5 ways to design your restaurant for pickup and delivery success

From a well-thought-out labeling system to the placement of the food pickup area inside your restaurant, there are many ways to design for efficient and accurate pickup and delivery service. Here are a few snippets of the advice Starr Design Chief…


starr featured in foodservice equipment & supplies magazine

Among other industry experts, Steve Starr contributed to the featured article “Front & Center” for the November 2022 issue of FoodService Equipment & Supplies magazine about how important Open Kitchen and Food Theater is in…


big changes in fast-casual

The pandemic, great resignation and eminent recession has brought a wave of change in all segments of the restaurant industry. The biggest market shift seems to be the rise in off-premise business (e.g. catering, take-out, delivery).  At one point…


Yum Brands Owner of KFC

how to survive the labor shortage

Everything isn’t out of your control!  There really are things you can do.  The health crisis and restaurant closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are finally starting to wind down.  But trouble for the restaurant industry isn’t over yet.  Now we…


the city kitch: even kitchen design starts with brand alignment

This year, we’ve had the pleasure of working within an emerging trend in the foodservice industry: ghost kitchens. Made more popular by the pandemic, ghost kitchens are shared kitchen spaces that allow multiple concepts to develop and sell their…


Dining Trends to Focus on this Holiday Season

We all know that most holidays produce strong restaurant sales. According to Bizfluent research, the winter holiday season is typically the second busiest time of the year (after the warm weather/vacation season) because restaurant guests tend to…


Fighting Through the Fatigue

As I was going through articles I’d saved about how the COVID-19 Pandemic will affect the foodservice industry and how restaurants will need to respond to changing guest expectations, I came across this article in Inc. Magazine by Brian Hamilton…


7 Key Aspects of the New Kitchen

As we reflect on 2020, we can all agree that this year brought several challenges and required learning new adaptation skills previously unthinkable, especially for the restaurant & foodservice industry. Many focused on the changes required in…


How to get True ROI on Your Outdoor Dining Spaces

We started researching this topic long before the COVID-19 pandemic to quantify the return on our clients’ investment for outdoor dining spaces. Many of our clients were investing significantly into their outdoor dining spaces, while others were…


12 Chef-Inspired Recipes To Shake Up Your Quarantine Dining

Tired of making the same few things from your pantry-friendly foods? Even restaurant industry foodies feel like they’re running out of unique ideas to cook for themselves and their families while sheltering in place. So we’re here to spice things…


1 Problem, 3 Solutions: A Restauranteur's Guide to Selection & Procurement

As product options and providers increase across the globe, narrowing down restaurant furniture can be difficult. Procurement can be even more difficult, particularly as globalization continues to open doors to new opportunities and to new…