Those crystal ball projections that said sales in the full-service portion of the industry would top $277 billion this year appear to be on track. And in July, almost 60 percent of our readers told us their sales were ahead of the previous year.
Another positive sign from our readers: More than half of you have plans to open a new restaurant within the next 12 months. Growth is good! And to that end, you’ll see FSR growing and evolving as well.
We’ll be increasing our frequency to eight issues in 2014 and we’re upping the ante online as well. FS Insider, our e-newsletter that covers all aspects of restaurant operations, will increase in frequency from two times a week to three times. We’re also introducing two new e-newsletters—one to report Beverage News & Trends and another about Restaurant Technology. As always, all of our media are free to those of you in the restaurant industry; simply visit fsrmagazine.com to subscribe.
Of course, we are asking you to spend your most valuable resource on FSR: your time.
What speaks most to the success of our first year is the time that you share with us—84 percent of our readers are executive leaders in restaurant operations or executive chefs. Busy doesn’t begin to describe your lives. So when leading chefs like Stephanie Izard, Daniel Boulud, and José Andrés (coming in the January issue) agree to interviews and photo sessions for FSR, and chief executives at leading chain restaurants take time to talk with us, it tells us we’re giving you something of value.
That’s what we strive to do in every issue, with every story—and the Buyer’s Guide in this issue assembles products from across all aspects of restaurant operations in hopes of having a little something for everyone that will help inform your purchasing plans for 2014. This should be a useful resource because, as best we can tell, restaurant spending is not slowing down. Our July readership survey revealed that 38 percent of you have food and beverage budgets of $5 million or greater. And at the beginning of September, the National Restaurant Association reported 53 percent of restaurants had made a capital expenditure in the three months prior while 45 percent of restaurants planned to make a capital expenditure within the next six months.
Who knows, perhaps you’ll be like the owners of Cask & Larder—featured in this issue’s One Year In profile—and decide to invest in an in-house craft brewery. However you choose to spend your resources, here’s hoping you continue to make time for FSR.
Cheers,
Connie
