Uncategorized

Nearly 600 members of the National Restaurant Association joined tourists enjoying Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms to attend the NRA’s 2016 Public Affairs Conference and meet with lawmakers on issues affecting their businesses. The April 12-13 conference included a keynote speech by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a seminar on how advocacy is changing in a digital world, and…

The growth of state tax receipts slowed in the third quarter of 2015, according to data from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, Albany, N.Y. Year-over-year tax-receipt growth for the third quarter rose 3.8% following increases of 6.9% in the second quarter ’15 and 5.1% in the first quarter. What’s more, the Institute expects…

The first-quarter blahs—a feature of the U.S. economy almost every year since the end of the Great Recession—are upon us again this year. Consumer sentiment, as tracked by the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, edged down again in the mid-month reading in April, while eating and drinking place sales fell in March, too. The…

One of the factors that has fueled the growth of foodservice equipment and supplies purchasing during the past year has been dropping food prices at the wholesale level. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Restaurant Association reported another 1.2% decline in March, based on data from the Producer Price Index. It was the…

Roy Hook, Manager of Equipment Development at The Wendy’s Co. and a pioneer in quick-service cooking equipment engineering and design, has retired after 35 years with the chain. Over his career, Hook worked closely with a broad spectrum of foodservice equipment manufacturers and vendors. He invented the Dublin, Ohio, chain’s current hamburger cooking system and…

Longtime member MAFSI member Joseph Byrne, founder of Byrne & Associates, has died. He was 87. Byrne founded his manufacturer’s rep firm in 1970, and remained an active member of MAFSI until his retirement from the Fairfield, Ohio, company in the late 1990s. Survivors include two sons and three stepchildren. Services have been held. In…

Cara Operations Ltd., Canada’s oldest and largest full-service restaurant company, has inked an agreement to acquire Groupe St-Hubert, the Laval, Quebec-based full-service operator and food manufacturer for $414 million. St-Hubert is Canada’s fourth-largest full-service operator. Its businesses include 80 full-service restaurants and 37 express locations. Nearly 90% are operated by franchisees and 92% of its…