SPORTS: Is Your Bar Ready for the 2018-19 NFL Season? [FREE SCHEDULE DOWNLOAD]
The NFL’s return is among the most welcome things to happen in sports bars. Just the prospect of 17 weeks of NFL action can make your restaurant relevant again after enduring the dog days of summer. Here’s what to expect in the world of TV for the NFL, as well as a complimentary season schedule download.
DID YOU KNOWS…
How Much Did a Dozen Eggs Cost?
Ever wonder how much a dozen eggs cost the year you were born? Well, way back in 1937, it cost just $0.36. By 1948, it doubled to $0.72 before dropping to $0.60 (or $6.40 in today’s dollars) in 1950 where it more or less stayed for the next two decades. When I was born, 1984, a dozen eggs hit $1.00 for the first time – about $2.46 in today’s currency.
Hate Crime Rising
A new report from The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, headquartered at California State University in Santa Barbara, has found that hate crimes rose 9% in 30 major American cities in 2018. That's the steepest rise since 2015 and the total number of hate crimes has now gone up for the fifth consecutive year. That's despite overall U.S. crime rates continuing to fall across the cities included in the report.
What’s a Vacation Day?
The U.S. Travel Association, Oxford Economics and Ipsos said that out of the 768 million days left unused in 2018, 236 million were completely forfeited with $65.5 billion in benefits lost. Rather than a culture of zealous over-working, the research actually attributed much of the rise in unused vacation to the expansion of the U.S. workforce. This has resulted in the number of earned days off increasing faster than workers can use them.
CAN I USE YOUR BATHROOM?
Why it matters to you: What does your bathroom access policy say about your restaurant?
The bathrooms in our restaurants have become a battleground over the past several years. Between concerns surrounding gender identification and issues of social justice, the bathroom is more of a focal point than ever before. Did you know the two men arrested in Starbuck’s while waiting on a third person to order triggered their hosts by asking to use the bathroom. Most restaurant operators don’t have to contend with these issues too frequently as they are far more prevalent in urban settings than outside of those concentrated cities. However, it does beg the question about how you manage your bathroom and what it says about you and your business. In fact, this conversation has been sufficiently elevated that a new website has emerged that lists the entry codes to various keypad secured bathrooms around New York City, Philly, and Seattle.
The site is called Facility and they have styled themselves as advocates for bathroom access and justice. If you have ever needed to pee, but didn’t want to buy a latte to gain access, then you know what they are on about. The question is: Do you limit access to your bathrooms for guests only? If so, why? The motivations to limit access are obvious, but the societal impact may not be as clear. We are not advocating for any specific choice, but this piece on Eater asking “Do Restaurants Have an Obligation to Let You Use the Bathroom?” is a good place to review your own internal policy to ensure you are making the optimal choice for your restaurant. Whether you see your bathrooms as a privilege of guest spending or open your facilities to anyone to build goodwill, it’s going to affect someone. Being thoughtful about arriving at your policy should reflect the importance of that affect.
[Source: Eater]
GUNS & BUTTER
Why it matters to you: WARNING: This our opinion on why universal background checks should be implemented.
On June 26, 2016 a mass murderer arrived at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando with the intention of causing maximum chaos and destruction. He succeeded in murdering 49 people whose only crime was being out on a Sunday to dance and have fun. It brought into stark relief just how vulnerable all of restaurants, nightclubs, and bars are to this type of mayhem. We often review questions like, “Do you have a disaster plan in place?” or “Are you prepared for some significant disturbance at your restaurant?” However, we have thus been able to avoid the same conversation that schools seem to be embroiled in regarding preparations for an “active shooter” situation. This infographic on how to deal with the threat of an active shooter says a lot about where the conversation has moved, even over the past few weeks.
We are neither 2nd Amendment proponents nor detractors. What we are is representative of all restaurant operators that want to do business in a society that doesn’t accept or facilitate these types of hideous acts. Restaurant and club guests have the right to congregate in peace without the pall of fear that these acts create. If that can be accomplished by adding more controls to who can obtain a weapon and how they can obtain it, then we are all for it. Does the gun owner have more rights to their 2nd Amendment rights than our guests do to their 1st Amendment right to freedom of association and speech? Again, we aren’t advocating for the confiscation of weapons or an unreasonable limit on gun ownership. Instead, we would suggest if you need a license to drive a car, which does cause more deaths than guns annually (40,000 in 2018 vs. 39,000 from guns) you should also need some qualification and license to own a gun. Is it too much to ask that our restaurants have a fighting chance of not being the next site of a mass shooting?
[Source: Restaurant Business Online]
