Registration is now open for both exhibitors and attendees to the NY NOW Home, Lifestyle and Gift Exhibition at the Javitz Center. The event takes place over the course of 5 days, and will feature products from over 2,000 suppliers ranging from food and beverage to gifts and home goods. NY NOW is a unique opportunity to check out the latest in retail, often before it hits the shelves.
To learn more and register for the event, click here.
Before you go to a restaurant, you probably look it up online for some reason or another. Maybe you’re making a reservation through the website or maybe you’re checking the menu. You might look at photos to see how fancy the place is or maybe you just need to look up the address. What if a restaurant were doing this to you?
Restaurants google the names of patrons who’ve made reservations more often than you might think. In 2010 the subject surfaced to the surprise, amusement and horror of restaurant goers and chefs alike. People were understandably alarmed, but most people didn’t seem to care. In a poll conducted by CNN, almost 40 percent of people were okay with restaurants googling them if it meant special treatment, and about 4 percent hoped restaurants would research them. Sixteen percent thought it was a little strange but could live with it, and 15 percent thought it was creepy. Four years later, the practice has grown further in the name of offering bespoke and differentiated services. Justin Roller, the maître d’ at New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park googles every single patron that visits Eleven Madison Park. He looks for anything that can help make a customer feel special and at home. “If I find out a guest is from Montana, and I know we have a server from there, we’ll put them together,” Roller told Grubstreet. He doesn’t stop at cursory information either. “If, for example, Roller discovers it’s a couple’s anniversary, he’ll then try to figure out which anniversary,” Grubstreet reports.
Restaurants also take notes on customers after they’ve dined, to track preferences and habits, like if someone is a good or bad tipper. According to the New York Times, hundreds of restaurants record traits and preferences about their customers, like allergies, favorite foods and even if a customer likes to linger at the table.
Read more here.
Le Coucou, the first American restaurant from Chicago-born chef Daniel Rose, will open tonight for dinner service. Rose currently has two restaurants in Paris, and has made a name for himself with classic French dishes. The new restaurant promises to offer similar cuisine, but Rose has said that he is looking for American-made products that remind him of France. On the menu are items like pigs’ feet with caviar, pike quenelles, veal tongue, fish stew bourride and poached chicken for two or four.
Le Coucou is the result of a partnership between Rose and Restaurateur Stephen Starr, with Daniel Skurnick as head pastry chef. So far, the restaurant has earned as much press for its interior design as for the menu. Design firm Roman and Williams is responsible for the beautiful buildout, including chandeliers, velvet banquettes, and a gorgeous mural behind the bar.
To read more, click here.
Pizza no longer dominates the delivery and takeout business. Consumers are increasingly ordering their favorite foods to be delivered or to-go, rather than dining in-store. And, in fact, restaurant delivery traffic outside of pizza has risen 33 percent since 2012. This presents a unique opportunity for foodservice and restaurant operators to shift their strategies and operating processes to take advantage of the delivery and takeout trends, rather than have their dine-in numbers and market share cannibalized by competitors who are focused on these services.
According to recent surveys, 51% of Americans use delivery services to purchase meals from casual dining restaurant and 26% order takeout or delivery at least once a week. These behaviors show little sign of slowing: digital ordering and delivery have been growing 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014. Third party delivery services, like DoorDash, Caviar and Grubhub are becoming major marketplace competitors, providing speed, ease of use, convenience and customized offerings based on customers’ previous orders. Furthermore, larger players such as uberEats, Amazon Prime and Google, are now entering this space and beginning to pilot their own food delivery programs.
Confidence in the future and growth trajectory of this space is strong. More than half a billion was invested in the food delivery sector in 2014 – almost 13 times the amount in 2013 – with more than a billion dollars invested in 2015. As for restaurants, partnering with third party delivery services is a seductive alternative, with research showing an increase in restaurant sales volume from 10% to 20%.
Read more here.
New coworking start-up Spacious launched earlier this month by using DBGB Kitchen and Bar as a meeting and office space. They are now also adding L’Equipe in East Village and Public in Soho to their public work space portfolio. According to founder Preston Pesek, they plan to announce partnerships with restaurants in Williamsburg, Chelsea, Tribeca, Upper West Side, and even San Francisco and Los Angeles soon, but Pesek says they’re not targeting just any restaurant. It must be beautiful, and even though they won’t be serving food immediately, the menu must be delicious, he says. A good restaurant, he says, works perfectly as a good meeting space.
Besides being dinner-only restaurants, the restaurants involved with Spacious also need to be near public transit, be well-designed, and be big. DBGB has about 180 seats, and L’Apicio offers about 190. All of the eventual participants will have a minimum of 60 to 100 seats. Spacious members pay $95 per month to work in the spaces during the day, and restaurants are part of a profit-sharing partnership with the start-up.
Eventually, Spacious users will be able to order limited small plates at some of the restaurants through an app on their phone and pick it up themselves so as to avoid table service. “Most of the kitchens open early for prep work anyway, and it would be a way to showcase what they’re working on”, Pesek added.
Read more here.
Cold-brew coffee, emphasis on the cold, is what you get in this new ice pop from Brewla, a company whose other flavors are fruit based. The bar is a lightly sweetened mixture of the coffee and organic milk.
Brewla was founded by Daniel and Rebecca Dengrove, a brother and sister team with over 15 years of experience in food science and technology. The idea for Brewla Bars was born when the budding entrepreneur Daniel noticed an untapped market at the intersection between popular high-end juices and the boom in trendy frozen yogurt. A rising star in the beverage industry, Rebecca zeroed in on teas with health boosts. Although the concept was originally for a brick-and-mortar store, the siblings’ full-time jobs and cross-country residences created roadblocks, so Rebecca rented space in the industrial kitchen at her old graduate school, decorated a rolling freezer, and Brewla Bars began.
Brewla Barista, box of five, $5.99 at Union Market stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, brewlabars.com.
A collaboration with Vayner Media, this eats-of-tomorrow gathering in the Waterfront Tunnel in Manhattan will allow attendees to see, smell, touch and taste the food culture of the near future.
Food Loves Tech is your chance to walk up to vertical farms, taste-test crickets, review dozens of food system apps, and talk to the inventors behind juicebots and beerbots, food computers for your home, and smart kitchens that listen to your food.
Event details are as follows:
Food Loves Tech
June 11–12, 2016
The Waterfront
241 11th Ave (at 27th St), NYC
Carrots are a kitchen workhorse. They’re second only to onions as one of the most common ingredients in our savory, and occasionally sweet, recipes. They go in our salads, stews and soups. We eat them raw with dip, roast them, or quickly sauté them for dinner.
Spiced Carrot Soup with Lime is a recipe that moves away from the traditional, one-dimensional, sweet, thick carrot soup. Using a technique known as tarka in Indian cuisine, cumin and mustard seeds are sizzled in coconut oil, adding extra flavor. Ingredients needed for this creation include coconut oil, medium onions, chopped ginger, minced garlic, turmeric, coriander, cayenne, salt, young carrots, daikon radish, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, serrano pepper, cilantro leaves and lime wedges.
This soup may be served hot from the pot for dinner, or it may be served chilled during the day. It is best with young, long and slender carrots, which are considered fresher and tastier than the carrots from jumbo bags.
Carrots are a vegetable with many health benefits, including the improvement of vision. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the liver. Vitamin A is transformed in the retina, to rhodopsin, a purple pigment necessary for night vision. Beta-carotene has also been shown to protect against macular degeneration and senile cataracts. Carrots also help prevent cancer, slow down aging, promote healthier skin, and help prevent infection.
Now is a good time of year to enjoy just-harvested new-crop carrots. So let’s get cooking!
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Formerly a deteriorating, poverty-stricken area, the South Bronx is now known for its hip-hop culture and its graffiti. Last week, Birch Coffee opened shop on Hunts Point Avenue, a street characterized by auto shops, bodegas and cheap, variety stores. It’s hard for Majora Carter to remember the last time Hunts Point had a spot that could serve both the community and its need for creativity. She is a force of change in this part of New York City.
Ms. Carter collaborated on the café with entrepreneurs Jeremy Lyman and Paul Schlader, who have opened seven Birch shops in New York City. And they are not the only ones. Another coffee shop named Filtered Coffee opened a few months ago in Mott Haven, a neighborhood a few stops away on the No. 6 subway. One of the business partners in Filtered is quoted as saying “Certain businesses come to fill a void in the community”.
Young people priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn are now moving to the Bronx, regarded by some as an up-and-coming neighborhood. Developer Keith Rubenstein is quoted as saying of Filtered partners Karen Paul and Aaron Baird, “They brought life to a place that was probably a little bit lifeless.” New York restaurateurs may want to keep the South Bronx on their radars.
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The annual epic donut giveaway is almost here! National Donut Day, also known as “Free Donut Day”, is celebrated on the first Friday in June.
National Donut Day started in 1938 as a fund raiser for The Salvation Army. Their goal was to help those in need during the Great Depression, and to honor The Salvation Army “Lassies” of World War I, who served donuts to soldiers.
Soon after the U.S. entrance into World War I in 1917, The Salvation Army sent a fact-finding mission to France. The mission concluded that the needs of U.S. enlisted men could be met by “huts” that could serve baked goods, provide writing supplies and stamps, and provide a clothes-mending service. Typically, six staff members per hut would include four female volunteers who could “mother” the boys. These huts were established by The Salvation Army in the United States near army training centers.
About 250 Salvation Army volunteers went to France. Because of the difficulties of providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near the front lines, the two Salvation Army volunteers (Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance) came up with the idea of providing donuts. These are reported to have been an “instant hit”, and “soon many soldiers were visiting The Salvation Army huts”.
National Donut Day is celebrated at participating donut seller locations across the country. Some of the Donut Day offerings include:
Entenmann’s: A total of more than 150,000 donuts will be given away in more than a dozen cities around the country, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Louisville, New Haven, New York City, and San Diego
Krispy Kreme: Every customer gets a choice of any free donut on Friday, June 3, no purchase necessary.
Dunkin Donuts: Get one free donut with the purchase of any beverage
Cumberland Farms: Purchase any coffee or fountain drink between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Friday and take your pick of a free donut.
paigepapers.com 