#Toast Pos Boston

[littlegeckotech]

Toast Pos Installation | Little Gecko Technology

Toast POS installation is a straightforward process. It involves setting up the hardware, installing the software, and configuring the system. Trained technicians handle the installation, ensuring a seamless transition. Once installed, businesses in Boston can enjoy the benefits of Toast, including efficient order management, easy payment processing, and effective inventory tracking to optimize their operations. We offer comprehensive IT solutions that cater to all your business needs. For more information, contact us at 617-749-7139.

[lareinenoir]

The Knots

C.E x Black Reader

Pt III

Song; “ jealousy and Hennessy” By Kidd Travis

Warning: SMUT🔞. {A/N: I’d skip this chapter if you aren’t comfortable. Also lmk if you wanna be tagged in the next part.

—————

Chris had come home everyday from set seeing his wife still laying in bed. Your bonnet covering your head and your soft snores echoing in the giant spacious room. He kissed your head everyday to wake you up. Your eyes wouldn’t open at first but you could hear him just fine.

“Hey.” He whispers

“Mm.” You would moan back as he lifted your head onto his lap.

His hands caressing your face as he fixed your bonnet that was sliding off. The buzz was still prevalent on social media, but he didn’t want to stress you about it. A lot of people wanted to hear from you and asked questions directed towards you. Chris didn’t say anything though. You weren’t active on social media, mostly because it wasn’t real. Everyone was always hiding something or posting passive aggressively. Frankly, you just didn’t care that much. Your life wasn’t that interesting. You knew Chris’ fans loved you and Chris enjoyed reading their praises to you when he’d answer some fan mail.

“Who’s PO Box is this again?” He would laugh

Today though. Chris was kind of fed up with your sad spirit. He’d come home to cuddle with you and you’d just watch movies together until you fell back asleep. You’d only leave to take a shower and he noticed you’d skip meals seeing the sink clean from any dishes. He bought your favorite, French toast and you’d nibble on it sometimes or just simply say, “no, I’m not hungry.”

“I’m just not feeling well.” You told him

He had stopped believing that. No one was sick for almost a month. He offered to take you to the hospital but you denied it.

“I’ll feel better tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came. It came again and again and still your sickness never stopped. Chris decided to just let you be. He didn’t want to pressure you but he never forgot to remind you every day that he loved you.

“I’m just so tired.” You moaned looking up at him

“I see.” He chuckled lightly. “Wanna talk about it?”

You shook your head. “About what?”

“Come on.” His Boston accent peaking as he took off his glasses and rested them on the table.

You knew what he was talking about. You ignored him and sat up, climbing on top of his lap as his hands rested on your ass squeezing it a few times. You kiss his nose and rub your thumb across his little stubble.

“How was work?”

“Good. We did a read through. The trailer is supposed to be out tomorrow so, hopefully it’s good.” He smiled, adjusting your bonnet again.

“That’s good. I’m proud of you.” You smirked kissing his cheek. Your hands climbed the back of his neck rubbing his buzzed hair.

He auditioned for the roll months ago and got a call back last week. He had been preparing for the trailer. It was a romance film. Chris was playing an eighteen year old boy in the 50s who was serving in the army while his fiancé, who he has known since elementary school wrote letters to him for twelve months about how she getting sent back to Trinidad with her family and slowly she was falling out of love. He hadn’t told her who was playing his love interest, he was told to keep that to himself.

“Do I know this female lead?” You asked raising a brow. He nods hos head and you lean down to kiss his neck. “Mmm.” You expressed tasting his skin. Your skin getting goosebumps as he ran his hands along your back, feeling no bra. “Did you kiss her today?”

“No.” He spoke. “Their are kissing scenes and one love scene.”

You sat up and raised your brow as Chris laughed. “Babe. Come on. Don’t be jealous.” Your scoffed and hopped off his lap, throwing the pillow at him. You weren’t really jealous, you knew this was part of his job. This wasn’t just your man, you shared Chris Evans with the whole world.

“Whatever. I want you to brush your teeth after you kiss her. Got it.” You narrow your brows and he raised his hand.

“I swear.”

Chris crawled off the bed and eyes you sneakily. He wanted to keep kissing you. You felt a little better after that little excitement. It was the highlight of your day. Your body quivered as he tried to snatch at your waist.

“You lie.” You shake your head backing away.

“I haven’t seen you all day.” He smirked watching you take off your little boy shorts. “Are those my boxers?” He asks.

“Yup.” You nod popping the ‘p’ and raising one of your legs. “And I’m not wearing anything underneath.” You said in a low voice as Chris licked his lips. “It’s three in the afternoon. No one told your ass to leave at two in the morning.”

“You’re right I’m sorry.” He laughed

“If you wanted to see other people you could have just said that.” You scoffed holding up your hand.

“Duty calls.” Chris laughed standing up from the bed and walking over to you. “Forgive me?” He asks clasping his hands together as if to say a prayer. “I won’t leave anymore today.”

You roll your eyes and back out of the room. “Catch me, first.” You laugh and bolted down the stairs. Your feet almost trip over Dodger who was laying at the bottom. Running for the back door you hear Chris shout your name. “Dodger, outside.” You command him in a whisper

“Y/N!” Chris shouts again making you squeal with anticipation. Dodger takes his precious time walking over to the door. Chris always had this little walk. It was a jog-no strut he always did. It became more prominent when he was feeling himself. You heard the pads of his feet slap against the floor followed by another sneaky chuckle. “Y/N.” He calls

Chris heard you ushering Dodger out the back door and took his sweet time as well. He was in no hurry to catching you. His eyes scanned the living room at the bottom of the stairs because you were no where to be found. Hide n seek was new. He found your shirt on the ground and he picked it up hearing you giggle loudly.

“So she’s naked.” He bent down and picked it up. It smelled just like you as he took a Whiff of the shea butter and coconut oil. Your bonnet was on the table and he laughed loudly. “So what’s my reward if I find you, huh?” He asks sucking his teeth looking around. “Alexa! Close the curtains.” He said out loud.

It was pitch black. You could see him clearly still. His figure is outlined in the darkness. You had hidden behind the door in the den. His jacket covers you, but you were growing sweaty. He wouldn’t find you. Chris thought he was being slick and you stepped out from behind the small coat rack and grabbed the little lantern from the shelf above you. He heard you moving around and turned in your direction.

“I’ve found you.” You say turning the lantern on

Chris stood just a few feet away from you. His eyes gawking at your body. His hand over his mouth tried to hide his grin as he bit his lip. Sucking in his teeth you hold up the lantern and put it on the small coffee table. Chris admired your body.

Your feet land on top of his socks as you lift his shirt from his chest. Your hands ran across his little chest hair and he guided his own hands up and down your side as he breaths on your upper lip. Your foreheads are touched and Chris kisses your coffee-tinted lips and you laugh at his tickling stubble. His eyes gleamed as you took a hold of his waist and pushed his hardening member against you.

“Attention soldier.” You whispered making him cackle. He watched your head toss back in laughter and you said, “I missed you.”

“I miss you too, Y/N.” He replied

His hands gripped you firmly and you both wobbled over to the long couch as your sloppy kisses devoured each other’s mouths. His tongue tried to dominate yours as they danced a steamy tango. You laughed as his back hit the cushion and you pulled his pants down seeing your soldier standing tall.

The little dim light created a shadowy scene in the living room. Your hands grabbed it softly as your spit dropped from your mouth. He sat on his elbows watching you stroke his member up and down teasing him.

“You missed me, baby?” You ask hearing him moan a tiny bit. Your mouth-watering a little itching to taste him.

He inhaled sharply through his teeth as your tongue licked the tip. Your free hand played with his balls as your mouth began to down his cock. The pulsing veins as you bobbed your head up and down as your saliva began to run down your lips. Your fingernails tickle him a bit as he leans his head back moaning your name.

“Y/N…Fuck.” He exhaled

Your eyes peak up at him and you slurp down the warm skin as your hand moved up and down over and over again.

“Ah!” He groaned sucking in some air his eyes were shut, squeezing tight. Was he about to cum? “Fuck!” He dragged out the couch moving back an inch as you bared down on your knees.

You slowed down watching his hairy chest pant, rising and falling at a quicker pace. He was nervous. You laughed to yourself and slowly glided your mouth up his shaft hearing him groan in sexual frustration. Chris quivered and opens his eyes looking down at you as you have him an innocent stare. He chuckled lightly.

“Woman…” he sort of nudged you on. He was so impatient. You decided to stop playing and picked up the speed. His wiggled brows and lips made and ‘o’ as he sat up all the way, watching you suck his dick. “Baby…” he moans again, lifting his hips a little making the couch scratch against the wooden floors. “Fuck, Y/N!” He shouted as you felt him twitch against the roof of your mouth and his warm semen shot towards the back of your throat, some spilling onto his wet cock.

Removing your mouth he grabbed you by the face and watched you gulp his semen. Your tongue licking the corner of your mouth still tasting his salty fluid. Wiping your lips with the pad of his thumb, Chris chuckled and kissed you. His own taste buds tasting the leftovers. He moans against your two lips and you pulled back reaching for his pants. You were sure he had a condom in his wallet. He never left home without one.

“Did you put one in here?” You inquire grabbing his wallet. Your eyes caught a glimpse of him and you posed in front of Lady Liberty halfway twerking. A silly picture really, but it was Chris’ favorite. “I found it.” You didn’t give him a chance to answer as you pulled out the Magnum gold packet.

Ripping it open, Chris watched you slide the plastic barrier onto his tall cock. His hands Instantly grabbed at you, pulling you on top so he could tongue your mouth with lust. It was quick kisses along your neck and ears as he licked your body. His eyes were on your nipples as he began to play with them.

“Fuck.” You whispered watching his mouth pull at your hardening nipples. He stared at you through his eyebrows and traced circles with the other one.

Chris licked circles around the little bumps and he felt your chills as your arm hairs stood straight. He attached his mouth and sucked on it. Your hand ran fingers over his buzz cut back and forth as your neck bent back moaning in passion. He licked them softly as the stinging sensation came over your breasts. Your core began to throb and pulse. Your palm pushed him down onto the cushions. He grunted and watched your eyebrows narrow down in frustration. Your hands each down to take a hold of his solid flesh and poking it right at the opening and boy! Weren’t you open. He grabbed your hips as your raised them and eased your way onto Chris. You both groaned loudly and your lips curved into a smile as your palms rested on his chest.

It felt like a warm hug, but from the inside. Chris watched your eyes stare at his face. You rocked against him slowly and he tried to move you closer to him. You pushed him back onto the couch and licked your lower lip. “Let me do all the work.” You told him as you raised his hand onto your nipples.

Chris’ eye’s glistened and he didn’t hesitate to let you take control. Your rocking decreases and you begin to lift your ass. You watch his eyes roll up as he let out a breath. You laugh and settle back down. He held you up by your breasts as your speed increased. Your core continuing to throb as if to catch pace with your oir racing heartbeat. Chris grunted as you lifted your hips and slammed harder against his cock.

“Ah! Shit! Shit!” You curse with a giggle. Chris ushered you to do it again as he shared the same sensation. Your bodies had accumulated sweat and your palms slipped on and off his chest as you came up and down off his dick.

The friction was like rubbing to sticks together. There was smoke. A lot of smoke. It was hot and your g spot was being hit as you arched your body to hover over him. Chris didn’t complain your breasts touched his nose as you both moaned together breathing on each other’s faces. You would inhale and you’d exhale as he bucked his hip up. Then he would inhale as you exhaled as his hips settled back down. Your hands were on either side of his head your breasts damn near suffocated him. The sticks were still smoking as the friction grew faster and faster with each stride.

“Chris!” You moaned feeling him hit your spot again. “Right there!” You vintage biting your lower lip. “Oh god, right there! Again!” His bucking hips slapping profusely against your flesh brought excitement to your sweaty kitty. “

“You’re almost there, Y/N.” He breathed feeling his own flesh twitching inside. “Cum with me.” He ushered as your arms shook. “There you go!” He coaches and you feel his intense gaze on you. Chris loved to watch you reach your final destination. It brought him more joy.

The smoke was hot and your g spot was being pushed. He watched your brown eyes flicker as your eyes water with anticipation. Your leg spasmed and your heart thumped as you arched your neck. The fire was starting. You felt a few sparks start to fly. You grunted and moaned as you rode him. He was holding out for you and you took a sharp breath. You didn’t want it to end just yet, subconsciously you knew you were missing it on purpose. The tease was just to good. You saw it in Chris’ eyes and he was growing a bit impatient. He was squirming a little. His face dented inward trying to hold back.

“Mmmmm.” You laughed watching him

His mouth opened and he breathed out. “You little…” he moaned gripping your skin and then releasing it over and over again. His eyes would squeeze shut for a millisecond just open them and see you smilingly down at him. His frustration was just too good you felt very sinister. He knew you were doing this on purpose. “you’re sick.” Chris grunts

He connected skin with you again growing that friction. His thrusts into you hitting the button every single time. He chuckled lightly and watched your head throw itself back and forward and you cocked your brow questioning him. Was this his way of punishing you? Chris was desperate and you synced with him again. Your gliding became very soppy and the tingly sensation of your orgasm returned stronger.

“I’m about to-“ you moaned as your eyes met. His pupils got bigger as his smile matched. “Fuck, Chris! Oh-oh-Ah” You nodded watching his eyes roll back. With one last slam against him, the fire was lit.

Your legs were weak and you rode the rest of it out, feeling the condom fill with Chris’ cum. Your sticky bodies met as you flattened yourself on him, but you both quickly fell off landing on the ground. It was surely going to have stains. Chris couldn’t help but laugh as your bodies became undone, him laying next to you with his ear to your abdomen.

“Whoa.” He breathed licking your belly button. “Fuck me.”

“Yeah, I did.” You laugh as he kisses your stomach softly. “We should try sex on the balcony next.”

“So everyone can see your tits?” He scoffed as your hand surrounded his head massaging it a little. Your breaths match each other a little. “Pass.” He was talking about the building across the street. They had no curtains so you could peer into their office with no problem so he was sure without a problem they could see the balcony.

“How about you eat me out on the roof then and we take nudes.” You countered

“Adventurous are we?” He raised a brow kissing your chin

“Fine let’s make a sex tape.” You said laughing

“Whatever you want Y/N.”

You both were catching your breaths. The silence was good and Chris had buried himself in between your boobs and his leg sprawled across you. Your held him sliding your fingernails up and down his neck.

“Do you want to know my favorite body part of yours?” He asks

“Is it my ass?” You ask

“Don’t tell me it’s my eyes.” You asks rolling them.

“That too.” He watched the outline of your puff sway a tiny bit as you laughed.

“So what is it?”

“That beautiful hair.”

There was silence. He cupped your face together and his eyebrows bent. He was buttering you up. It was sweet, really it was. He placed a kiss on your forehead and you squeeze his wrists a little in comfort.

“I know I haven’t been the best wife lately.” You replied feeling yourself begin to cry. “I know you love me and you say I’m beautiful so much I think I’m the word.” You laughed and he smiled at your joke. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I would miss my job.”

He wiped your tears and brought your bodies together again. The embrace was damp, but he hushed you as you cried onto his chest. “I know, baby.”

“Chris, I don’t know what to do. I thought this was a good thing you know. A few days to collect myself and then I’d get over it, but I’m just so tired. I can’t stop thinking if this was a mistake or maybe I was overreacting. What if I go back and try and get my job back, what if I can’t. Then I remind myself of what I quit and how this same damn thing will happen again. Maybe not to me but to someone. It’s not just hair, Chris. Damnit! It’s more than hair! It’s more than fucking hair!” You cried feeling snot begin to fall. “Should I just take one for the team? Fall in line like everyone else? Or march up there and demand an apology like I should’ve done the first time. I don’t even know why the fuck I’m crying about this. This is so stupid!” You shout angrily and pushing away from him and stand up.

“Y/N, it’s ok. Just wait!” He shouted after you. Chris watched you scurry up the stairs. He stood up and slid the condom off himself and tied it off before throwing it away. He grabbed his pants and slid them on his legs and called after you again. “Y/N!”

————

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(A/N: wanna be tagged? LMK. 😅 byeee)

[sharprank]

Restaurant Payments and Software provider Toast $TOST files IPO, expecting $20B valuation

Restaurant Payments and Software provider Toast $TOST files IPO, expecting $20B valuation

$TOST Toast a Boston based technology company providing payments and software for restaurants (competes with $OLO) filed to go public this week. $TOST Toast provide Point of Sale (POS) offerings and software to restaurants. It was founded in 2011 by Aman Narang, Jon Grimm, and Steve Fredette. $TOST sells restaurant payment-processing hardware, including tablets and handheld devices, as well as…

[etreasuryvala]

Food Event November 3rd National Sandwich Day.

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What is a sandwich?

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A court in Boston, Massachusetts 2006, ruled that a sandwich includes at least two slices of bread, & does not include burritos, tacos, & quesadillas, as they are typically made with a single tortilla.

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Though the combination of bread filled with cheese & meats has been enjoyed for years prior, the creation and naming of the sandwich has been attributed to the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu. In 1762 the earl, who was fond of gambling, asked his cook to prepare him a meal that wouldn’t require cutlery nor interfere with his 24 hour long gambling streak. The cook gave him sliced meat between two pieces of toast, which allowed the earl to have one hand free to continue his game.

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Of course, neither the earl nor the cook were the actual inventors of the sandwich. It is said that prior to this aforementioned event, Mantagu had visited the Eastern Mediterranean & saw sandwiches served by the Greeks & Turks with their appetizers, & asked his cook to copy their methods for its convenience. 

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By the Revolutionary war a few years later, sandwiches were a well established English meal. However, they didn’t make their way to America until they were included in an American cookbook in 1815.

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The New Orlean’s Po’ Boy came around during the Great Depression during a streetcar worker strike. Two brothers who were former streetcar workers owned a sandwich shop and promised to feed any striking worker for free. Whenever a hungry worker would walk over to the shop, the clerks would say “Here comes another po’ boy,” which soon became the name of the sandwich itself. 

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In Omaha, Nebraska, the Reuben made its first appearance. It was named after one of the players of a weekly poker game that took place in a hotel. The hotel owner decided to feature the sandwich on the hotel’s dinner menu & later, it won a nationwide recipe contest.

"NO REPOSTING"

#etreasuryvala #sandwich #sandwiches #sandwichporn #sandwichlover #sandwichlove #SandwichDay #sandwichartist #sandwichtime #sandwicheslight #sandwichs #sandwichshop #sandwichesrule #sandwichenak #SandwichPolice #sandwichmaker #SandwichOfTheDay #sandwichame

[tonyduncanbb73]

Downtown Boston’s Forthcoming Food Hall Reveals Killer Chef Lineup

Tiffani Faison will have two restaurants at High Street Place, opening this fall

The Year of the Food Hall is certainly getting underway. Time Out Market, coming soon to Fenway, has already begun teasing its star-studded lineup, and now High Street Place is coming out swinging with its own initial announcement.

Opening in downtown Boston in fall 2019 at 100 High St. in a five-story atrium that connects to 160 Federal St., High Street Place will take up over 20,000 square feet, accommodating 20 food stalls and 500 seats. The High Street Place team — which includes Rockpoint Group, Rockhill Management, and CANAdev, with Boston Realty Advisors working on the leasing — announced the first 11 vendors today. Buckle up:

Dive Bar and Tenderoni’s from Tiffani Faison, who is behind Fenway’s Sweet Cheeks, Tiger Mama, Fool’s Errand, and the forthcoming Orfano: Dive Bar will be a raw bar — a “Mason-Dixon water fight,” per today’s announcement, pitting North and South Atlantic classics against one another. Think po’ boys, lobster rolls, and peel ‘n’ eat shrimp. Meanwhile, Tenderoni’s is meant to be a ’70s and ’80s throwback pizza-and-grinder joint.

Daiquiris & Daisies from Daren Swisher and Joseph Cammarata, who were Eater Boston’s 2015 Bartenders of the Year for their work together at Hojoko: A cocktail bar featuring “creative and classic cocktails with seasonal twists.” The cocktails of the bar’s name will make appearances, of course, including a pineapple daiquiri and an amaro-based daisy.

Haley Jane and Wheelhouse from the team behind popular downtown burger spot Wheelhouse: Haley Jane will feature fried chicken based on Wheelhouse’s existing Thursday fried chicken sandwich special. Look forward to Nashville hot, Korean-style, and Buffalo hot honey fried chicken sandwiches. In addition, they’ll have a new Wheelhouse location at High Street Place.

The Farmacy Cafe, from a shipping container in the Seaport (formerly known as Jubali): A cafe serving breakfast toasts, rice and salad bowls, CBD-infused kombucha, Ayurvedic items, and more.

Fuji Sushi, from the JP Fuji Group: This will be the ninth location for the growing group of Fuji restaurants, which serve sushi and lots more. At High Street Place, Fuji will feature bestsellers from existing locations as well as some new exclusives. There will also be sake, beer, and whisky available.

Mother Juice: This will be the fourth location for the juice shop, which is also in Kendall Square, Back Bay, and at the Boston Public Market. Expect juices, smoothies, toasts, breakfast bowls, and more.

Noodle BOS: Noodle and rice bowls with vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options. There will be dishes like tonkotsu ramen, curry ramen, tempura udon, and more, including Southeast Asia-inspired street food.

Northeast of the Border: This will be the first non-truck location for Northeast of the Border, which will be serving Mexican tacos and guacamole.

Pennypacker’s: With a food truck and a Somerville location, Pennypacker’s will expand to High Street Place with its popular porchetta sandwich as well as other sandwiches, salads, and snacks.

When High Street Place opens this fall, it will also play host to live music, book signings, and other events. There will also be a seasonal patio outdoors, and the indoor space will allow for open-air dining, weather permitting, thanks to a retractable window system.

Stay tuned for updates as the opening gets closer, and review the food hall guide for more information on other projects in development, including the imminent debut of Time Out Market in Fenway and the eventual arrival of the Beat in Dorchester, L Street Station in South Boston, and more.

[digitivity]

It's been showing all day, and I felt like baking bread and also cooking, so I baked some sandwich rolls and then made po boys! The bread is a simple enriched soft roll recipe shaped into small batards, and they're egg washed twice for shine and color. Later, I split them, hollowed out a little of the middle, brushed the inside with butter, and toasted them before making the sandwiches. To fill the sandwich with deliciousness, I made a spicy orange and Calabrian chili remoulade, coriander pan-seared wild-caught sockeye salmon, and then added torn Boston lettuce, and grape tomatoes. The side dish for this plate was probably more involved than the entree. I conceived this dish because I don't particularly love broccoli stalks, so I decided to make something delicious with them. Since I knew I was making po boys, I decided a slaw was a perfect pairing. I trimmed, julienned, and blanched the broccoli stalks. Using sauteed shallots, garlic, and pancetta, I made a poppyseed dressing with an egg yolk, tarragon, cider vinegar, olive oil, and honey. I dressed the broccoli -- plus chopped dates and julienned Anjou pears -- and finished the slaw with toasted sunflower seeds. Together, the spicy and bright po boy paired wonderfully with the crisp sweetness of the slaw. The salmon made for an excellent protein in the sandwich and the orange really highlighted the rich flavor of the fish. The pancetta, dates, and tarragon all highlighted the broccoli and savory-sweet dressing. #bread #baking #poboy #sandwich #dinner #broccoli #slaw #culinaryschool #foodporn https://www.instagram.com/p/BupZEbygeDf/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1918zxkaayfsr

[bluebookweb]

Antoine’s Names First New Executive Chef in Nearly 50 Years and Tech Investments

This edition of MRM’s News Bites features  7shifts, Chowbus, DoorDash, Antoine’s, Starbucks and Uber Eats, OpenTable, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Arcos Dorados, Eat Here Brands, PourMyBeer and Toast, Cerity, Washington Hospitality Association, bellagreen and Swish.

Send news items to Barbara Castiglia at bcastiglia@modernrestaurantmanagement.com.

7shifts Closes $10 Million Funding Round

7shifts closed a $10 million USD Series A funding round to accelerate growth and bring more automation and labor compliance to restaurant chains. The financing was led by Napier Park Financial Partners (“Napier Park”) with participation from Teamworthy Ventures, existing investor, Relay Ventures and former CEO of Snag (Snagajob), Peter Harrison.

7shifts has scheduled nearly 100 million shifts for the 16 million restaurant workers in the US, and collectively saved restaurateurs over $200 million in labor costs. The rapidly growing platform is used by more than 250,000 restaurant professionals and 10,000 restaurants, including large, growing franchises such as Bareburger, Panera, Honeygrow, &pizza, and Smoke's Poutinerie.

“As someone who grew up in a family of restaurant operators, I know first-hand the pain points restaurant managers face in managing staff,” said Jordan Boesch, CEO at 7shifts. “From the beginning, 7shifts has been intently focused on delivering innovative products to make life easier for restaurants, managers and employees alike.”

7shifts gives restaurant operators and employees  software that makes tasks like scheduling, team communication, and shift feedback simple and transparent. The company plans to use the funds to strengthen 7shifts’ leadership position in scheduling automation and machine-learning technology for restaurants, while adding enterprise functionality and statewide labor compliance features.

Boesch continued, “It’s one thing to predict labor needs, but it’s another to fill the shift with an available and qualified worker– both need to be met for restaurant operators to be successful. Our predictive scheduling algorithm leverages machine learning to enable managers and operators to automatically create data-driven and labor-optimized schedules that exceed the accuracy and trustworthiness of manually generated schedules, while also adhering to state-wide labor regulations. By leveraging POS integrations for real-time data, 7shifts can accurately project future sales with up to 95% accuracy given historical sales, seasonality, weather trends and other external factors. From there, we use machine learning to accurately predict future labor needs and create optimized schedules.”

The 7shifts platform is comprised of a number inter-operable labor management tools that work together to help restaurants create and maintain schedules from either a desktop or smartphone. The platform offers powerful tools for independent and multi-unit operators that help restaurant leaders gain better visibility into their businesses and ensure compliance with labor regulations.

Paul Zarmati, Director of IT for New York City-based Bareburger, added, “The 7shifts team are true partners – they listen to feedback and promptly implement changes that positively affect all levels of our organization, from labor to communications. As we’ve grown past 40 locations, features like the enterprise dashboard have allowed us to get a holistic view of store performance across the board.”

As part of the transaction, Dan Kittredge, a Managing Director at Napier Park, will join the 7shifts Board of Directors.

“Napier Park has a track record of backing dynamic companies that are well positioned to capitalize on long-term growth opportunities in large markets, and that is exactly what we see with 7shifts,” said Dan Kittredge of Napier Park. “7shifts will continue to have a tremendous impact not only on restaurant owners and operators, but also on the millions of staff they employ. We are excited to partner with Jordan and team on their next phase of growth.”

“Filling the schedule is not only the single biggest cost but also the single biggest pain point for almost every restaurant yet optimizing quality of service, expense and compliance has never been harder. This is a problem ripe for machine-learning and for tighter integration with the on-demand economy,” says former Snag (Snagajob) CEO, Peter Harrison. “I believe 7shifts is better positioned than anyone to capitalize on these trends and to solve a growing problem for operators large and small.”

Chowbus Secures $4 Million Funding

Chowbus secured a $4 million round of funding led by Greycroft Partners and FJ Labs, with additional investment from Hyde Park Angels, Fika Ventures, and individual investors. This new funding helps the company further invest in developing the platform and expanding to new markets.

“This investment confirms the value of giving consumers and independent restaurants a better food-ordering solution — one that, unlike any other platform, supports the restaurant’s business and enables food discovery.”

With its mobile app, Chowbus operates as a food-discovery platform, connecting diners with small, local restaurants’ top-rated dishes. Unlike other food-ordering platforms, Chowbus provides restaurants with not only logistical support, but marketing and technology support as well. Chowbus helps restaurants showcase their best dishes by creating dish-centric menus with high-quality photography and user ratings, which in turn helps diners explore new cuisine.

“When I first came to the U.S., I realized that it’s difficult to find authentic Asian cuisine, and it quickly became apparent that many restaurants I liked weren’t on the major delivery platforms,” said Linxin Wen, co-founder and CEO of Chowbus. He added, “This investment confirms the value of giving consumers and independent restaurants a better food-ordering solution — one that, unlike any other platform, supports the restaurant’s business and enables food discovery.”

Fabrice Grinda, founding partner of FJ Labs, a Chowbus investor, commented, “Chowbus’ vision to help people explore authentic food is ambitious and meaningful. The team is hard-working, scrappy, and passionate. They know how to build a world-class product and provide consistent service to customers. And it’s working — their repeat and retention rates are incredibly impressive. We are excited to join them on this journey.”

Last year, Chowbus achieved a 300 percent year-over-year revenue growth rate, and projects that the new funding will lead to expansion in 15-20 new markets in the upcoming year. The company currently operates in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Champaign, IL, and Lansing, MI, and its services include an online marketplace to order food via pickup and delivery, as well as a Chowbus Shuttle, which delivers food on efficient routes. In addition to expanding geographically, Chowbus plans to onboard several key team members and build a number of value-adding features that benefit the user experience for both restaurants and consumers.

DoorDash Goes National, Adds to Lineup

On the heals of  DoorDash being the first on-demand destination to reach a national audience, the company welcomed Ryan Sokol as Vice President of Engineering, He joins the company from Uber, where he led and scaled UberEats from its inception and served on the UberEats executive team. 

He will lead DoorDash engineering, including product, infrastructure and data science, reporting to CEO Tony Xu.  Sokol was previously head of engineering at Voxer and has served stints at Genentech, IBM and smaller technology consultancies including his own.

According to XI, Sokol comes to DoorDash at a critical inflection point  In 2018, the company 5xed its geographic footprint from 600 to 3,300 cities and tripled in valuation to more than $4 billion. DoorDash doubled the engineering team to 200+ last year, working on a variety of problems from machine learning applications to logistics to personalizing consumer experiences. This year, they plan to double the team again.

"I’m joining DoorDash to help an amazing team reach new heights," said Sokol. " All of my interactions and diligence with those I trust would lead me to believe that DoorDash is poised to be one of the most influential companies on the planet. I’m most looking forward to learning from some of the best and applying my accumulated knowledge to help DoorDash fast forward its tech to the future and realize its full potential as soon as possible."

DoorDash saw 300- percent year-over-year growth in 2018, tripling business in annual sales. The company also made several key leadership hires over the past nine months, including CFO Prabir Adarkar, VP Strategic Finance Ravi Inukonda and CPO Sarah Wagener.

Changing of the Guard at Antoine's 

Antoine’s in New Orleans announced  that Chef Rich Lee will serve as the restaurant’s newest executive chef, stepping into the role that Executive Chef Michael Regua commanded for the last 47 years. Chef Regua is currently helping transition Chef Lee until his retirement later this year.

“I am honored to continue the next chapter of Antoine’s legacy as executive chef. To serve at the helm of this legendary restaurant is a dream come true for me, as it would be for any chef,” said Chef Lee. “I am looking forward to continuing Antoine’s tradition of French-Creole fine dining while also working with the team to establish some new features, menu items and specials. We can’t wait to serve our guests in 2019 and beyond.”

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Chef Lee began his career in the U.S. Coast Guard, stationed in Panama City, Florida. After his time in the service, Chef Lee pursued his love of all things culinary and served as line cook and kitchen manager in the Panama City hospitality industry. His first big cooking opportunity arrived when he served as an executive steward for the U.S. Merchant Marines, sailing around the globe as the solo cook aboard his ship.

There he discovered his passion for all different types of cuisines as the ship would pull into each exotic port. He would buy provisions, visit the local restaurants and markets, and incorporate each region’s fresh produce, seafood, meats, spices and seasonings into the ship’s daily menu. His career blossomed after becoming a land-dweller again, rising to the rank of executive chef over the next decade in the finest restaurants, hotels and resorts in the Florida Panhandle.

After opening, creating the menus, and leading the teams at establishments such as the Saltwater Grill and the Boardwalk Beach Resort, Rich chose to broaden his culinary knowledge in the “front of the house”. Over the next 12 years, he worked in various management positions at high‐volume corporate restaurants in the Carolina markets.

He then moved to  New Orleans and was hired as a chef and trainer for Sodexo’s corporate division. He was quickly promoted to executive chef for Sodexo’s Energy and Resource division and ultimately served as senior manager of culinary development.

During his seven years with Sodexo, Chef Lee led a North American Chefs Council of Canadian and American chefs, creating menus and establishing relationships with Sodexo’s global teams in Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, the Bahamas, and Canada. He also served as Sodexo’s lead chef of their Mindful brand, which provides a healthier approach to a client’s standard menu offering.

“Determining who would assume the position of executive chef of Antoine’s after having our beloved Chef Mike with us for 47 years was a challenging, multi-year process that we did not take lightly,” said Antoine’s fifth generation CEO and Proprietor Rick Blount. “We interviewed incredible chefs and invested much time and effort into ensuring that the person who fills this role is truly up to the task and the right fit for our unique restaurant. Chef Lee impressed me not only with his extensive culinary knowledge, including his passion for French-Creole cuisine, but his understanding of high volume cooking and enhanced customer experience. While he has already mastered our classic dishes, we are excited to see where he will go with the menu. We could not be more excited to have him lead the kitchen at Antoine’s.”

Starbucks Delivers Expands

Starbucks Coffee Company expanded its Starbucks Delivers pilot to an additional six cities across the United States. The expansion, in partnership with Uber Eats, began in San Francisco, the first of six new markets to offer the service to customers. Following an initial test in Miami, the company remains on track to bring Starbucks Delivers to nearly one-quarter of U.S. company-operated stores, with planned expansion to select stores in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks. In total, Starbucks Delivers will be available in seven U.S. cities this spring.

The U.S. expansion of Starbucks Delivers follows success of the test in Miami that began in fall of 2018. The test, also powered by Uber Eats, saw strong demand, including repeat business throughout the day and positive feedback from customers. This expansion coincides with the kickoff of a new pilot, due to begin later this month, which will see London chosen as the first European city to trial Starbucks Delivers, powered by Uber Eats.

“We know we have untapped customer demand for Starbucks Delivers in the U.S. and starting today, we’re expanding our best-in-class experience to our customers both in and out of our stores,” said Roz Brewer, group president and chief operating officer for Starbucks. “We’re building on key learnings from past delivery pilots and by integrating our ordering technology directly with Uber Eats, we’ve unlocked the ability to bring Starbucks to customers for those times when they’re not able to come to us.”

The global online food delivery market currently represents a $95 billion opportunity and is projected to grow by more than 11 percent annually through 2023*. Starbucks now offers delivery service in eleven of the company’s global markets and expects to trial delivery pilots in other countries this year.

Customers will be able to access Starbucks Delivers through the Uber Eats mobile app, available on iOS and Android devices. Key features of the Starbucks Delivers experience include:

 With approximately 95 percent of core menu items available directly from the Starbucks menu, customers will be able to customize their orders just as they would when ordering on Starbucks® mobile apps. Delivery orders will come with an initial $2.49 booking fee.

“At Uber Eats, we’re always looking for new ways to offer people the widest selection of food they love. That’s why we’re so excited to deliver Starbucks fans their favorite food and beverages in a way that’s as easy as requesting a ride,” said Jason Droege, Vice President and Head of UberEverything. “Be it breakfast delivered straight to the soccer field or afternoon lattés to the office, we know this partnership will delight our customers.”

Starbucks Delivers was first announced in August 2018 in China through a partnership with Alibaba and on-demand food delivery service Ele.me. By the end of 2018, delivery services had expanded to 2,000 stores across 30 cities in China, while also being introduced to select stores in Tokyo and Miami. The limited pilot in London will be the first of its kind for Starbucks in Europe and will see a small number of company-operated stores to test and learn from the experience as it looks to scale this option to licensees. Additional global markets with delivery initiatives include India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia and Chile.

OpenTable Open Points

OpenTable announced that OpenTable Dining Points can be used for hotel savings. U.S. diners can easily redeem their points to save anywhere from $20 to $200 at over 400,000 participating hotels available on KAYAK. From boutique properties to international favorites, diners can use their points to save on the perfect hotel.

OpenTable Dining Points are received by making and honoring reservations at participating restaurants, and can be redeemed for Dining Rewards, which can be used toward meals at over 20,000 participating restaurants on OpenTable, and now, hotel savings. Diners can maximize their rewards by redeeming points for discounts on participating KAYAK hotels; for example, 2,000 points can be redeemed for a $40 discount on hotel bookings. The more points you have, the more diners can save on travel.

“OpenTable diners are avid travelers, so we are excited to offer a Dining Reward that will help them save on their next trip,” said Steve Hafner, CEO, KAYAK. “KAYAK and OpenTable are both Booking Holdings’ brands and creating shared value for our respective users – diners that love to travel and travelers that need to eat – is a priority.”

“This will be the first of several additional ways that OpenTable users will be able to redeem their Dining Points,” said Joseph Essas, Chief Technology Officer, OpenTable. “We’re looking forward to rolling out more options in the near future to further enhance the Dining Rewards program.”

New CEO at Tropical Smoothie

Tropical Smoothie Cafe appointed Charles Watson as its new Chief Executive Officer. Watson will lead the brand through its next phase of strategic growth. As CEO, Watson’s goal is to achieve $1 billion in sales and more than 1,500 cafes by 2023.

“Charles has the tenacity, vision and passion this brand needs to continue our upward trajectory and will ensure the success of our franchisees is at the center of every decision we make,” said Scott Pressly, Chairman of the Board, Tropical Smoothie Cafe. "He has been instrumental in developing the culture of Tropical Smoothie Cafe and earning the trust of our franchisees. We look forward to realizing Charles' vision for the company."

Watson has more than 10 years of experience with Tropical Smoothie Cafe and led the company’s franchise development efforts since 2010. He has been the Chief Development Officer since 2015 and directly responsible for selling more than 800 franchises during his tenure with the company.

"I am overjoyed to have the opportunity to lead such an incredible brand that has truly become a part of my DNA over many years," said Watson. "I am forever grateful to our franchisees, support center team and our Board of Directors for their confidence in me as the leader who can guide Tropical Smoothie Cafe into a new era."

Arcos Dorados Expands Employment Opportunities

Arcos Dorados, the world’s largest independent McDonald's franchisee, expects to employ more than 55,000 individuals in Latin America and the Caribbean during 2019, an increase of eight percent over the number employed in 2018.  The company is positioned as a catalyst for change through its commitment to labor inclusion and reduction of inequality for young people.  Arcos Dorados is one of the region’s largest formal employers of youth between the ages of 17 to 25, providing training and development opportunities. 

"We are proud to be among the companies that generate the most formal job opportunities for young people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.   It is young people in whom we entrust our business to bring quality food, flavor and extraordinary dining experiences to millions of customers in the region every day," said Sergio Alonso, Chief Executive Officer of Arcos Dorados.

In 2018, Arcos Dorados provided 52,000 jobs for young people throughout the region. This represents almost 4,500 youth per month who entered the workforce, or an average of 140 jobs per day. The Company provides opportunities to learn norms and methodologies of teamwork in a highly challenging environment, valuable skills that contribute to securing future professional development opportunities.

Over the last three years, Arcos Dorados provided approximately 150,000 employment opportunities for young people.  For many of them, the experience was their first in the workplace. Arcos Dorados’ commitment to work inclusion is supported by partnerships with prestigious institutions in the region that are also dedicated to helping young people formally integrate into the working world.  The company signed agreements in recent years with the primary foundations dedicated to eradicating youth unemployment in each country of the region, including Instituto Ayrton Senna (Brazil), Cimientos (Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay), Forge (Chile, Peru), NEO (Colombia) and the International Youth Foundation (Global), among others.

"At Arcos Dorados, through public-private partnerships, we contribute to the development of our communities by attacking one of the region's main social challenges, youth unemployment. Through our programs, we assume the responsibility of actively collaborating to reduce the barriers to access a first formal job, " said Alonso.

Arcos Dorados promotes the inclusion of vulnerable groups, offering them an opportunity for formal work that contributes to their development and independence and supports greater social integration.  "All are welcome at Arcos Dorados. We promote a culture of work that is characterized by respect, inclusion and equal opportunities.  We provide adequate training and career development to all young people in the countries where we operate and are committed to furthering the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of reducing inequality,” concluded Alonso.

Eat Here Sells Stake in Table 100

Eat Here Brands, owner of eight Babalu® restaurant locations, sold its stake in Flowood, Mississippi restaurant Table 100 to Bill Latham and Al Roberts on December 31. Latham and Roberts, the co-founders of Babalu®, Table 100 and Eat Here Brands, both remain actively involved on Eat Here’s board of managers. The sale is part of Eat Here’s strategy to shift its focus to growing Babalu®, its core asset.

“Table 100 is a great, high-performing restaurant with a well-established and loyal customer base,” said Abe Ruiz, CEO of Eat Here Brands. “As creators of the brand and outstanding restaurateurs, Bill and Al were the logical buyers, and we are delighted they are assuming ownership.  Under their stewardship, I am confident that Table 100 will continue to flourish.”

“We’re excited to take the reins of Table 100 and to ensure that it continues to serve Flowood and the Jackson metro area communities,” Latham and Roberts said. “We are also excited about the prospects for Eat Here Brands and Babalu®. We look forward to helping both continue to grow and thrive in the coming years.”

Eat Here Brands, headquartered in Roswell, Georgia is the owner and operator of Babalu®, with locations in Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; Lexington, Kentucky; and East Memphis, Memphis and Knoxville, Tennessee.

PourMyBeer and Toast Team Up

PourMyBeer is partnering with Toast. With the integration, PourMyBeer clients who use the Toast POS can track beer sales more efficiently, leading to increased revenue from beverage sales.

PourMyBeer allows guests the freedom to pour their own drinks, and get charged by the ounce – and in return, this technology lowers operating costs for restaurants by saving on labor, wait times and wasted goods. Restaurants and tap houses that use the PourMyBeer self-serve beverage systems provide customers with an RFID card to track each ounce poured. Now, all of those transactions will flow seamlessly into Toast, making it an easier and quicker sales process for both the restaurant and the consumer. For operators, it eliminates an extra step of converting the PourMyBeer data into Toast. For customers, they can basically self-serve anything on tap, close their tab instantly, and get an email or text receipt of their transactions.

“We want to set our customers up for success in every possible way, which is why we partnered with Toast,” says PourMyBeer founder & CEO Josh Goodman. “Now when you open a tab in Toast, you connect the PourMyBeer RFID card to that tab and all the information flows back and forth like it’s one system.”

Cerity Launches

Cerity launched to enable small business owners to quickly and easily protect their team, their assets and their livelihood through an online workers’ compensation solution. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 29.6 million small businesses in the U.S. and that number is climbing. Many traditional insurance models were not built with a focus on small businesses, but it’s these owners who often need the most guidance and support as they look to properly and affordably protect their team while growing their operation. Cerity was designed specifically for small businesses and freelancers to be able to quickly input information, generate a quote, and purchase a policy, so that they can get back to what matters most – their business. 

“Cerity is completely reinventing workers’ compensation for small businesses,” said Dennis Dix, SVP and Chief Operating Officer at Cerity. “We are transforming the entire process – from purchasing and maintaining coverage, to filing a claim – to be simple, fast, and easy, enabling owners to secure coverage for their team within minutes.”

Powered by a complex algorithm, Cerity’s proprietary pricing model provides tailored quotes that address the individual needs of business owners. Cerity has more pricing tiers than most insurance companies – up to 100 – making quotes more precise.

“Our digital solution was built from scratch, exclusively to meet the needs of small businesses.  Every aspect of what we do is anchored to the small business perspective.” said Tracey Berg, President of Cerity. “Cerity’s predictive pricing model has up to 100 price points, making each quote as unique as the businesses we protect. Customers can rest easy knowing they are getting the right coverage for the right price.” 

Cerity is backed by Employers Holdings, Inc. , an industry veteran with over 100 years of experience in workers’ compensation. “With its team, technology and vision, Cerity is uniquely positioned to quickly become a major player in the industry,” said Douglas D. Dirks, President and Chief Executive Officer of Employers Holdings, Inc.

Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking

The Washington Hospitality Association Education Foundation is partnering with the nonprofit Businesses Ending Slavery & Trafficking (BEST) to increase access to human trafficking awareness training for the state's hotel employees.Starting this month, which is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, BEST's training will be offered to the 6,500 Washington Hospitality Association members and their teams free of charge.

Both the association and BEST participate in the Washington State Task Force Against the Trafficking of Persons, and both organizations have been instrumental in positioning Washington state as a national leader in human trafficking prevention.

Human trafficking networks rely on legitimate businesses, like hotels, to sustain their operations and infrastructure. BEST reports employees who have frequent contact with hotel guests are in a unique position to spot the warning signs of human trafficking when they are trained in what to look for.

"We are woven into the fabric of the daily lives of our guests and team members," said Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Hospitality Association. "As a result, hospitality industry leaders are recognizing the important role we play in preventing and ending this crime. Hotels take profound pride and responsibility in serving and protecting all guests."

American youth are being exploited by human trafficking, said Mar Brettmann, PhD, executive director for BEST. The typical age of entry for youth into the sex trade is 13-15 years old, and many trafficking victims are runaway teens or survivors of other forms of abuse.

"When hotel employees are trained to recognize and report potential human trafficking situations, it can make all the difference in the life of someone who is being trafficked," Brettmann said. "For this reason, BEST is thrilled to announce our new partnership with the Washington Hospitality Association. This partnership will allow us to train thousands of hotel employees in Washington, and it will make our region even more proactive in preventing human trafficking." 

BEST's program is a 30-minute training that can be taken by individual hotel employees or in a larger group setting. The training is available in English or Spanish, and it has been proven to increase hotel employee reporting.

bellagreen Cuts Plastic Footprint

bellagreen™ celebrated Earth Week last year with a pledge to cut its plastic footprint in half by March 2020. The brand is proud to announce that this promise has been fulfilled 14 months early, further advancing bellagreen’s mission to make life and Earth more beautiful with every meal.

As of January 1, 2019, all eight bellagreen restaurants offer only paper straws and to-go bags, effectively reducing its plastic footprint by 50 percent. The American bistro believes the positive impact on the Earth is more than worth the incremental $40,000 annual investment. 

“At bellagreen, we are committed to contributing to a better world for the communities we serve by using high-quality foods and sustainable environmental practices,” said Jason Morgan, CEO of bellagreen. “We couldn’t be more excited to start the new year off even greener than the last. We’re proud to make Earth more beautiful each day we operate.”

As Houston’s first Certified Green Restaurant™, bellagreen strives to help its guests “Eat Well & Tread Lightly.” In addition to reducing plastic waste, bellagreen decreases its ecological footprint through water conservation, alternative power, pollution reduction, sustainable sourcing practices, and upcycled furnishing and building materials to maintain harmony with the environment.

Since 2008, bellagreen has served hand-crafted American bistro favorites including a variety of scratch-made appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches, tacos, burgers, pizzas, pastas and desserts. The brand was founded to provide great-tasting options for guests with dietary restrictions including gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and vegetarian. bellagreen recipes use the freshest and finest organic ingredients including chickpeas, spinach, flours, tomato sauce, quinoa, coffee and teas. The menu offers Best Aquaculture Practices (“BAP”) certified seafood, locally-sourced Texas angus beef and an extensive selection of Sustainability In Practice (“SIP”) certified wines. 

Swish Debuts

The creators of Facetune launched Swish, a new tool for food and restaurant professionals. Swish, by Lightricks, is a video content creating app that allows users to create short video ads with no editing experience necessary. The  app gives small and large businesses the ability to create dynamic videos to help them compete with the big dogs. With foolproof templates users are guaranteed to be able to create a beautiful video every time — on-the-go, from the palm of your hand. Videos from Swish can take as little as two minutes to create.

Targeted to small businesses and creators on-the-go, Swish capitalizes on the company's goal of empowering everyday individuals to unleash their creativity. Swish provides an easy-to-use resource for small businesses looking to make an impact online and more effectively market their brands without hefty graphic design or video editing fees.

Antoine’s Names First New Executive Chef in Nearly 50 Years and Tech Investments posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

[littlegeckotech]

The main attraction that bring customers to a restaurant is the food that restaurant serve to its customers. But serving the best food in the world doesn’t bring customers in the restaurant.Every night there will be full occupancy in your cannot be guaranteed unless people know how good the food is, that your restaurant serve. For this you as a owner and your restaurant contractor has do some extra promotion to attract customers and tell them about the food that is served in the restaurant. Once they are inside the restaurant and try the delicacies served there, they will come back time and again and also promote the restaurant among their friends and relatives.

To attract more Customers to Your Restaurant one of the priority should be to bring them indoor first and in order to this happen here are few efficient and innovative ideas that can help you to get more loyal customers to your restaurant.

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Use of Smart Flyers: To promote your restaurant it is very important that flyers promoting any event or any special occasion are not distributed in a generic way by leaving it just on the car window or any other way and hoping that people will find this, but it should be smart flyer with a targeted message and that too the promotion of restaurant, and details of delicacies serviced and discounts or any other offering. Here in flyer what offer you are giving depends upon you but this offer should continue for one month at least, if not more as it will provide sufficient time for the people to visit your restaurant. You can also include discounts, free appetizers or desserts and free gifts also to attract customers.

A professional approach with flyers distribution is must. You will have to choose an appropriate time when to distribute the same as distributing every week will annoy your customer base also and they will refrain visiting your restaurant. You cannot get customers with leaving flyers just on the windshields as most of these end in the garbage. So a careful strategy be made for every thing.

Attract Local Businesses and create partnership: One of the area generally ignored by restaurants is local businesses. As local businesses hold meetings and conventions, they go for catering and special lunches for their clients and staff. It is better that you make a list of local businesses holding such meetings and start conversations with them. You can offer discounts so you can get full catering order instead a part one. All this will make your restaurant to attract a greater stream of revenue and add to your profits.

Extra discount to first timers: A customer loyalty can be created if your restaurant can offer a good discount to the first timers. This discount should not be less than 20% as this is good deal. You can also offer them free appetizers or any thing else which can help them to come to restaurant in large numbers.

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Introduce the happy hours : To attract more customers to your restaurant create happy hours in your restaurant. Happy hours to the restaurant means happy profits. Generally happy hours are late afternoon. Spreading from Monday to Thursday, but it is up to your choice when your restaurant will have happy hour and what are offers in happy hours. Generally drinks and appetizers are offered as happy hours deal. With free drinks and appetizers in happy hours people order many other things in restaurant and likely to stay and order for dinner. You can also offer a great happy hours for your regular and loyal customers so that they can come back again and again and making your restaurant a popular place for lunch and dinner.

Celebrate big events: Many big events like New year eve, sporting event, Valentines day can be celebrated and promoted by restaurant in a big way as these events are perfect occasions for you to take advantage to increase footfall in the restaurant. Generally people go out for dinning on these big events and if your restaurant is not celebrating these then you are loosing a great opportunity to Increase loyal customers base who will be coming back time and again in the restaurant.

Host Customer friendly events: Your restaurant can hold special events like cooking classes, themed parties, special events for younger generation and kindling a sense of loyalty in them towards restaurant .

Arrange special dinners on customers birthdays and anniversary: People goes out to celebrate birthday and anniversary and invite their friends and relatives to celebrate the occasion. Your Restaurant can arrange special party/dinner for such celebrations. For this you can send emails and notifications in advance that if they celebrate their special event and make like it be memorable then they should come to your restaurant and you can offer them special dish, appetizers and gifts. It’s a great way to remind them about your restaurant and attract new customers.

One of the foremost thing to attract customers to your restaurant is to bring them through front door and this is the first and basic step. Providing them with customer friendly service and best food dishes is the other important way to attract them to your restaurant. The planning of every effort should be such that first time visitor to your restaurant makes a mind to visit again and again, and all your effort will go waste if your are not converting new customers into a long term loyal customers.

It is the combination of above ideas which can bring more loyal customers to your restaurant and not any single idea. Once you are able to know which combination of ideas detailed above can more customers loyal to your restaurant then you can make double effort on those ideas and reap extra business and of-course more profits in your restaurant business. You can also take help of latest restaurant technology to achieve your goal like mobile POS system, and social network.

Little Gecko Technology Consultants are a leading technology provider in Boston and Greater Boston area. If you in process of opening a restaurant in Boston or already in the restaurant business and need technology solutions for your restaurant like Restaurant POS Systems, WiFi backup internet, routers, music and acoustic systems, we are here to help you as we are supplier and installer of all these systems. We also provide training for restaurant POS system to restaurant employees. Now the rest is up-to you! How soon do you want to make this decision and reap the benefits of advanced technology?

This Blog"How Can Your Restaurant can Attract more Customers'' is originally Posted Here.

[alyindies]

— 💫  ROLEPLAY STATS

face claim: ALYCIA DEBNAM-CAREY

fandom ships: CHEMISTRY, MALES, FEMALES

previously: ( stellaweston )

verse: CAN YOU SEE THE STARS

— 💫  GENERAL INFO

full name: STELLA NOELLE WESTON

nickname(s): STELLS, STELL

birth day/sign: AUGUST 1ST, LEO

ethnicity: UNAVAILABLE

hometown: SEATTLE, WA  

current location: BOSTON, MA

gender: FEMALE

preferred pronouns: SHE/HER

orientation: PANSEXUAL PANROMANTIC

religion: NON-RELIGIOUS

occupation: BOSTON UNIVERSITY GRAD STUDENT STUDYING ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE PHYSICS, PART-TIME PLANETARIUM ATTENDANT AT THE BOSTON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE, AND EVENT PIANIST AT THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL

— 💫  RELATIONSHIPS

parents: CAROLINE WESTON ( mother ), RICHARD WESTON ( father )

sibling(s): BRODY WESTON ( twin brother )

significant other(s): SINGLE

children: NONE

pet(s): NONE

best friends: DEPENDENT ON VERSE

enemies: DEPENDENT ON VERSE

— 💫  PHYSICAL TRAITS

eye color: GREEN

hair color: BROWN

height: 5′5″

weight: 130 - 140 LBS

body build: ECTOMORPH

body modifications: VARIOUS TATTOOS, LOBE PIERCINGS, SECONDARY LOBE PIERCINGS

notable physical traits: SLIM FIGURE, DIMPLES, FRECKLES

— 💫  PHOBIAS & DISEASES & ADDICTIONS

phobia(s): N/A

addiction(s): GALAXIES, ROMANTIC COMEDIES, BLINK 182, BOXER BRIEFS, FRENCH TOAST STICKS, BUBBLE TEA, FEMINISM, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ROSES, ASTRONOMY JOKES, GILMORE GIRLS, STAR WARS, TEEN TITANS

mental disease(s): ANXIETY

physical disease(s): ASTHMA

when was this diagnosed?: ANXIETY ( 17 ), ASTHMA ( 5 )

— 💫  PERSONALITY

[ pos. ] — LAID BACK, ADVENTUROUS, KIND

[ neg. ] — SENSITIVE, INVASIVE, IMPATIENT

*all information is relative to the verse, including significant other(s), children, best friends, enemies, occupation, hometown, and phobias & diseases & addictions. most of the physical traits will remain the same and will be altered if the face claim is changed. personality is also relative to the verse, though less likely to change.

Growing up in the Weston household had been like growing up in a royal English court. The rules were tight and restricting, expectant that the children of Richard and Caroline Weston would be of the utmost importance in their small society. As much as you could call the Medina neighborhood of Seattle high society. It wasn’t the Upper East Side, but it liked to think that it had enough merit to be compared to America’s prized piece of land. The Weston children were groomed  to rise above their small segment of the Pacific Northwest and take on the world with the kind of business sense that had put Richard Weston at the top of not only Seattle’s social ladder, but the company that his father had built before him. It was a big investment for a business that didn’t sit inside of one of the country’s largest business hubs, but it thrived regardless.

Something about this way of growing up never sat well with Stella, the youngest of the Weston twins. She would put on the pretty dresses and flowers for parties to appease her mother’s judgmental glares - but there were always high tops hidden under hems, boys boxer briefs under the mini skirts, and smudges of dirt under the fingernails that were always painted and kept in shape. There was nothing about Stella Weston that screamed she wanted to be a part of the family fortune or an heir to the throne of a company that she couldn’t believe in. She’d rather spend her days outside on a skateboard with her friends from Beacon Hill and West Seattle. Or curled up in bed reading comic books, star charts, and Hawking’s Grand Design or the science of black holes. The parties with boys that stared at her chest and girls looking to be her friend for her name bored Stella out of her mind. It just wasn’t a lifestyle that she ever wanted.

As a child and as she grew older, Stella loved music and the piano. It was a love that her parents couldn’t understand, as they believed in the work of a business and not that of an artist. They appeased her with a keyboard on her twelfth birthday, though she knew it was mostly to keep her dirty hands off of their prized grand piano in the foyer. It become one of the most used objects in the house and one that annoyed her family when she decided to pull out the headphones and grace the halls of their large home with her musical tracks. For the most part, she’d taught herself how to navigate the keyboard but extracurricular music classes at her school helped her hone the skill beyond what she could do without help.

Another one of the loves Stella had come upon early was a passion for outer space, the stars, and the science of their lifespans. She’d spent more time climbing out of the window of her third story bedroom to sit on the roof and look at the stars than in meetings with her father or going to high end shops with her mother. She made telescopes out of leftover cardboard rolls as a child, laying back on the roof and gazing through the tubes covered with glitter and markers that smelled like bananas and strawberries. To her surprise, this interest was something that her parents encouraged. Not only did they consider this a sign of intelligence, but something that could be turned into a business venture in the future. This was a thought they’d had in mind even when she was a young child - she could be an asset to the family name.

At the thought of college and her future, Stella considered both of her great loves to take the lead for her future. Her parents pushed for schooling astronomy and physics, encouraging her to go into something that would be worth their time and money - something that could become an eventual asset to their family name. The Weston’s could be known as affiliates to a future scientist and merge business with NASA. So, with her acceptance into Boston University, Stella moved across the country at eighteen into a dorm room with girls that didn’t know who she was and the support of her parents in a career that she could actually love. Four years went by much faster than she would have liked - gaining and losing friends, learning what it took to work in the field, and spending part of her Junior year in Washington D.C. working in an intern position under a scientist at NASA that she’d only just managed to get into. She did it all without the presence of her parents but their money and support to become the best in her chosen field.

With graduation came the decision on where she would go - back to D.C. to continue her work there? Back to Seattle under the reign of her parents? Or staying in Boston, a city that she had grown to truly love with the promise of a job at the Museum of Science and an acceptance letter to enter into the Graduate program at her alma mater. Stella could no longer live under the influence of people that could only see her as a business transaction. She didn’t want to live in the house she grew up in, forced to attend parties and marry a boy of her father’s choosing. Stella wanted to be independent, graceful, and loved on all of her own terms. The thought of taking her own time, saving up her own money, and working outside of her parents control was exactly what Stella wanted for her life.

From her dormitory, she moved into Kings Terrace - all of the payments made with money she’d saved from her internship and the first paycheck she’d received working at the Museum of Science. Stella was six months into this living situation before she realized that the one big thing missing from her life, the one thing that she knew would make everything feel right, was music. She still played her keyboard; the one covered in Blink-182 stickers, rainbows, and nail polish that she’d prized since she was twelve. The audition for a position playing at the Ritz was much more difficult than she had thought, but she was lucky enough to snag the position with practice on a piece that she’d learned from videos online and music scores printed on colored paper. It was mostly an evening job at events and parties, working well with her early schedule at the museum.

[michaeldiaszkirindage]

Toast POS | TechRadar

Toast POS | TechRadar

Boston-based Toast is an all-in-one POS system with a focus on catering to the needs of restaurants and other businesses in the food service industry. The company was founded by three former Endeca employees after Oracle acquired the software firm in 2011. Toast’s founders initially set out to create a consumer app centered on mobile payments, customer loyalty and promotions that could integrate…

[trendytechreviews]

Food Ordering Kiosks Market: Top Industry Players, Revenue By 2027

Food ordering kiosks are self-service kiosks at cafes and restaurants enabled with digital touch screens where customers can place their orders instead of standing or waited in line to place an order. Self-service food ordering kiosks play an important role as a point of sale in businesses. The use of kiosks as POS in restaurants and cafes helps to increase the business. The food ordering kiosk is an advanced and reliable technology in the food and restaurant industry to reduce the food ordering time and improve restaurant delivery services. The food ordering kiosk is expected to be adopted by large quick service restaurants. These kiosks reduce human errors while ordering and manage the orders as well, besides maintaining the order history of all customers.

The food ordering kiosk will act as full service restaurant point of sale (POS) solution, quick service point of sale (POS), Bars and clubs point of sale (POS), brewery point of sale (POS). The best kiosk software has multiple food menu configurations, prompts for add-on items, product photos, and upselling. Multiple kiosk vendors are expected to provide customized kiosk solutions for quick service restaurants.

Planning to lay down future strategy? Perfect your plan with our report brochure here

Food Ordering Kiosks Market – Competitive Landscape

Toast, Inc.

Founded in 2011, Toast, Inc. is based in Boston, Massachusetts, the U.S. Toast Inc. provides software and hardware for food ordering solutions. The company offers the “Toast Go handheld” device, terminals, kiosks, guest facing displays, and kitchen display systems. The company also generates revenue from point of sales, reporting and analytics services, payroll and team management, online delivery and ordering system, and loyalty system.

TouchBistro

Founded in 2010, TouchBistro is a global provider of POS solutions in quick service restaurants. The company provides quick service kiosks, bars and club kiosks, food truck solutions, brewery POS solutions, and full service restaurants. It also provides the solutions in online ordering integration, kitchen display systems, digital menu boards, and setup & implementation services.

NCR Corporation

Founded in 1884, NCR Corporation provides software solution banks, restaurants, and retail sector. The company offers a restaurant solution which includes cloud-enabled enterprise POS, back office work of restaurants, consumer engagement solutions, self-ordering solutions, digital connected services, and restaurant hardware solutions.

Alberta Payments, LLC

Alberta Payments LLC is based in New Jersey, the U.S. It provides retail management solutions such as point-of-sale systems and merchant processing services in small to medium retail businesses. The company provides POS solutions for inventory management, loss prevention, scan data programs, mobile applications, and food ordering kiosk systems.

Looking for exclusive market insights from business experts? Request a Custom Report here

Quick service restaurants adopting food ordering kiosks to increase business

Increasing demand for food ordering kiosk systems in large quick service restaurants to increase the footfall is driving the driving the growth of the market. The food ordering kiosk is expected to increase the business of restaurants by reducing the processing time and enhancing the customer experience. Several solution providers are expected to provide advanced kiosks for food ordering. The trend observed in food ordering kiosks such as Cali Burger launched the face recognized food ordering kiosk which is the advance technological growth in kiosk for ordering food by own.

Integration and pricing of customized kiosks restraining the growth of the market in small and medium businesses

The integration of the food ordering kiosk system with existing systems and numerous issues in the operating system is hindering the growth of the market. Several solution providers are offering customized solutions for the food industry which increases the cost of the overall system. Increasing cost of the system with technological growth is expected to hamper the market growth in small and medium businesses.

[guidinglightpage]

POS Reviews For 2018

A POS system shows your customers you’re on the cutting edge.

A restaurant Point of Sale System (POS) is designed specifically with the food industry in mind.

A POS enables you to process payments as well as manage your front and back of house operations.

Over the last several years, POS systems have grown to include pay at the table options as well. With the ability to operate without registers or computer terminals, restaurants can now meet their customers’ needs in multiple ways. (tweet this)

Because of this added functionality, it’s more important than ever to find a POS that is reliable, and one you can depend on. You want it to process payments quickly and easily, especially if your patrons are using it.

According to Michael Oshins, a faculty member at Boston University’s School of Hospitality Administration, “The payment system is the technological heart of the restaurant. This is why it’s so important to your business.

To help you sort through the solutions we look at POS reviews for 2018.

Toast

A well-known POS, Toast offers an option for quick service restaurants like sandwich shops, ice cream parlors, and coffee shops at $79/month/terminal.

They also offer a full-service restaurant POS that has additional features including a tie to the front of house, kitchen and bar processes. For example, you can manage tables and orders to the kitchen and bar. This is $99/month/terminal.

You can also add on online ordering and delivery options starting at $50/month.

Toast simplifies all of your restaurant operations by combining POS, front of house, back of house and all guest-facing technology such as paying their bill and tipping in one platform.

All of this is available to you to monitor in real time and from any location.

What’s more, you can add on an inventory feature for just $79 more per month. You’ll love the advanced features like monitoring sales, labor costs, menu engineering, recipe costing and food cost reports.

In addition, you get free updates and 24/7 customer support.

While Toast is more expensive than most, it is a full-featured, robust POS that justifies its price tag.

Get Toast

TouchBistro

One of the most popular POS systems, TouchBistro has also won many awards.

It bills itself as the hybrid solution because it doesn’t depend on the internet. What does this mean for you? It means the system doesn’t crash if the internet does.

You can, like some of the other systems, access your data and manage your business using any device at any time and from anywhere.

TouchBistro is great for virtually any size restaurant, and its reviews are great.

You can manage tableside orders, help your staff upsell, manage floor plans and tables, take mobile payment and manage staff and scheduling. In addition, it offers inventory management, reporting and analytics.

Finally, with TouchBistro, you can take gift cards and integrate your loyalty program to encourage repeat visits and increase your customers’ lifetime value.

Its pricing is $69/month for one terminal, $129/month for two, $299/month for five and $399/month for unlimited terminals. Depending on your type of restaurant, there’s a solution for you.

Get TouchBistro

Your customers have come to expect tableside ordering and payment options.

Breadcrumb

This is a nice POS for full-service restaurants. The price is reasonable at $69 per terminal and $30 for each additional terminal.

In addition, you can process transactions through Breadcrumb or integrate the system with your own third-party processor.

In business since 2011, it was acquired by Upserve in 2016. This iPad point of sale system is designed to allow you to create table maps, update menu items and monitor your sales in real time using their live mobile app.

Get Breadcrumb

Lavu

Lavu is a budget-friendly restaurant POS system that starts at just $59/month/terminal with pricing available for multiple terminals.

It’s bonus feature is that you can use their online ordering and home delivery system as well. While Toast’s package costs extra, Lavu’s does not.

You will be able to track inventory, schedule shifts, and print reports from anywhere.

It also has an offline mode, so you can keep operating even if your internet goes down.

This is a great POS if you’re on a budget, but you will notice a lower level of functionality.

Get Lavu

Lightspeed

With plans starting at $69/month/terminal, Lightspeed is another reliable POS system for restaurants.

It’s cloud-based and helps you with tableside ordering and payment, reporting, integrations, loyalty programs, restaurant management and more. You also have access to 24/7 support.

You’ll find it’s simple to create your menu, and you’ll be up and running in no time.

Lightspeed is adept at helping you with your floorplan and menu with photos, descriptions and prices as well as your end of day reporting.

It’s a nice budget-friendly option with multiple integrations. 

Get Lightspeed

Final Thoughts

Now that you have some POS reviews for 2018 to look through, we leave you with a few thoughts on what makes the best restaurant POS systems.

They consist of:

Till management that includes a cash manager, tip tracking, tip calculators for customers, multiple ticket-splitting options and payment tracking. As a bonus, it would nice if it had support for gift cards, coupons, online menus, and discount tracking.

Menu management that allows you to add/change menu descriptions, modify orders, provide kitchen support and orders.

Food inventory management that helps you with your accounting and monitoring of inventory waste.

Reporting tools that allow you to access the system remotely, integration with your accounting programs and reports including front and back of house.

Employee management that includes employing scheduling and staff messaging.

The most robust systems will include customer management including loyalty program options, order history tracking, social media integration and automated marketing tools.

Finally, consider your budget. How much can you spend on your POS system and how many terminals do you need?

Know this upfront before signing any contracts. Ask about monthly fees, set up charges, contracts and cancellation fees. 

Bottom line – whether you run a full-service restaurant, quick service restaurant, coffee shop or deli, a restaurant POS system can adeptly help you manage your business. (tweet this)

From taking orders to processing payments and managing inventory and running reports, a POS system can take your restaurant to the next level.

At Restaurant Engine, not only do we create great, responsive websites, but you can count on us to create a website that drives business to your restaurant and edges you above the competition by using mobile-friendly design with a terrific user experience. Ready to take the plunge and create a website with an online menu, blog and beautiful photos? Get your free website consultation today!

Image: QuickOrder and by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

POS Reviews For 2018 syndicated from https://happyhourspecialsyum.wordpress.com/

[feedblogspot]

The smell of fresh bread on every corner. The hot stench of humidity trapped within a densely populated city. The rush of children, adults and elderly all edging to get to their next destination. Hong Kong is a melting pot of food, people and excitement.

Previously a British colony, Hong Kong is now classified as an autonomous territory, part of South-Eastern China. Steeped in history, religion and culture, their open and welcoming nature ranges from the tourist-friendly Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, all the way to the conversational local working in a small wonton noodle shop offering free appetisers and revealing his fluent English upon hearing us speak. But as you will quickly learn, the level of friendliness ranges depending on how local you go…

Here are some of the places I visited on a recent trip to Hong Kong, and why they are worth a try.

Breakfast

Australian Dairy Company

Where: 47 Parkes St, Jordan (Yau Ma Tei)

Famous for: steamed milk pudding, scrambled eggs, toast

Definitely try: scrambled egg + toast, any of the sandwiches (crusts come cut off), macaroni pasta + ham, club sandwich, steamed egg white pudding, steamed milk pudding, milk tea

To note: very local restaurant, usually with a queue out the front. Service is fast but abrupt, and the restaurant is very crowded.

Wai Kee Congee Shop

Where: No. 82 Stanley St, Central

Famous for: congee, noodles

Definitely try: beef congee, youtiao (Chinese fried dough; rip apart and eat with congee), turnip cake, zhaliang (rice noodle wrapped around youtiao)

To note: very local restaurant, not sure if they speak English. Quick service and very cheap.

Sang Kee Congee Shop

Where: G/F, 7-9 Burd St, Sheung Wan

Famous for: Quangdong cuisine, congee with fish

Definitely try: fish or beef congee, youtiao (Chinese fried dough), zhaliang (rice noodle wrapped around youtiao), fish cakes

To note: they have 3 different restaurants, all within the same area, and each specialising in something different. This one is their congee shop.

Bakeries

There are quite a few different chain stores. The most frequent ones include Maxim’s Cakes and Arome Bakery, and Saint Honore.

Wonton Noodles

Mak’s Noodles

Where: 77 Wellington St, Central

Famous for: Wonton Noodles

Definitely try: Shrimp Wonton Noodles (HK$40/bowl), Beef Brisket & Wonton Noodles (HK$58/bowl), Pork Dumpling (with shrimp, mushroom, fungus and bamboo shoots), Vegetables with oyster sauce

To note: slightly more expensive than your average local wonton noodle restaurant, but the quality is well worth the price. Small bowl, may be more suitable as a snack. Complimentary tea. My favourite wonton noodle place in Hong Kong – pure, fresh, clean flavour broth. Michelin star.

Tsim Chai Kee

Where: 98 Wellington St, Central

Famous for: Wonton Noodles, Fish Ball Noodles, Beef Noodles

Definitely try: Wonton Noodles, Fish Ball Noodles or Fish Balls in soup

To note: Better value for money, with a larger quantity. Slightly older in venue style, and more local feel, than Mak’s Noodles across the road. My second favourite wonton noodle place in Hong Kong – slightly heavier and deeper broth than Mak’s Noodles. Michelin star.

Chee Kei

Where:

Famous for: Wonton Noodles

Definitely try: Shrimp Wonton Noodles (HK$45/bowl), set meals (good value for money), Fried Chicken Wings

To note: They have multiple locations. My third favourite wonton noodle place in Hong Kong. Larger serving sizes, making them good value for money, especially with the meal sets.

Local Street Food Stalls

(Known as ‘Dai Pai Dong’).

Can also find: beef jerky, egg waffles, fish balls, dim sum.

Yum Cha

Maxim’s Place

Where: 18/F, Maxim’s Centre, No. 17 Cheung Shun St, Cheung Sha Wan, Kowloon

Famous for: Yum Cha

Definitely try: all of their dim sum

To note: often a queue outside, unless you arrive early. Staff walking around with trolleys need to be called over, otherwise they may not come to your table. Or, sometimes trolleys are left unattended on the side, so customers may go up there, and wait for a staff member to collect a dish for them, then tick it off their sheet. Trolleys have labels and pictures of what food they contain.

Tim Ho Wan

Where: Shop 12A, Hong Kong Station, Podium Level 1, IFC Mall, Central

Famous for: Dim Sum/Yum Cha, BBQ Pork Buns

Definitely try: BBQ Pork Buns, Dim Sum/Yum Cha

To note: may need to wait in line if peak period. Original store, hence is the best.

Specialties

Din Tai Fung

Where: multiple locations

Famous for: Xiao Long Bao (steamed, broth-filled dumplings), Dim Sum

Definitely try: Xiao Long Bao, fried rice, any of their dim sum

To note: usually need to wait for a table, but quite efficient. Michelin star. Originated in Taiwan.

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao

Where: multiple locations (we visited the one in IFC Mall)

Famous for: Shanghainese, Sichuan and Northern Chinese cuisine, Xiao Long Bao (steamed, broth-filled pork dumplings), handmade La Mian

Definitely try: Xiao Long Bao, any of their signature dishes

To note: usually need to wait for a table, but quite efficient.

Lei Bistro or Lei Garden

Where: multiple locations (including internationally)

Famous for: Crispy Roasted Pork, traditional Cantonese-style dishes

Definitely try: we didn’t have time to visit this, but the Crispy Roasted Pork comes highly recommended

To note: Lei Bistro is the slightly more casual version of Lei Garden. Similar dishes and restaurants though, with small portions. Often run out of availability of the crispy roasted pork by evening.

Lamma Rainbow

Where: 23-25 First St, Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma Island

Famous for: fresh seafood – pick what seafood you want from their numerous tanks at the front of the restaurant, and tell the staff how you would like it cooked

Definitely try: any of their seafood

To note: large, outdoor restaurant. Many seafood restaurants on this island, but this looks to be one of the most popular ones.

Tai Cheong Bakery

Where: 35 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central

Famous for: traditional Hong Kong bakery, egg tarts, Chinese donuts

Definitely try: egg (custard) tarts, coconut tarts, savoury chicken pie

To note: different style of egg tart to those found in Yum Cha restaurants – these are less flaky, more solid biscuit-like crust, but just as delicious.

Emack & Bolio’s

Where: 26 Cochrane St, Central

Famous for: Boston-originated conoisseur ice cream – unique flavours

Definitely try: Stoney’s Dream Ice Cream (mixture of cookie dough and brownie inside the ice cream), their exciting ice cream cones

To note: quite expensive. Often see a queue on weekends.

Jollibee

Where: multiple locations – chain restaurant

Famous for: Philippino fast-food chain, famous for their crispy fried chicken

Definitely try: crispy fried chicken

To note: fast food chain

Under Bridge Spicy Crab

Where: multiple locations, flagship store is at G/F-3/F Ascot Mansion, 421-425 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai.

Famous for: Typhoon shelter style seafood, particularly their spicy mud crab

Definitely try: Under Bridge Spicy Crab

To note: it’s quite spicy! Their soy sauce and garlic mud crab is pretty delicious too.

So the next time you’re in Hong Kong, be sure to try some of these places out! I’d also love to hear about any other places you would recommend for my next visit to Hong Kong.

  Hong Kong: Where To Eat. The smell of fresh bread on every corner. The hot stench of humidity trapped within a densely populated city.

[devontroxell]

How (and Why) to Use Branding to Supercharge Your Advertising

In the world of paid digital marketing there are various components that determine whether your efforts are successful or not. But within the technical complexities of account structure, campaign optimization, conversion tracking, and audience targeting (amongst many others) lies an important detail that many advertisers—regardless of expertise—often neglect. That detail is branding.

Many advertisers direct a majority of their focus on the individual promotions themselves and the results they want to drive from them. Much less of this energy is spent on the impact and representation of their brand within all of this. And this is where the problem lies.

Filling the top of your marketing funnel with leads and site traffic may appear to be progress on paper, but if the leads and traffic you are driving don't have a concise recognition of who it is that they’re engaging with, you may be wasting a lot of time and resources. So in this post, I will explain why you need to focus on your brand and how to use it to improve your paid strategy. We'll cover:

The long-term benefits of incorporating branding into your advertising.

Examples of businesses doing this right

Ways you can incorporate your branding into your advertsing.

The consequences of advertising without branding

As mentioned, the popular approach to running paid ads is oftentimes focusing solely on producing the desired result no matter what—whether that be a click, form submission, or video view. This guerilla-esque strategy drives marketers and business owners to sacrifice their own brand consistency in favor of something that yields a quick win within their goal parameters.

But this narrow thinking can cause problems down the line, particularly when the individuals submitting forms or arriving at landing pages have no idea of your business and what it does, or have failed to retain that memory over time.

The internet is a realm of reward system feedback loops and subliminal stimulus triggers. The brain processes images and words at lightning speed and determines which information has value—whether that value is the satisfaction of fulfilling curiosity or something more direct like a cheese pizza. This is why click-bait exists.

But these “hacks” are oftentimes merely shortcuts to superflous results. When attempting to realistically grow your business through advertising, it's important that you drive the results you want while simultaneously leveraging your brand to leave a lasting impression on the user.   

The benefit of aligning branding and advertising

It’s critical to have brand recognition and retention at all steps in the process of advertising. If the people you are marketing to have no familiarity with your brand, then to achieve this, your ads and landing pages will always need to speak to your core brand value proposition in addition to the value of the specific product or service being offered.

But as your company’s brand recognition grows and flourishes, the need to drive that core brand value proposition home through every ad campaign becomes less important—which is a good thing because that proposition can often become complex, ambiguous, or implied over time. Let’s use the extremely broad example of Coca-Cola.

Rather beautiful for a company that has aided in tooth decay and the early onset of diabetes for decades, but I digress. Keep in mind that Coca-Cola owns a countless number of other companies at this point, aiding in the complexity of creating one inspiring mission statement. The point is, because they have built up such strong brand awareness and recognition, Coca-Cola doesn't need to explicitly state their brand messaging through their mission statement. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t continue express that brand messaging through their ads:

Consistent color schemes, imagery, and tone account for instantaneous recognition from a user observing their content. This ad plays on one of Coca-Cola’s biggest brand value propositions: nostalgia. These subtle details fill in a variety of gaps of information already stored in the customer’s brain associated with the Coca-Cola brand. This allows for the individual to draw upon related information instantly in their mind without having to do any heavy cognitive lifting. This is the power of a strong brand.  

This allows for the individual to draw upon related information instantly in their mind without having to do any heavy cognitive lifting. This is the power of a strong brand.

Branding and advertising alignment for small businesses

Although a massive company that has had decades of success marketing carbonated sugar water surely won’t have any issues with brand recognition, smaller, more nuanced businesses will. The B2B tech space, for example, is swimming with companies that choose to neglect the existence of vowels in their names. When potential prospects in this space are inundated with the plethora of B2B tools that will supposedly make their lives easier, the brands will all start to blend together. This same reality rings true for many other industries as businesses compete for digital attention.

In these cases, a strong brand will set you above the crowd of overly technical or feature-based propositions. A great example of this is the Boston-based tech company Drift. Drift’s platform allows companies to do a variety of sales and marketing-related activities that all inherently carry their own respective value propositions. However, they’re branding is broad enough to be digestible but specific enough to clearly hit home with their target audience: 

Their product was once primarily focused around the “conversational marketing” aspect of their chatbots but now you can see the reuse and repetition of the words “revenue” and “acceleration.”

  There is a clear effort on Drift’s part to rebrand, in a sense, away from the over-saturated chatbot market (one that they stand on top of) to convey that their product has much more to offer. It may not seem like a massive change but this messaging is carried throughout their site. The foundational function of their business is still conversational marketing but the point of the matter is that their brand story encompasses all aspects of their platform and uses repetition throughout their digital properties to make “revenue acceleration” synonymous with their product perception. As I will explain, consistency is key.

How small businesses can use branding to improve advertising success

It's clear that big or small, brick-and-mortar or ecommerce, businesses must always incorporate branding into their advertising strategy for sustained growth. Below are some tips and guidelines for doing so.

Remain consistent 

When speaking with clients about branding, one of the most important points that I try to drive home is that of “brand consistency." This means ensuring that your landing pages and ads use the same language, tone, and color palette as the rest of your site. This may not seem like an important aspect but it's not unlikely that individuals will research your business either before or after they convert on the ads that you set before them.

For example, let’s say someone clicks through on a Coca-Cola ad and they are directed to a page with McDonalds colors, font, and tone. That individual will certainly be confused, believing that they clicked on the wrong link. The same goes for your business in a more subtle way. The impression left by your landing page may not be drawn upon in their memory bank when subsequently visiting your site. You want everything to be consistent in order to enforce familiarity.

Express the goal of the ad through the voice of your brand

Establishing a consistent and persuasive brand on your website will make incorporating these aspects into your advertising much easier. Focusing on the goal of your advertising should always be your first concern, but reinforcing your company identity should be a close second. One way to kill two birds with one stone is to structure your ad copy in a way that addresses the goal of the ad through the voice of your brand.

One way to kill two birds with one stone is to structure your ad copy in a way that addresses the goal of the ad through the voice of your brand

 Let’s break down an example of this: 

Toast effectively blends both their core brand messaging and functional messaging into this paid search ad. Highlighted in green is the functional messaging of the ad with the branding in red.

“Adapt Fast w/ Online Ordering” and “Contactless Delivery” are the functional value propositions that entice the user to click through on the ad.

“All-in-1 Restaurant POS” and “One Platform to Power Your Restaurant” are the brand reinforcements. 

Slogans are an effective way to build a brand because it takes the overarching complexity of a business (or ideology in today’s day and age) and simplifies it into a digestible sound bite. As mentioned before with the Coca-Cola example, this simplified information is stored and recalled upon by the consumer’s brain when interacting with the brand. People who are familiar with Toast can easily construct a mental image when reading these words. The same methodology can be applied to the paid social advertising side as well:

Toast reinforces its identity as the all-in-one restaurant POS system with “Built for Restaurants.” The imagery includes their POS systems themselves as well as their logo. The supporting copy speaks to the functional value proposition of the product, giving users a reason to click through. 

Employ a consistent landing page design

Continuing with the Toast example, you can see how their website and landing page echoes the sentiment in the ad: 

This messaging can be found across their digital territories, reinforcing their place as the “all-in-one” solution for restaurants. There are a number of point-of-sale systems available for businesses, but Toast focuses solely on restaurants. This is their brand. You can see the repeated use of the term restaurants in almost all of their copy:

Pay attention to branding elements when advertising

Branding has many components that could have their own separate posts entirely. To keep things simple, I’ll break it down to its simplest foundations. If you don’t feel like your business has a strong identity, you can get started with these: 

Colors

What color scheme do you feel conveys what your business is about. This may seem silly to some of the more analytical types but colors in themselves can trigger emotions. Branding is all about consistency and repetition. Color schemes become synonymous with brands and feelings, hence why so many companies will rebrand using different colors and logos if their previous combination was tarnished by a scandal or something negative. 

Language

Take everything that your business does and does well and try to condense this into a digestible and memorable combination of words. Slogans are powerful for conveying your unique value proposition, and you can always build off of them with supporting copy so you don’t feel like you have to cram too much into one sentence. 

Repetition

The key to creating a brand is to reinforce an identity through repetition and consistency. As I have mentioned, the more times that individuals are exposed to your same message, color scheme, logo, etc., the more familiar and memorable you become.  

Advertise with brand in mind for long-term results

Paid search ads are composed entirely of words, while display and social consist of both words and images. My suggestion is to pay close attention to how you are writing your ads and how you are representing your business through the imagery that you are using. You are better off with an ad whose message and imagery aligns with your business’s identity than one that is hyper-focused on the short term result that the user may be looking for. You should be aiming for a brand-laced ad that accomplishes both rather than a call-to-action-focused ad that only drives graphs in positive directions.

How (and Why) to Use Branding to Supercharge Your Advertising published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

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Where to Eat at Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)

Back again in time for holiday travel, it’s the updated Eater Boston guide to dining at and around Boston’s Logan International Airport. The airport has several serviceable restaurants and kiosks within its walls, including some with booze, and nearby options abound for traveling locals or visitors on layover.

The closest restaurants outside of Logan are in East Boston, where you’ll find a healthy mix of neighborhood eateries representing the cuisines of many nations. If you have time to hop in cab, Boston’s historic, romantic, cannoli-laden North End is ten minutes away, as are the blazing hot Seaport District and Fort Point neighborhoods. Note: Travel times listed below are approximate, and traffic can rear its ugly head at any time, so if you do leave Logan, you might want to factor in a grace period for delays. Or for oysters.

Jump to:

Best Bets Inside Logan

Listings by terminal: Terminal A | Terminal B | Terminal C | Terminal E

Best Bets Outside of Logan

Additional Dining Resources for Travelers

First, here’s what you’ll find within the airport:

Best Bets Inside Logan

Stephanie’s. [Photo: Official Site]

Legal Sea Foods (in various guises): You’re never very far from a Legal in Logan, and the many permutations of the chain are all reliable choices for raw bar, lobster, fish & chips, and so forth. The most interesting of the lot is the Legal Test Kitchen, where you’ll find the occasional exciting flourish. [Legal Test Kitchen, post-security, terminal A, gate A5; Legal C Bar, pre-security, terminal B; Legal Sea Foods, post-security, terminal B, gate B8; Legal Sea Foods, post-security, terminal C, gate 12, and a new location in the new terminal B connector at gate B26]

Durgin-Park: Traditional New England fare. An offshoot of a very old restaurant at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. The airport location has thoroughly satisfying sandwiches that’ll keep you from mid-flight hunger (and hanger). [Post-security, gate E7]

Stephanie’s: Opened in 2014, this 120-seat sibling of Stephanie’s on Newbury, Stephi’s on Tremont, and Stephi’s in Southie features a full bar. [Terminal B connector, gate B24]

Harpoon Tap Room: A satellite of Boston’s Harpoon Brewery, the Tap Room serves standard pub fare including chowder, sandwiches, and fish & chips. And of course, there’s beer — up to ten locally-brewed options, including limited edition batches. [Post-security, terminal A, gate A20]

Cisco Brew Pub: Like Harpoon, the Cisco Brew Pub is a safe choice for beer and full-service pub food (burgers, lobster rolls, and the like). [Post-security: terminal B, American Airlines departures]

Todd English’s Bonfire: Celeb chef Todd English got his start in Boston, and, for better or for worse, Bonfire has remained an outpost of his now sprawling empire (and with Olives done, it’s one of his last Boston outposts.) Steaks with South American and European treatment are the main fare, along with tacos, tapas, and, what the heck, a Kobe beef hot dog. [Post-security, terminal B, gate B36]

Dine Boston: Periodically, different guest chefs from prominent local restaurants create a new menu that pays homage to seasonal ingredients. Chefs have included Andy Husbands of Tremont 647, Jose Duarte of Taranta, and Alberto Cabre of Casa B. There’s a full-service restaurant and a cafe. [Pre-security, terminal E, level 3]

Potbelly Sandwich Shop: This Chicago-based chain serves cookies, shakes, and salads in addition to the restaurant’s best-known item: toasted sandwiches. Though it’s a sandwich chain in an airport, it gets the job done. And at some hours, it may be your only option, open from 5 a.m. until the last flight comes in. Potbelly has radded three Boston-area locations in recent years — two downtown and one in Cambridge’s Porter Square — and they’ve been fairly well-received. [Post-security, terminal C, gate C11]

Vino Volo: A restaurant and wine shop with small plates and entrees organized by red and white. For instance: smoked salmon and crabmeat crostini (white). [Post-security, two locations: terminal E, gate E6 and terminal A satellite, gates 13-22]

Berkshire Farms Market: This one’s a grab-and-go spot, but it’s a good one, featuring all sorts of locally made products from Massachusetts, with a focus on the western part of the state. But you may also find Boston-area goodies like breakfast pastries from South End Buttery, for example. And it’s a good opportunity to pick up some last-minute local treats to gift to those out-of-town friends you’re on your way to visit. [Post-security, gate B20]

None of those options doing the trick? Here are the complete offerings at Logan, listed by terminal.

Terminal A

(Gates 13-22 are in the Terminal A Satellite)

Lucky’s. [Photo: Official Site]

Auntie Anne’s — Pretzels and pretzel dogs. Opens at 10 a.m. [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Currito — “The cure for the common burrito.” [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Dunkin’ Donuts — You know what this one is. [Post-security, two locations: gates A9 and satellite concourse entrance]

Fresh City — Wraps, soups, salads, smoothies, etc. [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Friendly’s — The SuperMelts and ice cream sundaes of your childhood, available at Logan as of April 2015. [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Game On! — Sports pub. [Post-security, gate A15]

Harpoon Tap Room — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate A20]

La Baguette Marche — Grab-and-go sandwiches, pastries, and more. [Pre-security, by Southwest Airlines and WestJet Delta shuttle; post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Legal’s Test Kitchen — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate A5]

Lucky’s Lounge — An outpost of a Fort Point “retro lounge,” serving brick-oven pizzas, mini burgers, salads, etc. Fort Point’s nearby, so if you have time, get some fresh air and head to the full location. [Post-security, gate A6]

Market Kitchen — Breakfast, salads, sandwiches, and more. [Post-security, gate A9]

Sbarro — Italian-ish. [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Starbucks — Coffee and such. [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Vino Volo — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, satellite concourse entrance]

Wendy’s — Burgers, Frosties, and more. [Post-security, gate A9]

Terminal B

(Terminal B has three main sections, with gates B4-14 together, B15-29 together, and B30-38 together. Departing from gate B1, 2, or 3? Eat before you go through security; those gates have a separate security line and minimal options once you’re through.)

Berkshire Farms Market. [Official Site]

Asian Too — "Asian fusion,“ counter service. Opens at 5 a.m. and closes 30 minutes before the last departure. [Post-security, US Airways food court]

Au Bon Pain — Bread, pastries, soups, salads. [Post-security, two locations: US Airways food court and gate B7]

Berkshire Farms Market — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate B20]

Cisco Brew Pub — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, American Airlines departures.]

Cosi — Grab-and-go sandwiches, salads. [Post-security, two locations: by Air Canada gates B1-B3; American Airline Departures]

Dunkin’ Donuts [Pre-security, two locations (both 24 hours): American Airlines departures and by the PenAir - AA shuttle; post-security, American Airlines departures]

Espressamente Illy — Espresso, pastries. Opens at 5 a.m. and closes 30 minutes before the last departure. [Post-security, gate B17]

Fuel America — A Brighton-based coffee shop that has recently expanded to the airport. Opens at 5 a.m. and closes 30 minutes before the last departure. [Pre-security, American Airlines departures]

Legal C Bar — Best bet (see above.) [Pre-security, departures]

Legal Sea Foods — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, two locations: gates B8 and B26]

McDonald’s [Post-security, two locations: US Airways food court (opens at 5 a.m.) and American Airlines departures (opens at 4 a.m.)]

Ozone — A cocktail lounge with “retro-futuristic decor.” Todd English is behind this venue. [Pre-security, US Airways departures]

Peet’s Coffee & Tea — Opens at 4:30 a.m. [Post-security, gate B25]

PGA Tour Grill — Located at several airports, this sports bar mixes ingredients like quinoa, beans, and pomegranate into its dishes. Full bar; waiter service. [Post-security, gate B9]

Sbarro — Italian-ish. [Post-security, US Airways food court]

Starbucks — Coffee and such. [Pre-security, American Airlines departures; post-security, two locations: gate B31 and US Airways food court]

Stephanie’s — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate B24]

Todd English’s Bonfire — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate B36]

UFood Grill — Burgers, wraps, and sandwiches with a health-food focus. [Post-security, American Airlines departures]

Villa Pizza [Post-Security, American Airlines departures]

Vineyard Grille — Wine, burgers, seafood, etc. [Post-security; gate 17]

Terminal C

Jerry Remy’s. [Photo: Official Site]

Au Bon Pain — Bread, pastries, salads, soups. [Post-security, gate C12]

Boston Beer Works — Beer, pub food. [Post-security, two locations: gates C14 and C27]

Burger King — Burgers and such. [Pre-security, departures]

Camden Food Co. — Sandwiches, salads, etc. [Post-security, gate C10]

Currito — The “cure for the common burrito,” counter service. [Pre-security, departures]

Dunkin’ Donuts — You know this one. [Pre-security, two locations: baggage claim (24 hours) and departures; post-security, three locations: gates C20, C27, and C29]

GoGo Stop — Grab-and-go kiosk, focused on healthy foods. [Post-security, gate C33]

Green Express — Grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, breakfasts, etc. [Post-security, gate C36]

Jerry Remy’s Bar & Grill — Sports bar, comfort food. [Pre-security, departures]

Johnny Rockets — ‘50s-inspired burger chain. [Post-security, gate C26]

Lean & Green Gourmet — Grab-and-go candy, snacks, sandwiches. [Post-security, gate C42]

Legal Sea Foods — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate C12]

Pinkberry — Froyo. [Post-security, gate C12]

Potbelly Sandwich Shop — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, terminal C, gate C11]

Ryo Asian Fusion — Counter-service sushi. [Pre-security, departures]

Sam Adams Brewhouse/Remy’s Express — The place to go for Sam Adams beers, including limited edition releases, and some beer-friendly food. [Post-security, gate C42]

Starbucks — Coffee and such. [Post-security, two locations: gates C10 and C26]

UFood Grill — Burgers, wraps, and sandwiches with a health-food focus. [Post-security, gate C19]

Wahlburgers — The ever-growing burger restaurant from the Wahlberg family is now at Logan too. Serves booze and has waiter serivce. [Post-security, near gate C10]

Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Express — Pizzas and more. [Post-security, gate C28]

Terminal E

Durgin-Park. [Photo: Provided]

Burger King — Burgers and such. [Post-security, gate E8]

Dine Boston and Dine Boston Cafe — Best bet (see above.) [Pre-security, level 3]

Dunkin’ Donuts — You know this one. [Pre-security, arrivals; post-security, near gate E1]

Durgin-Park — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate E9]

Fuel America — A Brighton-based coffee shop that has recently expanded to the airport. Opens at 5 a.m. and closes 30 minutes before the last departure. [Post-security, gate E7]

Sbarro — Italian-ish. [Post-security, gate E7]

Starbucks — Coffee and such. [Post-security, gate E7]

Vineyard Grille — Wine, burgers, seafood, etc. [Post-security, gate E1]

Vino Volo — Best bet (see above.) [Post-security, gate E8]

Best Bets Outside of Logan

Meg Jones Wall for Eater

Row 34. [Photo: Meg Jones Wall for Eater]

Row 34: This popular Fort Point spot from the Island Creek Oyster Bar team is meant to be a “workingman’s oyster bar.” The price point is lower than its swanky older sibling, but this is still quite suitable for a very nice meal out. Aside from the raw bar, there are shrimp sliders, lobster rolls, and the like, plus plenty of beer. If you ever find yourself in Portsmouth, NH, Row 34 is now open there as well. [Fort Point, 383 Congress St., 7 minutes from the airport.]

Sportello: The most affordable option (but still a little on the pricey side) from noted chef/restaurateur Barbara Lynch, this Fort Point mainstay is the perfect spot for a pleasant bowl of pasta. Don’t miss the spicy tomato soup. [Fort Point, 348 Congress St., 6 minutes from the airport.]

Angela’s Cafe: Boston has seen a boom in upscale Mexican, but Angela’s is the real deal for neighborhood-style Pueblan cooking like chicken mole gorditas, albondigas, pozole, and micheladas. [East Boston, 131 Lexington St., 6 minutes from the airport.]

Santarpio’s: One of the city’s best and oldest pizzerias, Santarpio’s has been in the same spot since 1933 and has had little reason to change its excellent pies or divey vibe. Try the sausage and garlic pizza. Note: cash only. [East Boston, 111 Chelsea St., 6 minutes from the airport.]

Pizzeria Regina: Or, choose the other side of the never-ending pizza duel. This North End pizzeria, founded in 1926, is on every list of the city’s best pizza, and it’s often at the top. The lines can be as long as at Disney World at this location, the original, so calling ahead is advised. [North End, 11 ½ Thacher St., 8 minutes from the airport.]

Rincon Limeno: If you’ve got a little time and want a neighborhood dining immersion, this is it: the city’s best spot for Peruvian dishes like ceviche, octopus salad, fish stew, and pisco sours. If you’re traveling early, grab an arepa for breakfast. [East Boston, 409 Chelsea St., 7 minutes from the airport.]

KO Pies at the Shipyard: Two words: meat pies. KO is a charismatic Australian restaurant right on the water with patio seating available in the warmer months. The non-meat pie fare is also good; try the chicken schnitzel burger or the fish & chips. Also, there’s lots of beer and wine from Down Under. [East Boston, 256 Marginal St., Building 16, Boston Harbor Shipyard, 7 minutes from the airport.]

Rino’s Place: Perhaps Boston’s most iconic Italian-American spot outside of the North End. A neighborhood favorite for over 20 years, Rino’s has been a lot more crowded ever since an appearance on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. [East Boston, 258 Saratoga St., 6 minutes from the airport.]

Neptune Oyster: Though the North End is known for pasta, one of its finest establishments is known for seafood. Neptune is small, popular, and doesn’t accept reservations, but there’s no better place to suck down bivalves within striking distance of Logan if you have time to wait in the inevitable line. Its lobster roll (choose cold with mayo or hot with butter) constantly earns “best lobster roll in the city” accolades. [North End, 63 Salem St., 10 minutes from the airport.]

Blue Dragon: A self-described Asian gastropub by celebrity chef Ming Tsai with a little something for everyone, from soy pickled deviled egg with taro nest to buttermilk tempura whole chicken. Note: reservations are not accepted (except for groups of 10 or more, with various limitations — call for details), and long lines have been known to form during peak hours. [Fort Point, 324 A St., 8 minutes from the airport.]

Lolita Cocina & Tequila Bar: Fun Mexican-inspired food (don’t miss the hot chicken tacos and the seared shrimp Oaxaca) in a swanky ambiance, with plenty of frozen margaritas to go around. Save room for sugar: Your check comes with sour apple cotton candy topped with Pop Rocks. [Fort Point, 253 Summer St., 9 minutes from the airport.]

Oak + Rowan: Pretty pastas, luxurious caviar, and incredible desserts in an impeccably renovated old building with high ceilings and giant windows. [Fort Point, 321 A St., 8 minutes from the airport.]

Additional Dining Resources for Travelers

Staying in Boston for a bit? Here are some Eater Boston dining maps and guides to get you started.

Boston Dining 101: A Guide for Students and Visitors

The 38 Essential Boston Restaurants

The Hottest Restaurants in Boston Right Now

The Boston Breakfast and Brunch Guide

The Boston Outdoor Dining Guide (bookmark this one for your spring and summer travel)

Main image: An aerial view of Logan airport and the greater Boston area as photographed on June 4, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

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The Significance of Data Collection in our Lives

Often times I am reminded of the importance of data in the world, across all interdisciplinary fields globally. Despite being a Computer Science student, I often forget just how data is valued from something as simple as our eyesight and how our brain processes it versus data stored in a database off in a cloud service hosted in a server warehouse thousands of miles away. In hearing about information collection techniques I have come across in the real world during lecture, I was reminded of my first exposure to data collection, AP Psychology in high school and my starting college major as a Health Science student in the Bouve College at Northeastern University. My first exposure to information collection, while I never labeled it as such, was likely studies about Skinner’s Box, and how studies in the past detailing their findings were relevant even now, used as foundations for all of modern psychology, despite not being permissible. 

Skinner’s Box details the myth that Skinner, a well known psychologist, raised his child in morally wrong environments (in this case, an actual box) in order to get data from it in his studies to see the effects of surroundings on growing children. The novel also entails many of the more historic studies in history, that led to harsher restrictions and regulations on what is allowed in experiments, rules that govern even now, what constitutes moral acceptability. The most well known experiment that people know is the torture experiment, where an individual is told to press a button they believe is electrocuting someone to death. This ultimately caused emotional harms to the volunteer, and thus was deemed immoral and banned. 

It also dawned on me that just about everything we do is a form of data collection, from my self-learning project in high school teaching myself guitar while documenting my progress, to simply touching a hot stove. All the information we receive is processed and used going forwards, as done in all studies of psychology. More recently however, my past 2 co-ops have had interviews through different mediums, online and in person. By gaining experience in interviews, I get a better idea of what kind of information interviewers are looking for, how to give them what they want, and how to give interviews myself. I also was given the opportunity to tag along in interviews for full time employees, which really set a tone in how to approach the form of information collection, and how to handle different individuals. Likewise, the company itself, Toast POS, a rising Boston startup, used global surveys quite frequently to often gauge the satisfaction and reviews on company events and running, also to see if teams were meeting criteria. This was a great way to get feedback and learn about employee satisfaction, if the company was meeting their needs via 1-on-1′s with advisers to discuss self-growth, or simply talk about their concerns. In that sense, almost all data is valuable, even if skewed or incorrect, because that can be used in future as outliers or detection to help get a better average. 

Despite the fact that in our lives, we are working with information collection and data every second of our lives, we often fail to notice this as such is a nature of life and a core component of how we live. Being about to talk about such ideas however, in lecture, is a great reminder and treat of being able to take a step back and reflect on how we do it, why we do it, and how to improve not only our duties and capabilities as data scientists, but as intelligent beings.

Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_Skinner%27s_Box

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