Restaurant service charges are suddenly everywhere. What gives?
Restaurant service charges are suddenly everywhere. What gives?
These days, restaurant bills no longer just include an entrée, an appetizer and a few drinks. Restaurants are adding specific charges to cover the growing cost of labor. Yet these charges anger customers and could lure regulators. This package explores this growing trend from the perspective of operators, servers and customers.
What's Making Over Menus
What’s making over restaurant menus?
Amid rising costs and continued labor challenges, restaurants are innovating their menus and operations to deliver on the variety, creativity and fresh flavors that customers crave.
Subway, once the world’s largest restaurant chain by unit count, has gone through enormous changes over the past eight years, with the loss of its two founders and years of volatility and uncertainty. Its sale, which is expected to be announced as early as this week, follows a remarkably active period for the chain. Here’s a look at some of those major events.
The 500 largest restaurant chains in the U.S. continued to grow at a healthy pace in 2022. Total sales rose 8.2%, according to the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, nearly twice as high as pre-pandemic growth levels. Most major sectors have recovered. Yet the sales growth came entirely from high menu price inflation and more aggressive unit development.
The Restaurant Business Top 100 ranking of the largest independent restaurants returns after a one-year, pandemic-related hiatus. Restaurants on this year's list represent a wide range of menus and price points and come in all shapes and sizes. They served 272 million meals last year and generated $1.8 billion in sales. There were also some notable newcomers. RB looks at how these restaurants adapted and evolved to meet a changing industry.
The 500 largest chains collectively have recovered from the pandemic and then some, with sales up 8.4% since 2019. But success was not spread evenly, and the very biggest concepts performed best, according to the 2022 Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. RB takes an in-depth look at the companies and sectors on this year’s list, including those that did well, and those that struggled.
The 500 largest chains collectively have recovered from the pandemic and then some, with sales up 8.4% since 2019. But success was not spread evenly, and the very biggest concepts performed best, according to the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. RB takes an in-depth look at the companies and sectors on this year’s list, including those that did well, and those that struggled.
