Here are the featured articles and editorial content in the March 2008 issue of Restaurant Startup & Growth magazine.

RestaurantOwner.com members have access to these articles in the RS&G Archive department on RestaurantOwner.com.

FEATURES

Why Can't They Be Like We Were?
How to Manage Your Younger Employees in Your Startup
ByPatricia Luebke
The restaurant business depends on younger employees, whose attitudes and work ethics may be different from yours. Trying to shape them in your image might only lead to frustration and poor communication. In this article, the author discusses how twentysomethings are different from the generations that came before them, and how you can leverage that difference to make them effective employees for your restaurant.

Measurable Improvement
Using ‘RevPASH’ to Gauge Your Startup Dining Room’s Performance
by Stephani Robson
Some days it may feel like you are drowning in paper and numbers, and that you are measuring and evaluating everything you possibly can in your operation. But are you measuring how well your dining room is working? No, not your servers, but the design of the dining room itself? If you aren’t, you could literally be leaving money on a lot of tables.

A New Look
How to Determine if Your Restaurant Needs a Makeover and Where You Should Start
by Phyllis Ann Marshall
In the parlance of personal cosmetics, restaurateurs often change their restaurants’ “hairstyle, makeup or clothes” in hopes of avoiding major cosmetic surgery. Sometimes, however, a haircut and new suit won’t do the trick. At that point, owners need to consider something more comprehensive. Do you need a major image overhaul and, if so, how do you achieve it?

DEPARTMENTS

Opening Remarks
by Barry K. Shuster
Back When I Was a Boy – The editor did not have to walk 10 miles in the snow to get to school but his first PC had only a 20-megabyte hard drive. (In those days, folks just learned to get by with limited data storage. Those were simpler times.) In this curmudgeonly diatribe, he contemplates the generation gap from the other side.

Insights
by Patricia Luebke
Restaurant research and surveys, operators in the news, friendly advice from your peers, and other interesting and useful tidbits in our monthly appetizer of helpful information.

Equipment Notes
by Howard Reill
How Do I Love Thee – Holding cabinets ask so little and give so much. In this holding cabinet primer for startups, the author explains their function in the restaurant kitchen, and how to select and care for them.

First Impressions
by Jay Goldstein
Little Fish in a Big Pond – Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but it is not a wise business strategy to follow in the QSR segment of the restaurant industry. In some cases, little fish actually could do a better job, but they found out that imitating the Big Fish did nothing for creating their own identity or building their brand and brand image. In this article, we look at how an independent quick-service concept can compete on its own terms with the Big Fish.

Chef Training
by Nicole Fabian and Wendy Gillett
Mutual Appreciation, Communications and Systems: How to Keep Peace Between the Front and Back of the House – You may remember having to walk on eggshells with a certain chef who hated substitutions and always wanted things done his way, which is not atypical. What the chef did not understand is that he or she, more than anyone else, was dictating the customer service standard for the entire restaurant. The authors discuss how to get your front and back of the house to work with, not against, each other.

New Products and Services
A description of useful gear and services for your restaurant, and how they can benefit your operations.

What Our Readers are Building, Buying and Remodeling
by Diane Lambdin Meyer
This month we visit Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a startup restaurateur converts space that originally housed a chain drug store into a trendy dining establishment.

RecipeMapping
by Joe Erickson
RecipeMapping is a three-step process that allows you to add new items to the menu consistently, methodically and profitably. This month, we help you offer your guests Salvadorian Beach Tacos and Caldo de Pollo without losing your way or your shirt.

Points of Origin
by Doug Turner
A bird's-eye view of both the number and the geographic distribution of the nation's new restaurants.

Showtime
by Gene Gentrup
Your best ideas might be waiting for you at trade shows staged across the country.

Last Seating
by Chef J. Arthur Gordon
Go Boldly – A “BOLD” acronym to help keep your managers on track, when you aren’t looking over their shoulders.

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