Smorgasburg is Moving

smorg_headerAfter three summers filled with hundreds of vendors, and thousands of foodies, Smorgasburg is moving their location from Brooklyn Bridge Park to Prospect Park. While many could have enjoyed the views of Manhattan’s Skyline while eating at their Takumi Taco, now, visitors can enjoy their foods in seated shaded areas. Eric Demby, Brooklyn Flea co-founder, says “We’re sad to leave Brooklyn Bridge Park, but it’s hard to complain when our new home is literally Brooklyn’s backyard.”

The Brooklyn Bridge park is going under renovation to transform into parkland, which will be opening in 2017. The market has been operating at Pier 5 since 2012, when the area transformed into a pier from a Tobacco Warehouse.

The new site for Smorgasburg will operate starting August 30th through October 11th. Both new and old vendors will be at the new location of Smorgasburg.

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Women rise to Be Sushi Chefs

628x471A rise in the women’s movement for equal opportunities in the job force has lead many countries and companies to enforce this movement. Recently, the government of Japan has been encouraging women to take on previously male-dominated roles in an attempt to increase the country’s workforce. Japan was ranked 105th out of 135 countries with a largest gender gaps, with 40 percent of women not working. However, many Japanese women are now challenging tradition, like becoming a sushi chef.

Traditionally, there are stereotypes called “Edo-style” where woman aren’t allowed to prepare sushi as their belief that a women’s body temperature is warmer than a man’s altering the taste of sushi. Yuki Chidui, 28, sushi chef and manager of Nadeshico Sushi Restaurant in Tokyo, has created an all-women chef restaurant. “I think women are better at communicating with customers, and they’re kind and gentle.” Chidui chose to hire only women staff because she ultimately hopes to encourage other women break barriers and revolutionize Japan’s restaurant work force.

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La Colombe Wants to Be the Next Major Coffee Chain

LaColombe_Fishtown-600x397Todd Carmichael, CEO of La Colombe, has big plans for his business and with the help of a brand-new investor, Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya, he plans to expand his business quickly. Carmichael wants to innovate new ways of drinking coffee, like his recent success of his draft lattes (made form cold-brewed coffee and frothed milk). La Colombe is planning to expand by having food offerings, including Chobani, canned lattes in grocery stores, and opening new shops in every major U.S city.

Carmichael wants to improve and evolve America’s retail shelves “the packaging is off, the logistics are off, and the bags of coffee are old.” With his distributions of coffee expanding through cafes, though wholesale, and directly to customer through e-commerce and grocery stores, Carmichael is confident that him, his investors, and his company can better a café experience, and quality in America.

One of his newest products he is expecting to immerse into grocery markets are canned lattes. While Frappuccinos were already a past favorite, with the shift in health focused eating habits and the high amount of sugar levels in a Frappuccino, Carmichael wants a new innovative bottled drink that will be natural, and without tons of sugar. Along with recreating bottled coffee, La Colombe is challenging the idea of draft lattes on tap.

La Colombe is also expanding their food offerings into two categories-savory pastries and a full lunch. While there is no plan to make a café into a lunch place, Carmichael has created a new development that can receive the response from foodies and make people happy all while keeping their café image.

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Retail Spotlight: La Newyorkina

la-newyorkina_650_20130521Their Success…While temperature and humidity levels are at its extremes in New York City, New Yorkers and tourists alike are taking their spare time along the highline. The highline boasts as an iconic glimpse into the past and present of New York City where people can indulge in both nature and the city’s skylines on a historic walkway. A common thread for people walking the highline is that people are looking for ways to escape the summer heat. It is almost inevitable for people to not seek a fresh, cold relief. La Newyorkina utilizes this demand and conveniently stands on 30th St. and 17th St. attracting many consumers with their ice pop cart. La Newyorkina serves paletas, a traditional Mexican ice pop, in an array of flavors that change seasonally. They have both regular sized paletas, at $4, and mini sized paletas, at $1. The mini sized paletas is a popular choice for children as the “regular sized” paletas are deemed to run a lot bigger than an average ice pop.

Their clean crisp white cart exacerbates the fresh and clean vibes of the product, which identifies with consumer demands after a long, hot sweaty walk on the highline. Moreover, La Newyorkina doesn’t hesitate to brand their cart and their menu board with their logo and their Mexican themed ice pop. While other vendors do exist, these vendors have aligned themselves next to each other, making consumer options broader, which potentially draw customers away. However, La Newyorkina distinguishes themselves and locates themselves in a similar area, where traffic is heavy, but still distancing themselves to be noticed. La Newyorkina is a stand-alone cart with no seats like other vendors offer so most consumers buy a paleta and continue their walk on the highline. This creates more opportunity for more customers. As people walk down the highline those who already have a paleta in hand are already cooling down and indulging in their ice pop, which draws attention to those who are dehydrated and hot. These consumers are potentially persuaded to attain their own ice pop to help them survive the walk, and because La Newyorkina stands at both ends of the highline, the paletas will be easily accessible to new consumers.

Take Aways…La Newyorkina doesn’t fail to attract consumers and create traffic. La Newyorkina is on target with consumer demands during the summer months, and is on trend with consumer eating behavior. Many consumers are seeking for fresh and healthy foods, and La Newyorkina boasts their paletas to be fresh and local. Their ice pops are sourced from NY farmers and nearby organic dairy, fruits and herb vendors. Ingredients that cannot be acquired locally like tamarind, and other Mexican ingredients are imported in by small producers in Mexico. Moreover, Fany Gerson, Founder of La Newyorkina, hand-makes her products from scratch in small batches.

La Newyorkina offers a healthy satisfaction in an array of unique flavors- Hibiscus, Cucumber Lime, Fresh Coconut, Avocado, Tamarind, Horchata, Cajeta, and Mango-Chile. These unique flavors are, ultimately, a leading factor to their success as it attracts consumers through multiple platforms- social media, by-standers.

Black-Owned Restaurant Month

black-owned-restaurant-month.0.0Cities around the country host an annual “restaurant week” or “dining month” where local establishments offer dining deals to attract and market to new customers. Genese Jamilah, founder of event blog I Don’t Do Clubs, has proposed a new type of event-Black-Owned Restaurant Month. Jamilah focuses her event on black-owned businesses, to, ultimately, build a stronger black community.

Jamilah says that “Black Americans are just 13 percent of the U.S. populations and have potentially a buying power of $1.4 trillion by 2019.” She doesn’t believe that this is enough flow in money back into the black communities, and in order to strength spending into the black community, Jamilah proposes to highlight black-owned businesses around the country through this event. Moreover, with headlines in the past few years being that many black-owned restaurants were forced to move, Jamilah’s event seems more necessary. This event can potentially create more exposure to the community businesses and drive revenue stream into the community up.

Black-Owned Restaurant Month will take place this September in New York City.

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Mom bloggers are Changing American perceptions on Food

Unknown“Mom bloggers” are essentially a network of parents who give advice on what foods you should feed your kids. Mom bloggers express desires to buy foods that are organic, locally grown and eco-friendly. “Often, when the female reader is going through the same daily parenting drama as a favorite blogger, the shared pain and joy cements a personal loyalty and unsurprisingly, advertisers are hoping to capitalize on mom bloggers’ seemingly personal connection with their readers.”According to a CBC documentary loyalty can be worth as much as $2 trillion dollars, and research shows that mom bloggers mention at least 73 brands per week, with 56% of other moms buying brands based on these blog posts.

Lisa Leake, a mother of two started a petition in 2012 against Kraft Foods using artificial food dye in their products like their Kraft macaroni and cheese packets because of fears of hyperactivity, allergies and migraine headaches. As the petition gained more publicity within the mom blog world, by March 14th 228,000 signed on to the petition. Kraft’s mac and cheese market share fell to 78 percent in 2014 from 82 percent in 2010. And Kraft has announced that they would remove the dye in U.S. brands by 2016 to promote real food and transparency.

This massive “mom” market is potentially changing American perceptions on what foods are desirable. Because of this huge influence from mom bloggers, corporations are heavily investing in attaining popularity and a scoop in the “mom blog.”

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Two Hands to Open a Restaurant in Tribeca

largerGiles Russell and Henry Roberts, owners of Two Hands, is planning to expand their coffee shop to Tribeca, but as a full-service restaurant. Two Hands, located between Little Italy and Chinatown, boasts a unique design and sense of community. Russell and Roberts built Two Hands as a beachy, bright atmosphere with a laid-back lifestyle advocating people to hang out and have a coffee without feeling any pressure. They are hoping to carry this laid-back atmosphere over to their full-service restaurant. “This will hopefully be the same, with just a few more people, and some more food and cocktails” Russell says.

The restaurant will seat 50 people, and at night the espresso bar will be a cocktail bar. The breakfast, lunch and inner menus are all health conscious with vegetables, but will not be strictly vegetarian. There will also be a few Australian-style meat plates, like the Australian-style burger.

Russel and Roberts are hoping to redesign Church Street from being too commercial and industrial to being an area where people can comfortably get food and be with friends.

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Chick-Fil-A to Open in NYC

Chick-Fil-A-LogoREDFinally after a long anticipated wait, New Yorkers are getting their own Chick-fil-A. Famous for their crispy fried chicken burgers, Chick-fil-A is said to open at 37th and 6th Ave. The chain was said to open in NYC last year, but has officially released their date for October 3rd this year. While there is already a Chick-fil-A at NYU’s dining hall, it is exclusively accessible to university affiliates.

This new location is planned to be huge, with 10 check out registers on the first floor and seating for 80 people on the second floor. Chick-fil-A is also planning to offer delivery and catering services, and as is customary with Chick-fil-A, it will be closed on Sundays. Chick-fil-A has already been planning their second location near Rockefeller Center at 46th and 6th.

This summer has truly been trending with chicken sandwiches, thanks to competitors like Fuku and Delaney Chicken. Chick-fil-A is now joining this trend, and is hoping to make a huge entrance into the NYC market.

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Amazon Prime Delivers Notable Foods

amazon-prime-nowAmazon is already a major hub for vendors to sell their merchandise and for consumers to easily search for an array of products through one site. While buying electronics, and other material goods are what Amazon users associate the market for, Amazon has now launched deliver of groceries and prepared meals.

Other services like FreshDirect have already been a popular feed to order and get home delivered groceries, and now Amazon has joined in this on-demand delivery services market. Customers can utilize the Amazon Prime Now App to order groceries and prepared meals from D’agostina, Gourmet Garage, Eataly and Billy’s Bakery. While free delivery can take up to two hours, those who are more urgent can pay $7.99 for delivery in an hour.

Amazon plans to expand their services to Brooklyn and to other cities like baltimore, Miami, Austin and Atlanta abut as of now these services are only offered at certain parts of Manhattan.

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Restaurant Chains are Taking Over America

Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 10.15.53 AMThe majority of America’s restaurants have always been independently run. NPD Group’s last count indicated that non-chains accounted for 54 percent of U.S restaurants, but with the current trend with Restaurants chains, the majority won’t last but another year or two. Over the past year, NPD has recorded that the total number of restaurants in America shrunk by one percent despite the openings of thousands of chain restaurants like Chipotle, and Starbucks. This indicates the decrease in the number of businesses that are not chain affiliates.

The biggest threat to independently run restaurants are the high rent prices. Diners and bodegas cannot afford the hike in rent and with recent cities where minimum wages has increased, a bigger cost can potentially occur to these independently run restaurants than it would towards chains like McDonald’s. New York City, for example, has had the decade’s biggest increase in chain stores. However, the number of bodegas have been decreasing. The expensive rent within the city has pushed many independent stores and restaurants out of business, where they no longer can afford the increased rent prices. Many chains like Rite Aid, and Key Foods has been driving bodega businesses uptown out of business.

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