Nation's Restaurant News' Breakout Brands report showcases emerging restaurant chains ready to go to the next leve. Meet all of this year's brands>>
Nation’s Restaurant News is well known for our coverage of large chains, but we spend a lot of time reporting and researching up-and-coming brands.
These emerging restaurants can be tough to track down. You need to find the buzz and make sure the hype is worth it. We’re lucky to have an editorial team that is both very experienced and well positioned across the country to find those restaurants.
During an era of soundbites and clickbait, NRN is all about real information. Our editors are always out in the field, visiting restaurants, operators and industry conferences. We are on earnings calls so we can understand the tone of the call and what it suggests about the company performance and strategy.
This issue, we are focusing on our annual selection of Breakout Brands, small restaurants that you should know about. A lot of these we found from our own experiences.
Our senior managing editor, Christi Ravneberg, is based in Los Angeles and has been keeping an eye on HomeState, a restaurant that makes Texas-style Mexican food and now has plans to expand. She can confirm that the breakfast tacos are the real deal.
The restaurant Ippudo has been making headlines because of the Panda Restaurant Group investment, but before that, the ramen shop was an East Village staple. I remember going there during the Super Bowl once so I could enjoy a meal without the crowd.
Take a close look at all of these Breakout Brands. There is something to learn here. Hot Chicken Takeover is a brand with a mission; Clover Food Lab taps into vegetarian food that’s appealing to meat eaters; Cauldron ups the ante on liquid nitrogen ice cream with a creative, Instagrammable cone; and Choice Market straddles segments — part grocery, part convenience store, part restaurant.
Breakout Brands is special feature, but NRN highlights emerging restaurants in every issue and regularly online. For more than 50 years, we’ve been committed to looking across the entire industry to spot trends and find what’s next.
One place to always look for new restaurants is our Concepts section of the magazine.
For this issue, our assistant editor Joanna Fantozzi donned a hard hat and headed on over to Hudson Yards in New York, the largest private real estate concept in American history with 25 food options from such big-name chefs as Thomas Keller, David Chang and José Andrés.
This project is significant not just because of its scale; the real estate developer behind it snagged Ron Parker, the former COO of Union Square Hospitality Group, as CEO of Related Restaurant Group, its new restaurant-focused division. The group is committed to expanding and investing restaurants across the country, the company said.
“The group is still in its infancy stage, and we’re going to figure it out as we go,” said Parker in February, adding that it’s too early to give more detail about expansion and investment plans.
We’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.
Contact Jenna Telesca at [email protected]
Follow her on Twitter: @JennaTelesca