Starbucks has turned the dial on its hoopla machine all the way to 11 for the introduction of its new olive oil-infused beverages, a line the coffee giant is touting as The Next Big Thing.

If the situation feels like a rerun, you may be recalling the blare of trumpets that similarly heralded such past up-enders as Evolution Fresh juices, La Boulange baked goods, or even Starbucks-brand music stores. 

To be fair, there’s no reason to doubt the new drinks will prove more of a Pumpkin Spice Latte than a Dolce Misto or the Unicorn Latte. And the home of the green apron is far from the only restaurant chain to hype a new menu item or product line as a disruptor, only to generate more fizzle than sizzle. Remember, Taco Bell once tried a diet line.

Join me on this week’s edition of our Restaurant Rewind podcast for a look back at some of the products that failed to live up to their hyped potential. You’ll find this and every episode of the retro-focused program wherever you usually get your podcasts.

If the term “double-double, animal style” is Greek to you, then you’ve likely never stood before a white-uniformed young person in a peaked cap, specifying what sort of onions you want atop your In-N-Out burger.

Plenty of regional chains enjoy a strong local following. In the instance of 75-year-old In-N-Out, we’re clearly talking about a cult—one that makes a hardcore Chick-fil-A fan seem wishy-washy. What is it about an old-line burger chain that inspires such loyalty?

The food is definitely a hook. But part of the appeal is the insider-y feel that comes with knowing the brand’s rich array of peculiarities. What other operation has a thing about palm trees? Or quotes scriptures on its fry sleeves?

Fortunately for you newbies, this week’s edition of our Restaurant Rewind podcast serves as a primer on the peculiarities that have endured the concept to generation after generation of West Coasters. It’s delivered here in anticipation of the chain’s expansion to the East Coast.

Long before Jerry Richardson rose to prominence as owner of the Carolina Panthers football team, he’d distinguished himself as a pioneer of the fast-food restaurant business.

He not only developed much of the Hardee’s burger chain as a franchisee in the 1960s and '70s, but would go on to oversee such brands as Denny’s, El Pollo Loco and Quincy’s. By the time he retired in 1995, he was responsible for more than 2, 500 restaurants.

Richardson died earlier this month at age 86.  His connection to the restaurant industry had been minimal for nearly the prior two decades, but his mark on the business is indelible.

Join me on this week’s episode of the Restaurant Rewind podcast as we review the career of an early industry star who found fame before and after on the gridiron.

Download this week’s episode of retro-focused Restaurant Rewind from wherever you get your podcasts.

Drive-thru lanes veered beyond the fast-food business during the pandemic, meriting at least a road test by restaurant concepts of all stripes. Time will tell if the trend continues, but the convenience’s newfound prevalence underscores a question for students of the business: Who came up with the idea of car-window service in the first place?

This week’s edition of the Restaurant Rewind podcast takes on the question, which proves more difficult to answer than may have been expected. Host and Restaurant Business Editor At Large Peter Romeo looks at no fewer than five claimants to the title of drive-thru inventor, from McDonald’s to The Pig Stand.

The look back into the industry’s past may not have yielded the definitive answer, but it provides a look at the surprising source of the confusion.

The story is a familiar one today: A new restaurant venture doesn’t bother to include dining or seating areas because its focus is exclusively on hot food to go.

It’s the rationale behind such new concepts as Chipotle’s Farmesa bowls spinoff, Golden Corral’s Homestyle Kitchen, Buffalo Wild Wings’ BWW Go or Texas Roadhouse’s Jaggers, to name just a few examples.  The list seems to grow daily.

But there’s nothing new about the strategy, as this week’s edition of the Restaurant Rewind podcast reports. Host Peter Romeo taps his memory as reporter and consumer to recount how the business model was used by a restaurant startup 70 years ago, to considerable success. The venture would grow to more than 1,000 outlets, making it a mammoth player of its day.

Along the way, notes Romeo, it would change the course of restaurant marketing and franchising. Yet the concept is all but forgotten, despite remaining in operation on a small scale. Romeo, editor at large of Restaurant Business, speculates that the pioneering brand’s quick fade kept it from being stamped on the industry’s collective memory.

And it wasn’t the only venture to presage today’s to-go-only concepts Romeo looks at a second example, this one truly a steak-and-potato concept, that thrived a mere 30 or so years ago.

The themes of several big restaurant chains’ latest marketing campaigns may be instantly recognizable to consumers of a certain vintage. And that familiarity might be exactly what they're shooting for.

As this week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind reports, the newest way for marketers of scale to cut through the clutter is by using an old but reliable tagline, theme or jingle.  Consider the latest efforts from Wendy’s and Burger King, or the campaign Outback Steakhouse says it's developing. Which is exactly what host and Restaurant Business Editor At Large Peter Romeo does in this week’s installment of the podcast.

He notes that the reliance on past hits is consistent with the use of familiar limited-time offers to turn heads.

It’s also part of a larger trend toward rebooting a proven hit in many fields of entertainment.

After a string of scrapped launches, Chipotle Mexican Grill is trying again to establish a second restaurant brand.  Will its secret startup find the staying power that escaped the previous ventures?

With the test of a bowl concept looking like a “go” for the burrito powerhouse, this week’s Restaurant Rewind podcast delves into those earlier stabs at diversification. Host and Restaurant Business Editor At Large Peter Romeo fires up the time machine for a recount of Chipotle’s short-lived incursions into the Asian, pizza and burger markets, and why those experiments never grew beyond about 15 units.

What has the high-flying company learned from ShopHouse Asian Kitchen, Pizzeria Locale and Tasty Made that enhance the chances of success for the new venture, which is going by the name Farmesa?

Food, service and ambience have long been the fundamental means for differentiating one restaurant from another. Now a new variable is gaining importance as the industry’s labor plight forces a hard decision on operators: When should their restaurants be open?

As this week’s edition of RB’s Restaurant Rewind reports, concepts are adding or forgoing dayparts as they more carefully balance sales potential against the difficulties of staffing for those hours. Brunch is drawing entrants throughout the full-service sector, but the worth of dinner service is being increasingly questioned.

Meanwhile, even brands synonymous with round-the-clock service are skipping overnight shifts because of diminishing head counts—not of customers, but of potential hires.

As Rewind host Peter Romeo notes in this week’s report, restaurant newcomers have been opting out of post-afternoon service for decades. The Restaurant Business Editor At Large suggests that the true instigator might have ben a concept that was a rage in the 1980s but is little known today, called Le Peep.

Two of the restaurant industry’s oldest full-service chains have declared they’re not ready for the old concepts home. Steak and Ale and Red Lobster have both indicated in recent weeks that they’re set to pursue new beginnings in casual dining, the market they helped to create in the mid-1960s.

The efforts are a gamble. But that’s fitting for brands that started as bold challenges to the status quo. Without their operational and marketing nonconformity, the full-service chain business might be very different today.

This week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind looks at the stamp each brand put on the industry when they opened within two years of one another. Host Peter Romeo, editor at large of Restaurant Business, looks in particular at the contributions made by each to the industry’s talent pool. There was a time when alumni of the concepts were at the helm of nearly every casual chain of scale.

He also makes a case for never forgetting the names and contributions of the powerhouses’ guiding forces, Norman Brinker and Joe Lee.

Turning the calendar page to a new year is often the time for a reality check. Where’s the restaurant industry in January 2023? And how do expectations for the next 12 months stack up against recollections of the past 12?

There’s no shortage of opinions on what’s ahead for the business. But one thing seems to be a point of agreement: We’re far from the cliff’s edge of three years ago, when the world was first hearing of this strange and aggressive killer called COVID-19.

Forgotten how eerie and daunting those times were? This week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind takes listeners back to the last blissful days of ignorance for an industry that was about to be walloped. Host and Editor At Large Peter Romeo reminds listeners of the business’ disbelief that such a thing could happen, and how far it’s come from those grim days.