Extra Serving: A restaurant industry podcast Nation's Restaurant News

This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches, and Alicia Kelso talked about the state of the financial market in the industry.
While some brands are thriving, there are plenty of others that have been struggling. Many have either declared bankruptcy or are rumored to be. Tijuana Flats and Oberweis Dairy both declared Chapter 11 this week and the rumors behind Red Lobster are strong amid its new CEO. There’s also the Boston Market saga.
Next, the editors talked about the sale of Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Rumors began in December 2023 that the brand could be sold for $2 billion, and that’s just what happened. Blackstone, the private equity company that was rumored to be buying Jersey Mike’s, bought the smoothie chain for that exact amount on Wednesday. This is the first big sale of 2024; are we heading for a big year?
The editors were initially going to talk about the Starbucks Supreme Court case but ran out of time. Here’s a link to an episode of First Bite featuring Joanna Fantozzi, who detailed exactly what the case means for Starbucks and unions at large.
This week’s guest is Skye Anderson, president of global business services at McDonald’s.

This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches, and Bret Thorn spoke about food trends.
Senior food and beverage editor Thorn spoke about the latest food trends at chains and independents. Throughout the week on First Bite, Thorn covered some of the latest trends, including the “swicy” combination and the rise in sauces. The team gets into some other trends on the episode.
Check out the episodes of First Bite here:
·     Adding this to your restaurant menu can boost sales with Gen Z
·     Analyzing the ‘swicy’ trend on restaurant menus
Next, the team talked about how celebrities — and now influencers — are changing the landscape of restaurant marketing. While those partnerships are far from new, it seems like the industry has been hitting the gas. With the influencer economy, such partnerships have become more accessible for smaller brands.
Finally, the team talked about music and restaurants. Applebee’s campaign with Walker Hayes in 2021 was a success and now it seems like Red Lobster is trying to emulate the success, for much less money. Is this low-hanging fruit for the struggling brand, and is it culturally relevant?
This week’s guest is Chris Eichfeld, director of supply chain for District Taco.
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This week on Extra Serving, we have a special episode featuring two women in C-suite restaurant roles that aren’t typically held by women: finance and technology.
There are two interviews with female executives, recorded last month during the Women’s Foodservice Forum Leadership Conference, that cover everything from how they’ve achieved success in their career to mentoring to what it means to be a woman in the industry.
First is a conversation between NRN senior editor Joanna Fantozzi and Kate Jaspon, chief financial officer at Inspire Brands. Jaspon began her career at KPMG LLP, the international financial services corporation, culminating in a role as senior manager, in which she supported both public and private companies as an auditor. There, she worked with Dunkin’ before it was acquired by Inspire Brands. That led her to her position at Dunkin’, where she served as CFO before transitioning to CFO at Inspire Brands after the acquisition in 2020.
Then, NRN executive editor Alicia Kelso spoke with Shannon Garcia, global chief operating and digital & technology officer at Pizza Hut Global. Garcia had experience at Starbucks as the senior vice president of US Business before joining Yum Brands-owned Pizza Hut in 2022. Garcia has a long resume, beginning in 1999 when she began 16 years at casual-dining company Darden. She left that company in 2015 as senior vice president of US Business.
Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

On this week’s episode of Extra Serving, a Nation’s Restaurant News podcast, NRN editors Holly Petre, Bret Thorn, and Joanna Fantozzi spoke about how restaurants are reacting to the introduction of AB 1228 in California.
The bill, which went into effect on April 1, raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour. Several restaurant and franchise groups prepared for the raise by laying off workers — mostly delivery drivers — while others are responding now quietly. People have noticed that chains like Chipotle raised prices in California by over 5% without saying anything. How will customers and the industry react?
Also, restaurant tech seems to be having a tough time. On Wednesday, delivery company Waitr filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after several years of bad decisions and a changing landscape. On the other side of tech, restaurants have been experiencing more and more outages, sometimes because of the myriad programs they use to get by. One of Fantozzi’s predictions for 2024 was a consolidation of restaurant tech, and this week showed that that is happening, or needs to happen.
Plus, NRN’s senior food and beverage editor Thorn gave his thoughts on the new James Beard Awards nomination process.
This week’s guest is Ken Priest, CFO of Rise Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken.

This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Leigh Anne Zinsmeister and Bret Thorn discussed food trends.
NRN’s resident food trend expert, senior food and beverage editor Thorn, talked about what’s going on in drinks, pizza, snacks, and more. He covered what’s hot in the industry now and what you should be looking out for in the R&D pipeline.
Then, the editors talked about McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme’s deal. The fast-food giant officially inked a deal to sell Krispy Kreme donuts in all of its stores starting in 2026. As Krispy Kreme has been shuttering its own units, what does this mean for the donut brand? Will we see other top 10 chains begin to build out their snack offerings with partnerships as well?

This week, on the Extra Serving podcast, a product of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Leigh Anne Zinsmeister, and Alicia Kelso spoke about the slew of female CEOs that were appointed this week. In an industry that’s flooded with white male CEOs, seeing several female leaders in one month is unusual, let alone one week. That’s contrasted with companies like Yum Brands and Starbucks pulling back on DEI goals after threats from conservative groups armed with lawyers. Is this the end of the pipeline for women and people of color in the restaurant industry C-suite?
Next, the editors talked about a blast from the past with the metaverse. Two years ago, you couldn’t read a single story that didn’t mention the metaverse and that’s all but gone away in the past several months. This week, Starbucks announced it would be ending its beta test of Odyssey, signaling the conclusion of the most in-depth metaverse test in the restaurant industry. What’s the new marketing and technology trend now that we’ve moved on from the metaverse?
Finally, the editors talked about wings. Chains like Applebee’s and Popeyes are focusing on their wing offerings, which is no surprise because Americans love wings. But are these larger companies trying to ride on Wingstop’s coattails, or are they trying to compete?
This week’s interview is Marshall Scarborough, Bojangles’ vice president of menu and culinary innovation.