Erika Adams

Here's how not to deal with skyrocketing labor costs: shaving time off of paychecks, letting uniform expenses go unreimbursed, and skipping out on shift breaks.

It's not too difficult to connect the dots here: listening to employees and improving the staff experience automatically flows through to improving the guest experience.

The labor-intensive, costly meal doesn't necessarily drive huge profits on the day, but, for restaurants that stay open on Thanksgiving, it's a big marketing opportunity to position the brand alongside the most hospitable holiday of the year.

As sales have slowed for the restaurant industry in the U.S., Taco Bell is investing elsewhere to drum up that double digit same-store sales growth.

Sales to grocery stores make up Beyond Meat's largest revenue stream, but restaurants are a giant area of growth for the company. Successful chain partnerships and an exclusive distribution agreement with foodservice giant Sysco are fueling the company's path towards an IPO.

Waitr didn't go through an initial public offering because of the nature of its acquisition that was announced earlier this year, but Waitr shares are now up for grabs and it'll report quarterly earnings alongside the one other publicly traded food delivery service in the space, Grubhub.

An 11-year-old salad chain valued at a billion dollars? Surely nothing will go wrong here.

When routine opening problems surface — vendor disputes, landlord hassles — it doesn't look great for any restaurant trying to open. For Shake Shack, those same problems are magnified due to the brand's high level of awareness in each market.

It's a familiar story of bad real estate decisions and branding mistakes fueled by millions of private equity dollars that didn't leave much room for Honeygrow to slow down and expand in a measured, deliberate way.

The potential to scale Bartaco is huge for Del Frisco, given the concept's high profit margins. But if the CEO sees the 18-unit taco chain becoming a 300-unit behemoth in the future, it's going to take a lot of smart real estate decisions to get there.