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Hestan Commercial debuted last month in Anaheim, Calif., opening its new state-of-the-art 70,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing plant. The company’s “purpose-built” stainless cooking lines include freestanding ranges, island suites, countertop equipment, convection ovens, griddles, char broilers, French tops, hot tops, planchas, salamanders, cheesemelters, fryers, pasta cookers and refrigerated bases. Hestan Commercial partnered with Chef Thomas Keller, founder of…

FEDA might be busy convening in sunny Phoenix this week, but the dealer association has planned ahead for future events. A two-day session on inventory management for distributors will be offered May 7-8 in Chicago. The seminar, produced by Jason Bader and the Distribution Team, aims to shows dealers how to find hidden cash inside…

Tom Walter has joined Whaley Foodservice as the business development manager for the firm’s new Orlando, Fla., location. Walter brings extensive industry knowledge to Whaley; he owned and operated NASS Parts & Service in central Florida for many years before selling the business in 2009 and serving as business development director there until ’12. The…

Chuck Quinn has been appointed director of broadliner and redistribution sales at EveryWare Global. His purview at the Lancaster, Ohio, company includes the Anchor and Oneida brands. Quinn’s resume includes sales and national accounts roles at the Vollrath Co. and Cambro Manufacturing.

Premier Restaurant Equipment, the Minneapolis-based foodservice design and equipment firm, has added industry veteran Jim Palm to its team as director of sales for its new West Coast division. Palm began his career in the foodservice industry 36 years ago at Palm Brothers, the family-owned design and equipment company based in Minneapolis. Palm will be…

One of the realities of the Great Recession and its aftermath were years of negative traffic counts and sluggish sales for full-service restaurants and chains. Traffic counts tracked by The NPD Group were negative or at best flat every quarter compared with the year prior for nearly eight years. Same-store sales tracking from research firms…

Updated restaurant unit data from CHD Expert shows independent operators continue to overwhelmingly dominate the full-service category. Of the 443,000 full-service units tallied by CHD as of February 2015, 90% are defined as independent, defining operator organizations with fewer than 10 units as independents. (Independents sometimes are defined as operators having fewer than five units.)…