San Antonio-based Ace Mart Restaurant Supply recently presented its annual Factory Representative of the Year Awards. Winners were DJ Marketing’s Jeff Miller, David Miller and Ryan Miller. True Mfg.’s Lee Elliott and Randy Bates; and Forbes, Hever & Wallace’s Jim Hever, Alicia Dees, Justin Olivares, Hoyt Totty and John Hever. It was True Mfg.’s tenth…

Edward Don & Company has named Michelle Brown its Category Manager for Equipment. Brown will be responsible for managing all merchandising and marketing functions for the equipment, furniture and bar categories at the Woodridge, Ill., dealer. She previously was regional sales manager at Rational Cooking Systems.

Maria Marti has moved up at Unified Brands, taking the reins as Director of Sales-Retail Accounts. She’ll oversee the management and growth of the company’s retail customer business. Marti joined Unified Brands in 2015 as director of business development after working five years for Dover Corp., its parent company. Conyers, Ga.-based Unified Brands offers the…

Server Products has hired Greg Hug as its new Engineering Manager. Hug, who has more than 30 years’ experience designing engineered products in the automotive, water filtration and commercial lighting industries, will lead Server’s engineering team in product development. Server, based in Richfield, Wis., makes dispensing and holding solutions equipment.

Affordable Restaurant Service and Equipment, a Salt Lake City-based service franchise, has sold franchises in 13 territories. Pete Fella, who has more than 20 years’ experience with foodservice equipment, purchased three Affordable franchises in Utah with his partner Hugh Johns. John Lockett and Charlie Short bought 10 Affordable franchise territories spanning three states in the…

As we report above, we released our latest E&S market forecast at the annual President’s Preview forecast meeting August 9. For a whole host of reasons, we expect 2017 to witness another year of decent sales growth at the manufacturers’ level, 4.1% nominal and 1.8% real. But be aware this is a slowing trend from…

The fast-growing quick-service chicken chain has signed a development deal to expand outside its core markets in the Carolinas. Charlotte, N.C.-based Bojangles’ says Gautier, Miss.-based Angle Inc. would develop multiple units in southern Alabama and southeast Mississippi; the chain currently has 32 restaurants in Alabama.

It’s a unique brand, calling itself the nation’s only southern-inspired, fast-casual chicken salad restaurant concept. Since its founding in 2008, the Auburn, Ala., chain has grown to 57 locations across the Southeast. In July, Georgia welcomed its 11th

Paul Westra, a well-known restaurant market analyst for Chicago-based Stifel, set off quite a kerfuffle last week.  He downgraded 11 leading restaurant company stocks, noting a broad-based slowing of same-store sales since the first of the year, according to a survey his firm conducts. He said the trend “reflects the start of a U.S. restaurant…

Softer sales and a dampened outlook among operators led to a decline for the second consecutive month in the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index, but even as restaurant performance and operators’ expectation continued to fall, the overall numbers still attest to expansion in the industry. The RPI stood at 100.3 in June, down 0.3…