66 - Restaurant Trends for 2018

The changes we are seeing are: Changing / Evolving consumer tastes - looking for new experiences. Workforce management - the skills shortage is will drive significant change as restaurants look to manage their teams better in the face of declining numbers of people choosing hospitality careers. Profitability will be the mega trend for the next 5 years.  More restaurants are saying that it has never been harder to run a profitable restaurant. Profitability is becoming increasingly important with increasing costs in a lot of areas and some tech companies becoming increasingly aggressive in the fees that they are charging.  Culture driven dining will become increasingly important with Restaurants looking for better ways to hire and retain the best staff in order to create the experiences for consumers that they need to create in order to be competitive.  More technology in Restaurants, especially as there is more tech available that is no cost or low cost that can make a big difference for a small business.  Ordering Commoditisation – Menulog, Just Eat, Delivery Hero, Deliveroo and UrbanEats are changing take out and delivery fundamentally and it is creating massive cost pressures for Restaurants.  This will see more restaurants leaving the platforms as well as a consumer backlash as they see decreasing quality from financially struggling restaurants.  Lease Innovation – Restaurants will look for different solutions to the traditional lease.  Looking at different spaces and an increasing in the 'shipping container' kitchen that Deliveroo has pioneered, but with the Restaurants in control of the process.