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.