The first-quarter blahs—a feature of the U.S. economy almost every year since the end of the Great Recession—are upon us again this year. Consumer sentiment, as tracked by the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers, edged down again in the mid-month reading in April, while eating and drinking place sales fell in March, too. The…

The growth of state tax receipts slowed in the third quarter of 2015, according to data from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, Albany, N.Y. Year-over-year tax-receipt growth for the third quarter rose 3.8% following increases of 6.9% in the second quarter ’15 and 5.1% in the first quarter. What’s more, the Institute expects…

Nearly 600 members of the National Restaurant Association joined tourists enjoying Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms to attend the NRA’s 2016 Public Affairs Conference and meet with lawmakers on issues affecting their businesses. The April 12-13 conference included a keynote speech by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a seminar on how advocacy is changing in a digital world, and…

A recent study by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government shows that states that turned to gambling as a fix for revenue woes have usually been disappointed with the results. And that may mean an end to the flurry of new casino building that has helped keep some segments of the foodservice equipment and…

The southernmost tip of Africa is hungry for American pizza, chicken and burgers. KFC, McDonald’s, Domino’s and Pizza Hut are popular outposts in South Africa, and Starbucks just launched its first two African outlets at Johannesburg shopping malls. The growth of American chains is welcome to consumers there but poses a challenge to established South…

Since it opened its first location in London in Wimbledon in 2012, Sticks’n’Sushi has been gradually expanding its London empire with units in Covent Garden, Greenwich and Canary Wharf. Now the Danish-Japanese restaurant group is set to take its ‘affordable luxury’ offering across the UK. Next month, Sticks’n’Sushi will open its first restaurants outside the…

Marrybrown, the Malaysian quick-service chain, has big expansion plans for 2016. It opened six new outlets domestically in the past month, and expects to add another 20 outlets nationwide this year. Marrybrown, headquartered in Johor Baru, offers burgers, chicken, fish and local dishes at about 350 quick-service outlets in 16 countries, including more than 130…

Paris Baguette, the South Korean fast-casual bakery café chain, hopes to grow its U.S. footprint from 70 stores to 10% of its total store count by 2020. While its 3,500 stores dot the streets of South Korea, China, Singapore, Vietnam, and France, Paris Baguette only began franchising in the U.S. last year, a decade after…

NSF International has launched the first-ever compliance verification program to cover the hygienic quality of commercial foodservice equipment under European guidelines and legislation. Its HCV EU (HACCP Compliance Verification) program offers a risk-based approach to verify the design and cleanability aspects of products offered in the EU commercial foodservice/catering equipment market. In addition to enabling…

Specifi LLC, the U.S.-based provider of end-to-end design information and solutions supporting the foodservice equipment specification process, has agreed to purchase the business of Schematic Ltd, the Edinburgh, Scotland-based supplier of Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, content creation and repository services to the European foodservice equipment industry.  “The acquisition of Schematic’s business reflects our commitment…