Food

The days of plain roller dogs and two pots of coffee are over. In the realm of food and beverages, convenience stores can no longer stick to the tried and true.

For millennials, especially, it's all about customization, says Joe Chiovera, principal at XS Foodservice & Marketing Solutions and a 19-year c-store veteran: "It's not only in the ingredients, it's when I want it and how I want it." Toasted, pressed, cold, in a bowl, in a burrito or bunless? Young customers are accustomed to having options.

Here's what convenience store companies need to know about adding customized beverage and food offerings. 

Fried chicken. Meatball sandwiches. Country-fried steak.

Those are just a few of the hospital food offerings the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) found in a 2011 study. Dietitians surveyed more than 110 hospitals and found an abundance of fast-food outlets as well as cafeteria and patient menus "dominated by foods high in fat, cholesterol, calories, sugar, and sodium."

The findings didn't surprise Susan Levin, PCRM's director of nutrition education, but she believes hospitals have a duty to do better. Most people are hospitalized because of a chronic illness brought on by poor diet or lifestyle choices, she points out, so why not take the opportunity to teach them how to eat right?

We spoke with two innovators in healthcare foodservice who won awards for doing just that. Drew Patterson is culinary director of Ohio State University’s 1400-bed Wexner Medical Center, which won Best Wellness Concept from Food Management in 2015 for its Michael D. Bloch Café. Dan Henroid is director of Nutrition & Food Services at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center (UCSFMC), which won Best in Show. Here are some of their best practices for hospital foodservice.

It's fresh. It's made to order. And it's everywhere. From 2010 to 2015, according to Technomic, the number of fast-casual restaurants in the United States has grown 41 percent to nearly 23,000. Traditional fast-food locations grew just 5 percent in the same period, although they vastly outnumber fast casual spots.

The Oxford English Dictionary even added "fast-casual" to its online edition in 2015, along with dozens of other slang words, which means the term is widely used in the English language. But we probably won't be saying "awesomesauce" in five years; will we still be eating at fast-casual restaurants? Here's a peek at restaurant trends that experts say will shape the future of fast casual. 

When you call famed Pasadena diner Pie 'N Burger, owner Michael Osborn answers the phone. "I've been here pretty much in the front of the house for over 42 years," he says.

Founded in 1963, Pie 'N Burger is a tiny spot — five tables, 25 counter seats and an open kitchen — on East California Boulevard. Osborn began working for the restaurant in 1972, when he was a pre-dental major at the University of Southern California. "I knew I didn't want to be a dentist," he says. "Beyond that, I didn't know what I wanted to do." The answer, he discovered, was running Pie 'N Burger. Over the years, he gradually took over the business from its original owners and eventually purchased it outright.

The restaurant has thrived since then. Instead of remaining just a quaint local institution, Pie 'N Burger has become nationally known through an appearance on The Travel Channel’s "Burger Land." It's Zagat-rated and consistently wins awards for its food.

(Photo Credit: Pie 'N Burger- For 35 years, Pie 'N Burger's burgers have been made using an old family recipe and prime, freshly ground beef from the same small butcher shop.)

Chefs (and everyone else) have long known that the aroma and appearance of a dish profoundly influence how it will taste. But now the new science of neurogastronomy indicates that the sounds in the spaces where food is served also influence taste.

Not all that long ago, conventional wisdom said the best Mexican food could be found only near the border, in Texas, Arizona or California. Then chefs around the country began stretching the definition of fine Mexican dining. 

The move to a greener operating style is paying off for restaurants of all sizes. Fully 79 percent of consumers prefer dining at certified green restaurants, according to the Green Restaurant Association. "Consumers are a lot more educated now than they used to be," says Michael Oshman, founder of the association. And going green, he says, helps solve two perennial challenges for restaurants: "How can I save money, and how can I bring customers in?"

Beautiful, delicate pintxos—a type of tapas from Spain's Basque region—with olives, cucumbers, anchovies (right).

In Asian nations, there's a big appetite for small plates. Tapas culture—the sharing of dishes among groups of friends—has close ties to the dining culture in China and other Asian nations, making it a natural fit, says Miguel Utque, vice president of the recently formed Spanish Chefs' Association in Asia.