Blog posts tagged with 'restaurants'

One of the things I love about TED Talks is they allow us to step outside our everyday working lives and learn from others experiences. Often times, doing this can cause light bulb moments that can be translated and applied back to your business. Check out these two TED Talks from chefs that change the way you think about food and waste.

1) Chef Dan Barber: How I Fell in Love with a Fish

For the past 50 years we've been farming the sea like we were clear cutting forests. Chef Dan Brown thought he was lending to the sustainability movement by cooking a fish he felt good about selling. A fish that was farm-raised to the supposed highest standards of sustainability. But upon doing further innocent questioning, Chef Barber fell out of love with said fish. Until he happened upon another fish. A different fish, first experienced by him in the South of Spain and despite being really overdone was still amazingly delicious. Chef Barber talks with humour about his love affair with only two fish in his lifetime and the future of good food. He definitely provides food for thought.

2) Arthur Potts Dawson: A vision for sustainable restaurants

Chef Arthur Potts-Dawson shares an interesting perspective about his personal vision for drastically reducing restaurant waste; an industry he argues is one of the most wasteful industries in the world – creating recycling, composting, sustainable engines for good food. Chef Potts-Dawson details how he’s managed to create a restaurant that minimizes waste by some innovative tactics as well as time tested ones. Once he got that restaurant off the ground he decided to play with an idea of creating a restaurant that has a no-carbon footprint which he’s accomplished quite well. He’s now extending his quest to create The People’s Supermarket – all in the name of getting food out to a broader spectrum of people and connecting communities in London, England to rural growers. Chef Potts-Dawson quite humbly shares how environmentally conscious businesses are not only doable but profitable in a quest to be more responsible in this world.

With any company dealing in the foodservice industry – whether it be catering, banquet halls, golf courses, restaurants trying different plating options, hotels with meeting space or party rental companies – picking the right platters for food presentation is important. You want to ensure you’re presenting aesthetically pleasing food while ensuring your inventory / material costs for the platters doesn’t affect your bottom line. Add in the breakage, potential stacking or transporting issues and it can be a bit overwhelming.

This article presents an easy to view list of the pros and cons of melamine platters vs. porcelain platters.

Melamine Platters:

• Durable
• Break resistant
• Can scratch with use of sharp objects on the surface (like knives)
• Commercial dishwasher safe
• Lightweight
• Can withstand temperatures from 32°F to 220°F (0°C to 120°C) – ruling out baking / food preparation in them
• Non-microwavable
• Potential long term health risks (jury still out)
• Easy to stack
• More expensive to purchase due to material cost

Porcelain Platters:

• Durable
• Breakage occurs more frequently due to the nature of the material
• Scratch resistant
• Commercial dishwasher safe
• Heavy in comparison to melamine
• Oven safe to 400°F
• Microwave safe (unless porcelain contains metal detailing)
• Can become cumbersome to stack
• Less expensive to purchase than Melamine
• Can look better longer

As you can see, porcelain platters and melamine platters both have their place at a buffet or party; neither one can be ruled out as “better” than the other – it generally comes down to how the purchaser plans to utilize the platter and personal preference.

Restaurant critiquing can be thought of as a profession of duality: the dream profession for everyday diners in love with food and a profession that incites anxiety, boasting, tears of joy and tears of happiness for restaurateurs. Part of being a notable restaurant critic means remaining anonymous to ensure their readers get the same dining experience. With so much cloak-and-dagger antics, the world of restaurant critics is riddled with more questions than answers. What is ideal service? How does a restaurant critic choose the restaurants to review? How does one go about assigning stars or ratings to the restaurant? It’s enough to make any restaurateur overwhelmed.

New York Times released a fascinating video series interviewing 5 of their past and present restaurant critics to get a behind the scenes look at what goes into creating a review, what a restaurant can expect when being reviewed and the tactics used to produce said review.

Check out the full video series here.

It goes without saying that the makings of a good restaurant is one that is consistent, has kind, hospitable and prompt service, and produces great food. Behind the scenes, an efficient restaurant is one that is able to partner with a restaurant supplier of dishes, cutlery, and stemware able to quickly and effectively meet your equipment needs while providing you great value – so you can focus on creating culinary masterpieces to make revenue. National Event Supply would like to be that restaurant supplier partner for you. Check out our Tabletop Catalogue for more details on our porcelain dinnerware lines, platters and bowls and cutlery.

I hate to break it to you – but social media is alive and thriving – and won’t be going away. Here at National Event Supply, we use social media to share industry articles of interest to our followers, announce new products such as our new line of linens, and connect with our followers to understand more about them and their businesses.

With shifting demographics happening across the country, restaurants are being forced to re-look at their business and marketing strategy. Canadian Foodservice & Hospitality Magazine noted in their 2013 Hospitality report that “while baby boomers represent a significant portion of restaurant sales at 26 per cent, millennials, in fact, represent 28 per cent of all restaurant meals consumed, NPD [Group]’s [Robert] Carter says. ‘A lot more operators are targeting that [group], because it’s the largest cohort next to boomers.’” With social media playing right into the wheelhouse of those millennials, as a restaurant, including your establishment on strategic social media platforms that consumers are using right now – ensures that you’re putting your best foot forward and getting found where consumers are looking for you.

We found an infographic on Visual.ly by digitaldining.com that summarizes 10 ways restaurants are using social media. The helpful infographic indicates which tactic is being used on which social media platform. Check it out below!

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Well we’re at the end of 2013 and what better way to reflect than with a roundup of the top 10 posts from the National Event Supply Blog. Since January, we’ve produced almost 140 posts chock full of new products, education, industry news, insider knowledge, plus a chuckle or two. To ensure you haven’t missed anything, check out the most popular blog posts (most viewed by all of you) of 2013:

10) 3 Reasons to Invest in Square Dinnerware

Porcelain Dinnerware can be a tough nut to crack. Sure, you have great round plates that rent reasonably well, but so do a lot of your competitors. What you need is something that will catch your customer's eye, something that not all of your competitors have, and something that can make a statement on a tabletop. What you need is Square Dinnerware! With that said, here are three reasons why you should consider investing in square dinnerware.

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9) 6 New Pieces of Porcelain

Spring shipments continue to arrive at National Event Supply. Recently we took delivery of a container of porcelain from our factory. In addition to the Quadrato Dessert Plates, the 10 inch and 12 inch Risotto Bowls, and several sizes of rectangular platters, we took delivery of 6 new pieces of porcelain that we’ve been eagerly awaiting since January of this year. Check out the 6 new pieces of porcelain added to the inventory roster.

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8) Now Arriving: Resin Chiavari Chairs at our Toronto Warehouse

We know we’ve been talking about summer for a while here at National Event Supply, but can you blame us? Summer is filled with sunshine, nights spent sipping drinks on the patio enjoying a cool summer’s breeze, and spending weekends at a friend’s cabin on a lake. Summer is all about the outdoor event, and although the spring buying season is winding down, we’re still receiving new products and new stock at our Vancouver and Toronto warehouses. We just received new stock of the Resin Chiavari chairs.

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7) Top 5 Restaurant Dinnerware Manufacturers

If you have ever considered purchasing porcelain for your restaurant, banquet hall, party rental, convention centre, golf course, or maybe even your house, you have probably considered purchasing from at least one of these five companies. They all offer an incredible selection of durable, commercial-quality, porcelain products and they likely have a local distributor in your area. See why these are North American leaders in Restaurant Dinnerware Supply.

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6) New Products: Small Amuse Bouche Spoon & Fork

New Product Spring 2013 continues here at National Event Supply. So far this spring, we’ve introduced our New Folding Pedestal Table, our new wood Serpentine Tables, our new Wood 60inch Half-Moon tables, our new Wood Harvest Tables, and our new Polar White Dinnerware. The products just keep coming as containers arrive at our facilities in Vancouver and Toronto. And we’re still not done. We have new colours of Plastic Folding Chairs coming including Wedding White on White, Royal Blue on Grey and Black on Grey. Finally, we have some new Natural Wood Folding Chairs on order. Recently we took delivery of some cutlery that we had eagerly been awaiting.

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5) New Chair – Natural Wood Folding Chair

For some time now, we have been looking for a natural wood coloured resin folding chair. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to create a beautiful looking natural wood colour chair in resin. The colours just don’t look right, and it can end up looking tacky and not up to our demanding standards. But our customers were demanding a Natural Wood Coloured Folding Chair, and so we decided that the only thing to do was to go and find a Natural Wood Folding Chair. It took a little time to find one we liked, but early last winter we found one. Today, I’m happy to formally announce our New NES Natural Wood Folding Chair.

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4) National Event Supply in Vancouver

As one of Canada’s leading Party Rental suppliers, we try to make sure that we have sales representation from coast to coast across Canada. To help us with sales representation we signed a strategic sales agreement with AE Sales Group 2 years ago which gives us sales coverage in western Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwest Ontario) and with their partner Certified Sales we also get coverage for the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and PEI. Every few months I get the chance to travel with one of the AE Sales team members to do some joint customer calls in various locations across Canada. This past week I was once again in Vancouver, this time so that we could exhibit at the BC Foodservice Expo at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Since I was already in town I thought this was also a great opportunity to meet a few of our customers.

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3) The BC PST, New Plastic Folding Chairs and White Resin Folding Chairs

It's hard to believe, but 2013 is now 1/3 over. All across Canada, snow is melting, grass is growing, trees are budding, and everyone is getting ready for the busy summer season. We're in the middle of our busy spring season. New products and stock are arriving every week and orders are going out our doors just as fast. Although we try to keep things in stock, sometimes we run out of chairs in a certain colour, or we run low on tables. It's always better to get your orders in early to avoid disappointing your customers. We detail the new products in the Toronto and Vancouver warehouses and the return of the BC PST.

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2) NES Introduces New Plywood Folding Tables

Over the past few years we have seen increasing success with our NES Wood Folding Tables. As it is with most things, sales started slowly as people initially discovered that we had started stocking plywood folding tables. Sales continued increasing as people took a closer look at our product and discovered that we were selling a quality plywood table. As sales increased, we started getting requests from customers looking for plywood tables in other sizes. Up until recently, we were stocking 3/4″ inch plywood folding tables in the following sizes in our Toronto, Vancouver, and Indianapolis warehouses: 4-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 6-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 8-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 48 inch Round Tables, 60 inch Round Tables, and 72 inch Round Tables. Now, just in time for the busy spring season, we are pleased to announce that we have added a wide range of new wood tables to our inventory. Effective immediately, we are proud to offer the following plywood tables to our customers.

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1) New Products in Vancouver – Cruiser Tables in Toronto

Spring continues to roll on here at National Event Supply. We received containers at both our Vancouver and Toronto warehouses and in each case they brought us products that we didn’t have in stock. At our Toronto Warehouse, we received a shipment of wood cruiser tables, and at our Vancouver location we received three new wood tables: NES Wood Serpentine Folding Tables, 5-ft NES Wood Half-Moon Folding Tables, and 8-ft NES Wood Folding Harvest Tables.

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