If it feels like the restaurant industry keeps changing every five minutes… that’s because it kind of is.
One minute it’s AI. Next, it’s inflation. And suddenly, you’re hearing about Gen Alpha expecting hyper-personalized dining experiences before they’re even old enough to order a cocktail. Cool, cool, cool.
In this edition, we’re digging into all of that, plus why the ‘worst table in the house’ might be costing you more than you think. We’re also going behind the scenes with a DC bar owner who’s built something worth paying attention to, and getting into the never-ending credit card fee debate.
On the menu
5 min read
Restaurant trends worth your attention
Table stakes!
The surcharge situation
Thinking about all your to-dos today? Hard. Getting free ideas to improve your restaurant ops? Easy. Just read on!
Heard!
From AI to Gen A and all the shifting guest expectations that come in between… it’s a lot. Nation’s Restaurant News editor in chief Sam Oches sat down with Rafael LaRue, Chief Creative Officer of Livit, to figure out what operators actually need to be paying attention to right now. Some key takeaways from the Take-Away episode:
🤖 The best use of AI is the kind guests don’t notice: Rather than customer-facing tech like kiosks or pay-at-table, Rafael argues the real win is using AI to take tasks off your team’s plate, like automating the 20-item checklist for staff. “We want to use as much tech as possible, but we don’t want anyone to know about it… They just understand that the server is able to come to me and talk to me and spend time with me. They don’t understand the why—because there are three tasks we’ve taken off his shoulders.” And of course, it’s much easier to go all-in on back-office automation without worrying about guest perceptions.
📱 Gen Alpha will expect restaurants to adapt to them: “They’re born in an age of algorithms, where all the content they’ve digested from the day they’re born until today has been adapted to their tastes… They’ve, in essence, grown up in a world that adapts to them. They’ve never had to learn to adapt to the world. That’ll be a different way of consuming in the future.” For restaurants, that means starting to think about personalization now (like how Uber Eats already surfaces recommended orders and time-based suggestions). By the time they’re spending, a one-size-fits-all experience is going to feel very dated.
❤️ Authenticity is still the strongest differentiator: As AI and automation push further into the zeitgeist, guests are craving realness, connection, and tangibility more than ever. “If I want Chinese food… I want to have the option of authentic Chinese food, brought from China, made with the recipes… We’re gonna lose the borders of what we want and where we want it… and always look for that true, authentic taste.” Rafael explains that this also opens the door for more fusion and creativity as global borders blur.
Stories from the floor
Most operators reading this already understand the pinch of elevated rent, high beef prices, and energy bills that just won’t quit. Two independent operators recently took to NRN to share how they’re actually dealing with managing this inflationary environment.
Chef Soo Ahn opened Adalina Prime, a Michelin-starred fine dining steakhouse in Fulton Market, Chicago in 2025. His approach to surviving the squeeze:
✅ Keep a diverse supplier pool so vendors compete for his business (no exclusivity agreements).
✅ Use recipe-costing and inventory software to track price variances on every delivery in real time.
✅ Forecast labor needs using historical sales data, reservation volume, and upcoming local events.
“By absorbing or managing backend costs through technology and vendor agility, we’ve avoided knee-jerk price increases.”
Some templates to start you off: Food Cost Calculator & Labor Cost Calculator
Rod Lassiter runs a 45-seat Thai restaurant called Talat Market in the Summerhill neighborhood of Atlanta, open just five days a week. His scrappier playbook:
✅ Switch to more cost-effective dishes, trimming a bit of prep labor.
✅ Fix his own equipment to save more money for advertising.
✅ Keep the restaurant and its footprint small on purpose (less exposure to risks like high rent).
“The best advice is showing up and being there for staff, for the guests, and working service when you can… [Being present] is ultra important these days as an owner/operator.”
Food for thought
You probably know the table. The awkward corner, the high-top that technically fits but really shouldn’t, the seat right by the door that swings open all night. Restaurant critic, Kirstie Kimball, calls it the “f**k it table”… and she recently got seated at one.
Her argument isn’t really about one bad table. It’s about what that table signals. When an owner looks at an awkward spot and says ‘A table could technically go there’ (usually to squeeze out a bit more revenue), they’re making a choice about whose experience matters.
And here’s the kicker: she thinks they would have made more money without it. They could pull the chairs, put people on a waitlist, and send them to the bar when seats open. Instead, that table cost them a guest who won’t ever come back.
Kirstie also points out that you’re putting your host in an uncomfortable position every single service—tasked with deciding who ‘deserves’ the worst seat in the house.
The takeaway? Walk through your dining room and ask yourself if there’s a table you’d be embarrassed to seat a guest. If the answer is yes, you already know what to do.
Quiet on set
Meet Eebee’s Corner Bar, a neighborhood bar in Washington, D.C., built around one simple idea: community first. We sat down with owner, Emily Brown, to hear about her vision for the space, her commitment to quality food, and how she keeps it all running with the right tech (even without a super technical background).
Debatable
Q: Should you charge credit card fees to customers?
Every supplier is doing it. Every service provider is doing it. And restaurants are caught in the middle. One operator took the question to Reddit, and the comments did not disappoint.
r/restaurateur
u/kilog78
Charging Credit Card Fees to Customers?
I received another notice today from a service provider that they would be charging a 3% credit card fee. This is for a subscription software that helps us manage our event pipeline, so only makes sense that it would be on auto-payment via credit card. That said, over the past two years just about every supplier and service provider has started to charge additional fees for using credit cards.
If this is the norm for business now (i.e., businesses are no longer paying for the convenience of credit card payments, and are forcing their customers to pay for the convenience), it seems like that should apply to restaurants. However, my perception is that consumers are avidly against these types of fees, and would boycott restaurants for charging them.
So it would seem that the restaurant is again caught in the middle of business suppliers who operate in a limited competition environment, and/or switching costs are so high that the restaurant has to just agree to take the additional fees. Then on the other side, dining consumers operate in an almost totally liquid market and can easily pick and choose where to spend their money.
Does anyone have any advice or experience in mitigating this crunch (beyond just raising prices)?
Answers fell into three different buckets:
r/restaurateur
u/Ambitious_One_550
A lot of businesses do it now, just gotta be transparent about it or customers get annoyed.
r/restaurateur
u/Responsible-Rub6872
Just raise your prices enough to cover the fees. Restaurant customers could get turned off by the surcharge. They’re already anticipating spending 20% tip, so making it 24% could turn them off. I’d just raise your prices 5%. Price increases are usually forgiven by regular, loyal customers.
r/restaurateur
u/Responsible-Rub6872
Now I do charge a 3% fee for large catering orders, as often on a corporate level they don’t care.
u/Open-Coffee5752
You pretty much have to on large orders. It eats in thin margins.
À la carte
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