Friday, October 20, 2017
Today's Specials:
HACK #102: Rub Walnuts on Scratched Wood to Restore It
Hard to keep restaurant tables from getting scratched, but restaurant staff can rejuvenate their tabletops with the help of walnuts and some elbow grease.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Improving Your IG Stories
Instagram Stories are a great way to improve your social media game. Luckily, there are multiple easy ways to make your Instagram Stories and Ads look professionally made. Here are eight apps that you can use to create better more sophisticated Instagram stories.
How Many Binge Watchers?
Online streaming has taken a serious hit to TV network ratings. However, networks and streaming sites can’t track how much their streamers are binge-watching their fav shows. The TV rating company Nielsen has introduced a service to monitor how many streaming users are staying up all night watching the same show. Cable networks are first in line for the data.
BWW Is eSporting
Buffalo Wild Wings has announced its first-ever eSports partnership with one of the best-known brands in the professional gaming industry, Team Dignitas. BWW will likely co-brand eSport tournaments including TwitchCon, while also becoming the “Official Hangout for Team Dignitas.”
LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX
Why it matters to you: Are you allowing sexual harassment at your restaurant?
The news over the last year has been littered with stories of major media companies and horrible sexual harassment. It started with Fox News and the allegations against its head, Roger Ailes, and has continued to today with Harvey Weinstein and Amazon Content Chief, Roy Price. It begs the question, is this just a media problem or do other industries have the same pervasive culture of harassment?
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s everywhere. Our industry has some of the most serious examples of power being used to coerce and harass its employees in the entire economy.
The very dynamic of the restaurant hierarchy facilitates this. Women make up 54% of all staff people, but only 45% of all managers. But the expressions of power doesn’t stop at management because guests can also wield power that makes inappropriate behavior accepted. It’s time we all had an open discussion about what is acceptable and what is not. If those with power listen to those they mean to lead and have just a little empathy, it can be fixed. However, as long as that doesn’t happen, problems will persist and the consequences can’t be avoided.
GOOGLE GIVE CALORIE ADVICE
Why it matters to you: Google’s calorie feature could offer a glimpse of what’s to come for the FDA’s new calorie count regulations.
Earlier this year, the FDA was requiring restaurants to incorporate calorie counts on their menus, however, the policy was pushed off by another year. Recently, Google incorporated a similar feature into Google Maps that received serious backlash this week. Essentially, when a user pulled up their route in Google Maps, the app would display how many calories they would burn if they chose to walk that route instead of drive. Google additionally used a strange method to convey the message by showing how many mini cupcakes the user would burn walking that distance.
The Google cupcake metric was criticized almost immediately causing the company to scrap the entire calorie counting feature altogether due to “strong user feedback.”
Restaurant operators should keep in mind that many customers do not wish to be pushed into considering nutritional value which could lead to serious problems when the FDA enforces calorie counts. Advocates for the FDA’s mandatory calorie counts say it will allow customers to make informed nutritional decisions. The Twitter backlash from Google’s version shows that people may not be on board. The FDA menu labeling rule goes into effect in May 2018.
