Restaurant Rewind

May 16 2024 2

Restaurant Rewind Podcast artwork

The industry’s past is packed with tales of scoundrels and heroes, big thinkers and pinheads, colossal successes and dismal failures, breakthrough moves and self-inflicted destruction. Few soap operas pack as much color and drama. Yet those yellowed snapshots provide insights relevant to the challenges of today. Join Peter Romeo, a 41-year veteran of the business with a penchant for restaurant history, as he explores those pivotal moments from the past.

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The restaurant business has produced its share of criminals, including these

May 16 2024 9 mins

Federal regulators have brought a new battery of charges against Andy Wiederhorn, chairman of Twin Peaks and Smokey Bones parent Fat Brands. It’s not the first time he’s been accused of violating federal security regulations. Nor is he the lone high-level restaurant executive to have served jail time, as this week’s episode of Restaurant Business’ Restaurant Rewind podcast

At age 59, San Francisco's Scoma's restaurant still defers to its elders

May 09 2024 34 mins

The Beatles were still newcomers to the music scene when Scoma’s served up its first bowl of cioppino on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The Fab Four would disband in less than a decade, but the restaurant remains a star of the local restaurant scene at age 59, the payoff from navigating the latest currents in dining while remaining true to the operating philosophy and sta

How we all came to scream for ice cream

May 02 2024 10 mins

With summer just a few heatwaves away, the restaurant business is within a Maraschino cherry toss of prime ice cream season. Is there any better time to retrace how a treat that began as honeyed snow has morphed into an all-American restaurant staple? This week’s episode of Restaurant Rewind is betting “no.” The installment looks back at the origins of the frozen treat and it

There's enough color in TGI Friday's past for a month of Sundays

Apr 25 2024 9 mins

Even the name suggests a climb out of a rut: TGI Friday’s, as in it’s time to cut loose and have some wicked fun. The casual-dining trailblazer didn’t disappoint, aiming from Day One to offer a different sort of experience to children of the conformity-conscious '50s.

How the Restaurant Leadership Conference came to be

Apr 16 2024 9 mins

If you’ve been in the chain restaurant business for an appreciable stretch, chances are you’ve either attended or heard about the Restaurant Leadership Conference. It’s the top-to-top event where you might see Magic Johnson jump off the stage to give someone a hug, two chain builders lay the groundwork for a merger (Cava and Zoes Kitchen, 2018) or a big-name CEO careening aro

In a business of nonconformists, Popeyes founder Al Copeland broke the mold

Apr 09 2024 10 mins

Popeyes is emerging as a tough bird to beat in the quick-service fried-chicken market, a distinction that would have delighted its late founder, the flamboyant and pugnacious nonconformist Al Copeland. Had Copeland done nothing more than create Popeyes, he’d deserve a prime spot in a restaurant industry hall of fame. But his leadership of that chain is only one of the reasons he

The saga behind the illegal Jell-O shot

Apr 02 2024 8 mins

It’s probably a myth that tax-code writers refine their knack for inscrutability by taking a whack at state and local liquor regulations. The complexity and illogic of the rules governing alcohol sales are enough to make a restaurateur long for a seat on the other side of the bar, knocking back Jell-O shots with fellow scofflaws. In New York and other areas, theirs would be an ou

Remembering the best of restaurants' April Fool's Day pranks

Mar 26 2024 8 mins

America loves its pranks, as fast-food chains learned years ago in turning April Fool’s Day into a major marketing opportunity. Consumers have brought considerable gullibility to the day, while big brands like Taco Bell, Burger King and McDonald’s have gone to extreme lengths to hoodwink the public, with remarkable success. The combination has turned several of the put-ons into

The industry is abuzz about dynamic pricing. Maybe it forgot these examples

Mar 19 2024 8 mins

After Wendy’s charge and retreat on dynamic pricing, the restaurant business can’t seem to talk about anything else. Perhaps that’s because variable pricing is as much a part of the business as knives and forks. Indeed, you may not be aware of the various forms dynamic pricing has taken over the years. In this week’s edition of Restaurant Rewind, we take a look at some of t

True crime fans may not know how a restaurant figured into an infamous murder

Mar 12 2024 9 mins

True crime stories have become a major entertainment genre, delivered in big numbers by podcasts, streaming TV shows and even several whole networks. It’s about time Restaurant Rewind, Restaurant Business’ retro-focused podcast, made its contribution to the field. In this week’s episode, we look back at the small role a restaurant played in the assumed murder of Jimmy Hoffa,