An acquisition is not a partnership
I’ve got beef. So does Wonder. Six months after buying single-location fried chicken concept Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, the ghost kitchen / food hall / fast food / delivery / meal kit company last valued at $9 billion bought another NYC restaurant. It’s acquiring New York City’s Salt Hanks, a wildly popular single-location sandwich shop […]
The rise and fall of an American Legend: How the US fell out of love with Pizza Hut
Highway 321 runs like a lifeline through Pigeon Forge, a tourist town in the US state of Tennessee. On either side of the road, at the foot of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, amusement parks sit alongside two-story motels and toothless fast-food joints with drive-through windows — it doesn’t get much more American than this. […]
M&A 2026: The Next Inning
After several years of false starts, corporate dealmaking is finally stirring back to life. The signs are everywhere: CEOs edging back into strategic purchase mode, their confidence buoyed by healthier balance sheets and a more stable, if less than ideal, interest rate environment. Private equity firms loosening the purse strings on an estimated $2 trillion […]
Your Loyalty Program Has a Problem. It Isn’t the Data
Many convenience store operators walk into a strategy session with a promo calendar and call it a loyalty plan. A coffee BOGO this week. Two-for-one taquitos the next. A “we miss you” blast to anyone who hasn’t scanned in a while. I’ve seen it a hundred times. That’s not loyalty. That’s a coupon schedule with […]
Why Fractional Gains Matter More Than Ever for Restaurants
The National Restaurant Association has predicted real sales growth of only 1.3 percent in 2026. Meanwhile, the cost of nearly everything is on the rise, from beef to packaging to energy. There is no volume cushion to absorb it. That means that even small improvements can make a big difference. Saving one to two percentage […]
Data-First AI Scales What Top Stores Do Best
Restaurant and hospitality operators are pouring money into AI and misjudging the distance between purchasing the technology and actually operationalizing it. Too often, they are trying to build AI agents when they only have the data infrastructure to support siloed assistants. That gap is not a minor implementation detail. It is the difference between a […]
Stop mistaking a viral deal for a loyalty program
Every few weeks, another QSR drops a limited-time deal tied to a cultural moment, like a sports event, a holiday or a celebrity collab. The best ones generate buzz and traffic, making it tempting for operators to treat the promo as a loyalty strategy. But a guest who only shows up for a deal isn’t […]
Why restaurant loyalty programs fail
A recent eMarketer study found that 35% of loyalty members say point accumulation and expiring rewards are their biggest source of frustration. The instinct is to fix the program design by simplifying the points, shortening the path to rewards, or redesigning the app. Most of the time, that misses the real problem. The focus should […]
