Zaxbys has been in the chicken finger business since 1990, six years before Raising Cain’s and decades earlier than Wendy’s. But with the competition getting fiercer with every new chicken tender or wing to hit the market, the fast casual had to build more awareness about its DNA. Enter Patrick Schwing, chief marketing & strategy officer for the Atlanta-based fast casual and this week’s guest on Menu Talk.“We wanted our sauce equity to be more prominent, and we made that very visible by restructuring the menu,” said Schwing. “Famous fingers and sauces is our core, so that is the focus.”Limited-time offers have also become a bigger part of Zaxbys' menu strategy. Tacos, a surf ‘n turf box and a Zappetizer Trio are a few standouts.Schwing is also leading the charge to expand digital menu boards systemwide and partner with pop culture figures for marketing campaigns. Rapper Omar Epps was recently enlisted as the “Sauce Boss” to promote the chain’s limited-time Sauce Boss Box combo meal. Listen as Schwing talks about how Zaxbys is differentiating itself in the crowded chicken space through upgrades in menu, operations, marketing, service and more.
Jeffrey Bank is CEO of Alicart Restaurant Group, which owns Carmine’s and Virgil’s in New York City, as well as one location of seafood concept Mermaid Oyster Bar.
Carmine’s is an Italian-American concept that was founded on Manhattan’s Upper West Side 35 years ago and now also has restaurants in Times Square as well as in Las Vegas; Atlantis in the Bahamas; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C.
Virgil’s is a barbecue restaurant in Times Square, Atlantis and Las Vegas.
These are large, consistent, high-volume restaurants, generally 18,000-20,000 square feet, with 700-800 seats and, at Carmine’s, annual sales between $14 million and $30 million.
Carmine’s Times Square location alone serves 3,000 people each day.
Their success depends on consistency and volume, maintained by a steady hand that understands not to mess with what already works.
Bank, who has been CEO of the company since 1999, says his biggest fear is what he calls “death by a thousand cuts” — making changes that seem small but end up damaging the system.
He explains why food that’s consistent and delivered with great service in a nice setting is harder than it looks, but is basically all you need for a successful restaurant business.
He also explains why the Carmine’s location in Times Square closes on the biggest party night, New Year’s Eve.
The Korean Wave or “Hallyu” has popularized barbecue, fried chicken, K-pop and K-dramas in the U.S., but Bonyeon in Chicago set out to elevate the trend.
Kate Park, co-founder of the restaurant and the guest on this week’s Menu Talk, discusses how she and Chef Sangtae Park are introducing guests to a higher-end experience. In traditional Korean barbecue restaurants, diners cook meat, seafood and other ingredients on grills set into the tabletops.
Instead, Bonyeon serves a steak omakase, offering a 14-course tasting menu of premium beef, each cut prepared with care and precision in the kitchen. A couple of seafood and vegetable preparations are also included, and house-made kimchi powders and miso bone marrow are just a few of the chef-driven ingredients that add to the experience.
Listen as Kate Park talks about the unique omakase experience at Bonyeon, her favorite parts of the tasting menu, the origin of the restaurant’s name and how she and the chef are educating Chicago diners about a different aspect of Korean culture through food and drink.
Frankie Solarik’s sources of inspiration range from molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià to Marco Moreira, the chef of Tocqueville, a fine-dining restaurant in New York City, where he was deemed too scruffy to work in the front of the house and was shunted into the kitchen.
He's the author of “The Bar Chef: A Modern Approach to Cocktails,” published in 2013, and was a judge on the Netflix series "Drink Masters," whose artistic director, Tim Luke, also developed Prequel.
Solarik recently discussed his career, his approach to mixology, and his advice for operators who want to open in New York.
Levain Bakery, a New York City obsession among cookie lovers, started as a bread shop 30 years ago. The famous gooey and crispy 6-ounce cookies came about by accident.
The founders, Connie McDonald and Pam Weekes, were triathletes as well as bakers, and they developed an oversized chocolate chip walnut cookie to fuel them during training. Word got out about that cookie and lines formed around the block. Now there are several more cookie variations and many more Levain locations, stretching from New York City to LA, Boston, metro D.C. and Chicago.
Donna Magen joined the company about two and a half years ago as senior manager of specialty channels. She recently expanded Levain’s catering arm, partnering with ezCater to reach cookie monsters in the workplace. Magen sees great potential in the burgeoning treat culture, where consumers are craving affordable indulgences—like cookies. But Levain is also going back to its roots, baking up breads, muffins, scones and the like to grow breakfast catering and other occasions.
Listen as Magen talks about Levain’s growth strategies beyond its retail shops into nontraditional channels and how the bakery is preserving its legacy as it grows.
Scott Conant has been working in restaurants for 40 years, since he was an eager 15-year-old teen in Waterbury, Connecticut. Since then he has opened restaurants in New York City, Miami, Las Vegas, Toronto, and elsewhere, as well as a new restaurant in the Bahamas at the Baha Mar resort slated to open later this fall.
His restaurant L’Impero won the James Beard Foundation Restaurant & Chef Award for best new restaurant for 2003 and Conant has been moving forward ever since. His Scarpetto concept launched in 2008 and is still going strong with seven locations, although Conant is no longer involved. He does have Cellaio Steak in New York and The Americano in Atlanta as well as the forthcoming Leola at Baha Mar.
And of course he’s also a celebrity chef, currently hosting "House of Knives" on the Food Network and also making numerous appearances on "Chopped" and "Beat Bobby Flay."
He recently sat down with Menu Talk co-hosts Pat Cobe and Bret Thorn and discussed his latest projects as well as the inspiration behind them.
Brooklyn-born Eric LeVine started cooking in restaurant kitchens at the age of 12, working the fry station at a neighborhood diner. Although that would be considered illegal child labor today, he loved the work and never looked back.
LeVine fueled his passion as a student at the Culinary Institute of America and as a member of the kitchen team at Brooklyn’s renowned River Café, where celeb chef David Burke was his mentor and inspiration. Many kitchens and awards later, he is now chef-partner in two Long Island, New York, restaurants, 317 Main and Vico.
Throughout his 45-year culinary career, LeVine has experienced many ups and downs. He cycled through a number of restaurants, fought and survived several bouts of cancer, and gained and lost 180 pounds. Now he is on a health and wellness journey, both personally and professionally. LeVine ran his first marathon last year and is focused on staying healthy and improving and evolving his restaurants. Listen as he shares his journey, past and present.
Stephanie Izard has a streak of fearlessness in her. She went from being a sous chef to a restaurateur at age 27 and hasn’t looked back. Closing that restaurant, Scylla, in 2007 after a three-year run, she went on to compete in and win season four of Bravo TV’s Top Chef in 2008. From there she launched her goat-themed restaurant empire, now comprised of two Girl & the Goat locations in Chicago and Los Angeles, two units of her Peruvian concept, Cabra (Spanish for “goat”), in those same cities, as well as Little Goat Diner and Duck Duck Goat in Chicago.
At the end of March she opened her first licensed concept, Valley Goat, at the Treehouse Hotel Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, Calif., and last month she opened Lucky Goat at the Hollywood Casino in Joliet, Illinois, with another to come in nearby Aurora. Next up: Cabrito, a fast-casual concept slated to open at Orlando International Airport.
She also recently attended US Foods’ Food Fanatics conference in Las Vegas where she caught up with Menu Talk hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality. She shared her approach to menu development, her plans for the future and the odd but beneficial status of being famous.
Amanda Toups, partner with her husband Isaac Toups in New Orleans’ Toups Meatery, flew into action when COVID-19 closed the restaurant back in March, 2020. The couple cooked and handed out to-go meals for their employees and their families and anyone else who showed up in need. Within a few days, 500 people wrapped around the block.
Through the end of 2020, they prepped and distributed 100,000 meals, but the need didn’t end once the pandemic eased and restaurants were back in operation. In 2021, Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans, and in 2024, the governor of Louisiana cut back funds on summer feeding programs for school children. Amanda immediately brought back Toups Family Meal, starting with Easter boxes. Then she got in front of the media to broadcast the dire need in the community and spread the word on her active social platforms. As a result, she was able to drum up support from locals and other nonprofits to raise funds and help with meal deliveries. The Toups amassed a volunteer delivery driver army of 200 people and this summer delivered 70,500 meals.
Now Toups Family Meal is a fully operative nonprofit with a commissary kitchen, meal and grocery distribution center and delivery hub, mostly self-funded but supported by donations and volunteers. Listen as Amanda shares the heartwarming story of how she and Isaac turned a personal community outreach effort into a hunger-fighting organization through their generosity and commitment.
Jet Tila is known as a TV chef these days, thanks to his many appearances on the Food Network and elsewhere, but he has actually been working in the restaurant industry for pretty much his whole life. Having grown up working in his parents’ Thai restaurants in Los Angeles, he then attended culinary school and went on to cook at a wide variety of foodservice operations, including Compass Group subsidiary Bon Appétit Management and at Steve Wynn properties in Las Vegas. He also operates five Dragon Tiger Noodle restaurants—four in Nevada and one at the Dragon Tiger Casino in Central City, Colorado—and is the research & development chef of fast-casual Pei Wei Asian Kitchen, with some 120 restaurants across the country.
Tila was a keynote speaker at US Foods' recent Food Fanatics conference in Las Vegas, where he walked the 5,000 attendees through his own humble beginnings and ultimately his success as a TV personality and cookbook author as well as a chef and restaurateur. He also performed cooking demonstrations at the conference, including one for birria fried rice. One of his passions these days is Chino-Latino cooking, exploring the ways that East Asian and Latin American flavors go together.
During these stressful times people are turning to comfort food, he believes, whether that’s fried chicken sandwiches, noodles or Tila’s particular passion, fried rice. He discussed his own passion for “grandma cooking,” and shared his perspective on where food is going these days.
Chef and restaurateur Victor Steinbrueck shook up the Seattle seafood scene when he opened LocalTide in 2020. The restaurant refuses to fall into typical seafood or restaurant categories, like fish and chips or fine dining sole. It’s serving up sustainable, sophisticated dishes that work just as well as takeout or while enjoying the hip vibes of Local Tide. Steinbrueck and guest host Gloria Dawson discuss making pandemic pivots, finding moments for high-touch hospitality at a fast-casual restaurant, and what sustainable growth means for a self-described "slow mover."
Douglas Keane originally opened Cyrus in Healdsburg, California, earning two Michelin stars and many accolades. But during the pandemic, a burned-out Keene did not want to reopen it as a traditional fine dining restaurant with an upscale tasting menu. So he sat down and figured out how to change the business model and staffing model to provide a living wage for all his team members and a distinctive dining experience for guests.
At the new Cyrus, located in the Sonoma County town of Geyserville, the evening is choreographed like a dinner party in someone’s home, starting with drinks and bites in the Bubble Lounge, then proceeding into the kitchen where guests interact with the chefs over a first course, followed by a multi-course hyper-seasonal tasting menu in the dining room and ending with a sweet finish in the Chocolate Room. And every team member makes an annual salary of $75,000.
Raheem Sealey is the corporate chef of Kyu Restaurant, which has locations in Las Vegas, Miami, and New York City.
Sealey is based in Miami, where he moved from the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix in 2009. He attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts and worked in a variety of restaurants, including Caribbean concept Sugarcane and Zuma, which offers modern Japanese food in a stylish setting, as well as Pao by Paul Qui, which, similar in a way to Kyu, also offers Asian-inspired cuisine from a wood-fired grill. He eventually landed at Kyu in 2016 as a sous chef, and has been there ever since.
There, Sealey offers items like smoked brisket rubbed with a shichimi pepper-based spice mix and served as a lettuce wrap, yakiniku baby back ribs, and whole roasted cauliflower in green chile vinaigrette.
Sealey discussed his menu development process and shared that the restaurants will soon have a crispy duck salad and a grilled pork chop with sweet chile sauce and smoked eggplant relish.
He also shared a trick for catering to customers who don’t like cilantro.
The average workplace catering order size is up 12% to about $420. That’s good news for restaurants, said Cindy Klein Roche, chief growth officer for ezCater, a platform that connects workplaces with dining concepts.
But restaurants must optimize their online presence and present an appealing menu to get a piece of that growing pie. About 59% of those who place workplace orders are swayed by the menu, with budget-friendliness following close behind at 37%.
While companies have been using catering as a return-to-office incentive, food has now evolved into a vehicle to drive productivity and collaboration, Roche explains. And employees who first try a restaurant at work will then return to that restaurant on their own or with a group for lunch or dinner.
With B2B catering on the rise, she offers valuable insights as to how restaurants can boost that revenue stream, why breakfast and afternoon treats are growing as catering opportunities and where workplace catering is heading next.
Marc Sheehan has long been interested in the history of food. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of American in Hyde Park, N.Y., the Massachusetts native worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s farm, restaurant, and hotbed for culinary innovation in upstate New York, before working at Menton, a French-Italian restaurant by Barbara Lynch. Previously, he earned national acclaim at Loyal Nine in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
There he served food based on what people cooked in the region from the Colonial era onward—not what was in cookbooks, which catered to a wealthy audience, but what normal people grew in their gardens. It turned out that they grew a lot of cayenne pepper, coriander and other robust flavors that were toned down by the likes of Fannie Farmer and other purveyors of food for the well-to-do.
Now Sheehan operates Northern Spy, a restaurant in the Boston suburb of Canton, located in a copper rolling mill first opened by Paul Revere.
Sheehan recently discussed the restaurant, which opened in December of 2020, as well as how the food that his ancestors likely grew up on is different than what you might have thought.
Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, visited Atlantic City’s Ocean Casino Resort, which just opened two new concepts from restaurateur Stephen Starr. Bret had a chance to sample menu items from Sunny’s, a breakfast-lunch spot, and Chez Frites, a bistro offering the familiar French plate of steak and fries along with a selection of seafood.
Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, was taken with the number of chains offering burgers and hot dogs as specials, iconic July 4th food that’s extending throughout the month. The pair discussed new offers from Carl’s Jr., Applebee’s, Shake Shack and other concepts.
Panda Express introduced Hot Orange Chicken, a limited-time spicy spin on its signature dish. Bret had a chance to try it at a pop-up at one of the chain’s New York City locations, where the item is being served in bao buns, wrapped in Chinese pancakes, and with bacon, in addition to its usual presentation over rice.
We’ve also seen a lot of pickles this week. Del Taco launched a fried pickle taco and Saladworks has a new Chicken Pickle Crunch Salad with pickle ranch dressing.
Then Pat shares her interview with Matt Banton, VP of menu strategy and innovation at Cracker Barrel. He’s been at the chain for less than a year, but hit the ground running, focusing on flavor innovation, building a robust pipeline and making sure the food and drink selection creates memorable guest experiences. This summer’s Campfire Meals are a favorite example of his.
Chef and restaurateur BJ Lieberman discussed his career evolution, from his time at Husk and Little Pearl in Charleston, SC, and Washington, DC, to the launch of his restaurants in Columbus, Ohio. He opened his first Columbus restaurant, Chapman's Eat Market, at a difficult time — August 2020 — but that restaurant was later listed as one of the most exciting restaurants by the New York Times. He went on to open Ginger Rabbit, a jazz club, and Hiraeth, a fine dining restaurant, which he recently reopened as Metsi’s, a more casual Italian spot. BJ and guest host Gloria Dawson discuss how timing and larger changes outside of your control can impact a restaurant.
Luckin Coffee is a massive concept based in China that is widely regarded as Starbucks’ chief global rival, although it just recently arrived in the United States.
Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business and co-host of Menu Talk, checked out one of the two New York locations, ordered a pineapple-and-coconut drink, and gave her impressions of the place: The drink was tasty, and the venue was small and takeout-focused.
Co-host Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, also had a busy week of trying food and beverage, including participating in a pastrami taste test.
David Burke, celebrity chef and inventor many years ago of salmon pastrami, has a new traditional pastrami at his restaurant Park Avenue Kitchen. He thought it was pretty good, so he invited restaurateurs, food writers, including Bret, influencers, etc. to come to the restaurant and do a blind tasting against the big-name NYC pastrami purveyors, including Sarge’s, 2nd Avenue Deli, Katz’s, and Carnegie Deli.
Whose pastrami won? Listen to this week’s podcast and find out.
And also listen to Bret’s interview with Tyler Florence, chef-owner of Wayfare Tavern, which recently relocated in San Francisco, and Miller & Lux, with locations in San Francisco and Hawaii. Florence shares his thoughts on the post-pandemic evolution of San Francisco, and why he limits his own celebrity chef persona at his restaurants.
Menu launches haven’t slowed down coming off the July 4 holiday weekend. Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality spotted many new items this week.
The beverage category continues to see a lot of action. Bret pointed out Starbucks’ release of a super limited-time Fireworks Frappuccino, a blend of their berry refresher with coconut milk and raspberry pearls topped with strawberry puree and sweet cream cold foam. And Buffalo Wild Wings launched a Mountain Dew Radler combining the branded soft drink and Goose Island beer. There are also new mocktails from Dutch Bros, a prickly pear refresher at Whataburger and a margarita menu upgrade at Condado Tacos.
From sauces to barbecue, our guest this week is Haim Asher, VP of culinary at Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, a California-based restaurant with 19 locations. Lucille’s has a smoker in each location, where menu favorites like ribs and brisket cook low and slow. But the menu also offers other Southern specialties, including deviled eggs, the best-selling appetizer. Listen as Chef Asher describes how Lucille’s is keeping up with barbecue’s evolution in the U.S. while honoring its legacy.
Much of the country suffered from a punishing heat wave last week, including New York City, where Menu Talk co-hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, both live.
Earlier in the week, Bret went to Chili’s launch of three new premium frozen Margaritas, made with Patrón tequila, that was held in a heavily air-conditioned room appropriate not just for the beverages, but also for the unearthly temperatures outside (Bret joked that he felt like he was being poached).
Pat discussed an interview with the corporate chef of California Pizza Kitchen about that chain’s new salads, which led to a broader discussion about salad, and about pizza and whether pineapple belongs on it. Bret also pointed out that Mountain Mike’s now has a Hawaiian-themed pizza with mango, something neither co-host can recall seeing on pizza before.
Next they shared observations about unexpected flavors at chains outside the United States, and Bret went on a tangent about the polarizing tropical fruit durian, which he said tastes like sweetened onion and garlic, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Finally, he introduced John Burns Paterson, the co-owner and operator of Frankies Nashville — an offshoot of the Brooklyn, New York, restaurants of that name. Enjoy the interview.
