Beverage

Restaurant operators in the United States have one thing on their minds: Labor. Low unemployment rates, immigration restrictions, changes to overtime pay and rising minimum wages have made it hard to hire great staff. 

Retaining good employees is the biggest challenge for 80% of operators, according to Technomic’s May 2019 Foodservice State of the Industry report. Recruitment’s a close second, with 76% naming it as a problem.

One solution to this persistent challenge is investing in equipment upgrades — not to replace the staff you don’t have, but to assist the staff you do have.

Healthy milkshake? It sounds like an oxymoron. But that’s exactly what Subway offered in summer 2019 with an exclusive partnership with Halo Top Creamery: a line of hand-spun milkshakes that customers could feel good about ordering. The shakes, each with 350 calories or less, contain at least 20 grams of protein and a hefty helping of calcium.

The Halo Top milkshakes were a limited-time offering, tested in just 1,000 stores. The jury’s still out on whether the chain will make them a permanent addition to the menu — but in the meantime, we’re seeing a growing interest in milkshakes among fast-casual and QSR restaurant operators. They’re a high-dollar menu item with universal appeal, both as a meal add-on and a snack for the in-between dayparts.

Hamilton Beach Commercial dives deep into global milkshake trends: novel flavors, vegan shakes, fresh presentations and alcoholic kicks.

When shopping for commercial blenders, most restaurant operators zoom in on three numbers: horsepower, capacity, and price. Those numbers are important… but they don’t entirely address the needs of your business. To ensure you’re buying the right model, look a little closer. The best commercial blenders on the market have these six features in common.

You know the old saying, “only the best will do”? For budget-conscious restaurant owners, that’s not always true. If you haven’t blended a dozen margaritas back to back since the weekend of the Parrothead convention, then you may not need to invest in the best commercial blender on the market.

Here at Hamilton Beach Commercial, our high-performance blenders are the stars of our product line. These machines are built for maximum efficiency, power and consistency. They can create a flawless drink profile in seconds, and are built to last for many years in a high-volume commercial kitchen.

But if frozen drinks and smoothies aren’t a core menu item, then you may be able to get away with a more affordable, less powerful bar blender. They’re workhorses too! Here are five things to consider when you’re making a blender buying decision. 

The grocery business is facing an identity crisis. As the rising popularity of pick-up/delivery services and limited-selection format stores makes clear, customers prefer to spend as little time as possible shopping for groceries. The Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen now predict that within five to seven years, 70 percent of shoppers will buy their groceries online. 

This trend is countered by fresh-format stores, which have transformed the once-mundane grocery run into an enjoyable exploration. They offer prepared foods, wine bars, samples, cooking demonstrations, classes, and other upgrades tailored to individual shoppers’ tastes. One profitable example is the in-house juice bar — but is it right for your store? First, consider these four questions.

Who doesn’t love a pop-up cocktail bar? They build buzz. They boost sales during slow days or seasons. And, with themes as diverse as Christmas and cherry blossoms, they’re fun and endlessly inventive.  

But they’re not easy to execute successfully. Just ask cocktail chef Matthew Biancaniello, founder of Eat Your Drink and “LA’s most inventive barman,” as Eater LA has dubbed him. We asked Biancaniello what he’s learned in five years of running innovative pop-ups and bar residencies — here’s what he told us.

People never seem to lose their thirst for smoothies. The global smoothie market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.8% until 2023, according to Mordor Intelligence, driven by the demand for healthy, quick meal replacements. 

On the surface, a smoothie seems like the easiest possible addition to a café menu. Fruit, ice, blend, pour. Right? Not quite. There’s an art to making smoothies that will win over customers and keep them coming back for more.

Hamilton Beach Commercial has been in the juicing business since 1932, when we first introduced the iconic 932 manual citrus juicer. So when we began designing otto™ the Juice Extractor, the newest addition to the FreshMark™ family of commercial juicers, we had a lofty goal: to build the best centrifugal juicer out there.

Achieving the ideal balance of speed, durability, flavor and yield was a formidable challenge. Based on feedback from our partners in the field, our engineers have spent more than two years fine-tuning components of otto. “This is the most testing we’ve ever done on a product,” observes Karen Williams-Roman, Global Commercial Product Manager for Hamilton Beach Commercial. Here’s what we looked at — and what you should consider when you’re investing in a commercial juice extractor.

Alcohol has long been used as a flavoring in ice cream, but eating a quart of rum raisin never got anyone buzzed.

Until now.

Enter the ice cream “barlour” — an ice cream shop that serves spiked scoops.

From an operator’s perspective, the boozy ice-cream trend is attractive for several reasons. One, the check sizes — $12 to $15 for some popular chains, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Two, it offers multiple streams of revenue: catering weddings and company parties, selling pints to go, and online ordering/delivery, where local laws allow. Three, alcoholic ice cream melds well with other concepts, such as coffee, milkshakes and dessert cafés.

The first question people ask: “Will this ice cream get me drunk?”  The answer is typically no, although a four-ounce serving of 5% ABV ice cream may produce a modest buzz.

You can make it decadent or elegant. Low-cal or super-rich. Sweet or savory. Any way you whip it, cheese tea is delicious. 

Consumers in China, Japan and other Asian nations have been enjoying this frothy, fun drink for years — even waiting hours in line just to try it. Back in 2017, The Washington Post was calling it “the latest Instagram-worthy food trend.” While cheese tea hasn’t quite hit the mainstream in the United States, more tea shops are beginning to offer it. Let’s take a closer look at the cheese-tea trend.