Idea Articles

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The Week in Ideas, February 3, 2012
A restaurant incubator grows in Dallas. Honesty is the best idea at Wendy’s. Another startup makes it easy for restaurants to give to the needy. And more from The Week in Ideas.
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The Week in Ideas, January 27, 2012
A very cool idea this week from a startup service that both helps customers eat less and feeds the needy. McDonald’s Australia has an idea to surprise would-be Hamburglars. And in New York City the unthinkable happens: Chinese takeout… changes. It’s the first sign of the apocalypse in this installment of The Week in Ideas.
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The Week in Ideas, January 20, 2012
Wow, a week of bad ideas, people. Leading with a perv in Virginia. Leading to a numb-skull brunch promotion. And finishing with some unsanitary conditions at McDonald’s. A nation turns its lonely eyes to next week.
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The Week in Ideas, January 16, 2012
Indianapolis generates some ideas in anticipation of the Super Bowl. Pizza gets sexy. Some New York City restaurants start calling themselves supermarkets. An Oregon restaurant comes up with a unique funding stream. And, Luke, come to the Dark Side of the bun.
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The Week in Ideas, January 5, 2012
Sometimes an idea is more than an idea. Sometimes it captures the feeling of a nation. One restaurant in New Hampshire has captured that idea in this installment of The Week in Ideas.
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Prank at the drive thru
Adrive-thru attendant’s job is fairly simple: take orders, make change, pour drinks, double check orders, be the face of the brand for an instant. Now cell phone cameras are adding another responsibility: straight man for the amateur prankster. The drive thru has become an open mic for all variety of jokester: the funny-voice guy, the singer, the coner (see glossary), the guy (they are invariably men) who thinks it’s funny to confuse drive thru attendants. Do a YouTube search and bask in the bounty.
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The Week in Ideas, December 30, 2011
This week New England restaurants team up in two cities to help cut calories and drunk driving. White Castle might just replace its reputation as a destination for stoners. There’s a fight with a health inspector. And a thank you from a Chinese restaurant.
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The Week in Ideas, December 16, 2011
This week McDonald’s answers the question with a “yes, we do actually use potatoes in our French fries.” Chick-fil-A is back in the news and not for good reason. An idea for crowdsourcing restaurant ideas. And a holiday spirit-type idea from an awesome restaurant in Illinois.
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The Week in Ideas, December 9, 2011
First restaurants ban kids, now they ban mob wives. Where will it end!? Also this week: patrons spill their wine while blind dining. We realize once again that thieves will take anything from a restaurant. And in Oakland, a restaurant lets anybody be the chef.
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The Week in Ideas, December 2, 2011
In this installment of Week in Ideas, McDonald’s pulls a fast one on San Francisco, fish get the bar code treatment, babies get charged for just being babies and a desperate Austin restaurateur decides to live on the roof of his restaurant. “It’s a desperate measure,” he says, stating the obvious.
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Hyper-local marketing
In the industry’s collective embrace of the latest social media marketing tools and tricks, a marketer would be forgiven—but not rewarded—for ignoring what is still the most potent tool in his arsenal: the brick-and-mortar opportunities of promoting to flesh-and-blood employees, existing customers and neighbors. Hyper-local isn’t just a new food trend, it’s a tried-and-true marketing strategy and you ignore it at your peril.
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Chipotle’s bold new marketing plan
Two years ago Chipotle saw a marketing opportunity in the mainstreaming of issues surrounding sustainability, animal welfare and, generally, where food came from, all issues the chain was founded on. This opportunity, however, brought with it a unique challenge: to tout Chipotle’s commitment to sustainability, family farming and animal welfare, it had to first help educate the public that there was a problem these programs were helping to fix.
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