Small plates from Day One of the Restaurant Leadership Conference

It’s a little-known rule of physics: Put a group of restaurant leaders in a room and you’ll get an unvarnished picture of the business. Pull almost 1,800 of them together, as we did at the Restaurant Leadership Conference, and you quickly learn what they see as the opportunities and challenges, the hype and the real successes.

Consider these tidbits, for instance: 

--When attendees talk about the areas where they hope to get an education, the topics constantly mentioned are catering and gluten-free menu options.

--Discussions about the gluten-free phenomenon sometimes take a surprising turn: Do you crow about your wheat-free choices, or do you make that a given across your menu? For instance, if you’re a sandwich chain, do you switch all your breads to gluten-free variations? Does that make a more powerful statement about your commitment to health? 

(To read the rest of this entry and sample more small plates from the RLC, click here.)