Quick service restaurants (QSR) are experimenting with next-gen concepts as consumers increasingly prioritize convenience, value, and experience and as business demands new models to address rising labor and food costs. This week, we showcase three concepts by Raising Cane’s, Whataburger, and McDonald’s. Each location differs…
Gangnam Market, Chicago’s highly anticipated “American-Asian hybrid” grocery store, fully opened its doors in early December – bringing with it a full supermarket, food court, and bar to the city’s River West neighborhood. Named after the same South Korean district that garnered worldwide recognition from…
McDonald’s officially opened the first-of-its-kind spinoff concept CosMc’s (pronounced “cosmics”) this week in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, IL. Named after an alien mascot used in McDonald’s advertising in the 1980’s, CosMc’s is a small-format, beverage-led concept that offers bold, customizable drinks and tasty snacks…
Understandably, the retail food industry has been consumed with responding to current events. With a global pandemic rocking the market, we have seen an unprecedented impact on the retail industry in general and the food industry in particular. For years, I have focused on the…
Like many, I first want to say how proud I am to be associated with the retail food industry. The efforts on the part of everyone in the industry to keep stores in stock, associates safe and customers served as best as possible is nothing…
A long wait is not the typical experience at Starbucks. But waiting is part of the journey at Starbucks’ newest Roastery on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. On a recent Friday – nearly three weeks after the Roastery opened – lattes were delivered six minutes after they…
As I’ve written several times before, there are multiple reasons why the grocery category is well under-penetrated relative to other e-commerce categories. Multi-temperature products, awkwardly sized and shaped products, product and SKU proliferation, delivery challenges, combined with razor-thin margins have kept e-commerce penetration today to…
Adding foodservice to a retail environment is hardly new. Department stores have married retail and restaurants for well over a century and drugstores routinely had soda fountains. Brands like Ikea have become almost as well known for their meatballs as their dressers and have contemplated having…
Beyond Meat and other plant-based substitutes have made placement in or near the fresh meat case a major part of their marketing message, so much so that Beyond Meat’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission point out that proximity to the meat case has…
Grocery Outlet, the extreme value grocery chain you have likely never heard of, made its debut as a public company today and provided insight into the discount grocery business. While ALDI and Lidl receive endless news coverage, Grocery Outlet has flown somewhat under the radar….
