food & beverage trends

Your Wine List Needs Branding Too

Larry Mogelonsky | April 17, 2019

By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) What does your wine list stand for? What's its elevator pitch? Is it meaningful for customers? Does it fit with the theme and business plan for the parent restaurant? Of course, we are talking about branding and marketing as much as we are talking about the physical alcohol inventory. While most of this critical exercise will be handled by the restaurant, the hotel and the marketing department, the wine list must still match the greater vision if it is to truly shine. Importantly, it needs a cohesive brand if it's going to do its job as effectively as possible – that is, make ...

BENCHMARK® Announces the Top Ten Dining Trends for 2019

September 12, 2018

The Woodlands (Houston), Texas, September 2018… BENCHMARK®, a global hospitality company, with three distinctive brand portfolios, including Benchmark Resorts & Hotels, Gemstone Collection and the London-based etc.venues, has just released its Top Ten Dining Trends for 2019. The trends were observed by Benchmark's executive chefs and culinary experts at the company's 80 luxury hotels, resorts and restaurants coast to coast, off shore and in Europe. "Food and Beverage is an ever-evolving realm of experiences," says Patrick Berwald, Benchmark's vice president food and beverage. "The opportunity for us is not only to be ahea...

Using Coffee to Illustrate the Concept of Hyper-Regionality

Larry Mogelonsky | August 29, 2018

By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Although this article pertains to only coffee, the concepts presented apply to nearly all types of cuisine and F&B presentations. In today's world where Starbucks and McCafé are considered the baseline for what's tolerable, any café or hotel that wants to make an impression through its coffee service must exceed these two franchised products which, for our purposes, are where the current expectation is. Thus, success requires two key elements – superior quality and diversity of menu. As an example of how this works, suppose the nearest franchised coffeehouse ...

Building Your F&B Reputation Through Events

Larry Mogelonsky | March 28, 2018

By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Good food can help put heads in beds, but few hoteliers fully grasp how this symbiotic relationship works. For today's case, events that showcase on-property chefs are not on every manager's calendar, most likely because they typically deliver an expense line well above operating revenues. However, they provide significant value in several indirect ways. First, events like this allow a hotel to demonstrate unbridled culinary excellence. Next, they allow your chefs to demonstrate creativity. Thirdly, they afford your public relations team with great fodder for continued media interes...

What Winesday Teaches Us About Restaurant Marketing

Larry Mogelonsky | February 14, 2018

By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) One clever practice used in restaurants to drum up sales during the midweek druthers is to devote a given day of the week or period of each day (otherwise known as 'happy hour') to a special promotion, either in the form of unique offerings or unbeatable deals. While this a good start for boosting those slow midweek cycles, numerous other eateries already have these types of programs fully set up with established marketing engines. And when everyone else is running something like this, how will you stand out by directly imitating your competitors? You can't, not unless you change th...

Hotel Trends in F&B for 2018

Larry Mogelonsky | January 3, 2018

By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.hotelmogel.com) Just as they did a century ago, hotel restaurants have a mantle to uphold by striving to be culinary leaders in their respective locales. To do so in today's competitive foodservice landscape, however, requires constant ingenuity. Everyone knows about the big push to offer healthier options, incorporate any purported superfoods and raise the profile of local producers through farm-to-table programs. Much like nearly every other customer who will set food in your eatery, I would expect that your team already have those three well in hand. Below are five more to consider as the New Ye...

Shifts In Revenue and Expenses Improve Hotel Food and Beverage Profits

Robert Mandelbaum | November 20, 2017

By Robert Mandelbaum Consumer dining trends tend to be more volatile than lodging trends. Recognizing this, hotel managers have made some significant changes in the way they offer food and beverage service to their guests. The traditional three-meal, all-purpose restaurants and room service are disappearing. Taking their place are self-service kiosks and grab-and-go concepts that provide quick-service for in-house guests. These changes help explain recent changes in hotel food and beverage department revenues, expenses, and profits. To understand recent trends in lodging food and beverage sales, we analyzed the financial performance of ...

Can You Make a Beet Taste as Good as Bacon?

Stacey Dash | October 3, 2017

Food must taste good; people aren't willing to change behaviors for something that isn't equally as tasty as what they are eating today By Stacey Dash Can you really make a beet taste as good as bacon? Is free-range (insert protein) truly better for the environment? How do we help with the environmental problems, give people what they want to eat, and not assume the role of the "food police"? At the Menus of Change conference, hosted by The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard's School of Public Health and held in Hyde Park, N.Y., the agenda focused on the long-term, practical vision of integrating optimal nutrition and public heal...