Market Trends

🏠 Wedge founders Sarah Di Domenico and Justin Lortie transformed a 185-square-metre Montreal brick house into Wedge House, their design agency's office. The space, inspired by Danish brand Frama, features a dusty-pastel color palette, custom-made furniture, and is designed to foster communal feeling and connection. The office accommodates 12 team members, with separate rooms for privacy, including Di Domenico and Lortie's private office. The design includes a kitchen, library, living room, atelier, and a garden with custom-made wooden benches.

🚽 MuseLAB designed the 241-square-metre flagship Sorbet bathware showroom in an upscale Mumbai neighborhood, diverging from traditional showroom interiors. The project, completed in eight months, overran the initial six-month timeline due to high rental space costs. Circular geometry dominates the design, with bulbous mint-green displays, berry-red accents, and custom halo light fixtures contributing to the unique aesthetic. Formerly a rug atelier, the retail space features 12-foot-high walls and a Kota stone flooring pattern in ivory-toned grout. MuseLAB, founded in 2012, has a portfolio that includes various interior and furniture design projects.

🏨 STAAH presents a weekly hotel industry quiz to help professionals stay informed on hospitality trends. The quiz caters to both seasoned hoteliers and newcomers, featuring questions on luxury hotel brands and hotel software. Participants are encouraged to share the quiz and access previous quizzes via STAAH's blog.

📝 The Net Promoter Score (NPS), developed in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, is a key metric for hotel guest satisfaction. NPS calculation starts with a question scored from 0 to 10 and results in a number between -100 and +100, derived from subtracting the percentage of detractors (score 0-6) from promoters (score 9-10). Bain & Company research shows over 80% of referrals come from those scoring 9 or 10. Positive NPS impacts guest loyalty, revenue, and online reviews. GuestRevu utilizes NPS to help hoteliers manage feedback and online reputation.

🥗 Patatas bravas, a traditional Spanish dish, is becoming popular in the U.S. with 75% of the population familiar with it and 45% having tried it. The dish appears on 0.5% of U.S. restaurant menus, marking a 10% increase in the last four years. Its popularity is especially high among Asian and Hispanic consumers. It's commonly seen in independent and fine dining establishments, showcasing global flavors and comfort food appeal.

🍳 Eleanor Bardon, 21, former psychology student at University of Leeds, shifts career to hospitality by joining English Lakes Hotels Culinary Academy's apprenticeship at Wild Boar Estate near Windermere. The training program partners with Kendal College offering Level 2 Commis Chef and Level 3 Chef de Partie qualifications. Bardon enjoys the team environment and living on the estate's 72-acre woodland, engaging in hiking and photography. English Lakes Hotels is hiring for various positions.

🍺 Launched in April, Restaurant Hospitality's podcast 'Menu Talk' collaborates with Restaurant Business, featuring weekly episodes with senior editors Bret Thorn and Pat Cobe. Based in New York City, over 30 episodes have aired, discussing foodie adventures, industry events like Menu Directions and the James Beard Awards, and interviewing chefs such as Pepe Moncayo. Listeners can subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday throughout 2025.

🍽 Rake, after an incubation at The Gun in Hackney, starts a long-term residency at The Compton Arms, Highbury on January 9, 2025. Three chefs with 30 years combined experience, formerly of Quo Vadis and BRAT, focus on British cookery, whole beast butchery, and sustainable Cornish fish. The menu features British classics with a twist like the braised squid beef and ale pie. On Arsenal match days, a Cumberland sausage hotdog is served. Sundays offer roasts with traditional sides and British desserts like Treacle tart.

💸 Quick-service restaurants (QSRs) have been losing traffic for over a year due to high menu prices, with inflation in the limited-service sector outpacing the general Consumer Price Index. The 2024 QSR Reputation Ranking by Chatmeter shows customer service issues on the rise: mistakes in orders (+7%), negative staff attitudes (+22%), and manager behavior (+15%). Slow service complaints increased by 8.5%, particularly from digital customers, with "online" mentioned in 24.5% of reviews and "mobile" in 52%. Despite a 19% increase in customer service complaints, pricing issues are still significant, with "overpriced" mentions up by 43% year-over-year. Chick-fil-A leads in overall reputation, followed by Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, and Arby’s, while KFC, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, Jimmy John’s, and Subway rank lowest out of 25. Chatmeter analyzed Google Reviews of 100 locations per restaurant using AI sentiment analysis.

🍝 Mall visits, including indoor malls, open-air shopping centers, and outlet malls, are on the rise, with Q1 2024 visits to open-air centers surpassing 2019 levels for the first time post-pandemic. Data from Yelp shows a 7% growth in restaurant concepts in malls from 2019 to 2024, with bubble tea store numbers shooting up by 113%. Top mall food brands by consumer interest include Cheesecake Factory, Din Tai Fung, and BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse. Other growing food categories are waffles (up 77%), vegan food (54%), and Filipino food (36%).