By: Nicco Muratore Tastes, purchasing and consuming habits, cooking methods, and customer expectations; they’re all changing. The farm-to-table trend is a growing trend and for some, it’s a demand when cooking at home or eating out. Dan Barber’s book, The Third Plate, Field Notes on the Future of Food, reflects on the history of thriving […]
By Christopher Muller A conversation between Mr. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, and Dr. Christopher Muller during the September 2011 12th annual European Food Service Summit in Zurich, Switzerland (edited 2014). [Muller]: So we get to just have a conversation. Can we talk about Starbucks and social responsibility, the leadership of how you drive not […]
By Bradford Hudson A popular cultural narrative suggests that hospitality chains are a product of modern America. Although it seems clear that multi-unit hotel and restaurant brands proliferated in the United States during the twentieth century, historical research demonstrates that the phenomenon is actually much older. The origins of hospitality chains can be traced back […]
By Bradford Hudson Three decades ago, American industry was obsessed with quality management. Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman helped create the enthusiasm during this era with their best-selling book In Search of Excellence. Although the subsequent quality movement was quite successful in the manufacturing sector, it has been less successful in services. Indeed, there is […]
By: Christopher Muller What is unique about being a designer and also an artist is that you are always composing and designing. It’s like breathing. It’s inherent. It’s like musicians who are always humming when they walk down the street and don’t even know they are doing it.-Morris Nathanson For more than a half century, […]
By Bradford Hudson Brand heritage is an emerging topic within the marketing discipline, which suggests that the consumer appeal of products and services offered by older companies may be enhanced by the historical characters of their brands. The partially shared nomenclature with the well-established field of heritage tourism is more than coincidental, as both concern […]
By Peter Szende The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations – also known variably as the Great Exhibition, the Crystal Palace Exhibition, or the World’s Fair – occurred in London during 1851. This established the standard for industrial and cultural exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States during the next century. […]
By Christopher Muller Hospitality : n. friendly and generous reception of guests or strangers, or of new ideas. –The Concise Oxford Dictionary The idea of hospitality is evident in several types of human behavior including obligatory duties, commercial activity, and prosocial action. These are intertwined and revolve around the commitment to caring for others whether […]
By Zoe Ho The hospitality industry has no shortage of women entering the business, but senior management positions seem to be dominated by men, especially general managers at major hotel properties. Although the proportions have probably improved over time, two academic studies by Robert Woods and his colleagues a decade ago indicated that fewer than […]
By Christopher Muller Restaurants are considerably more sophisticated as manufacturing and service delivery systems than most uninitiated observers and users may recognize. Dining in a restaurant, whether one is served at the venerable Union Oyster House in Boston or at the window of a new food truck in Portland, requires a contextualized understanding of procedures. […]