Compromise Bill Expanding NJ Liquor License Reform Moves Forward
Summary and Legislation. As the New Jersey Legislature’s lame-duck session draws to a close, a bill introduced ahead of what may be the last Senate Budget Committee meeting could have a lasting impact on how liquor licenses are obtained in the Garden State. The new effort to address liquor license reform takes parts of a bill that previously passed both chambers and some of the concerns from Gov. Phil Murphy’s November conditional veto and combines them. The bill, S4265, is not available for public viewing quite yet, but a draft version seen by NorthJersey.com and The Record indicates that it would address many of the same issues that its sponsors, state Sens. Vin Gopal, Paul Sarlo and Troy Singleton, have discussed since Murphy made license reform a priority in 2023. The legislation would allow limited numbers of license holders for New Jersey breweries, cideries, meaderies and craft distilleries to hold 25 off-premises special events and an unlimited number of on-premises special events and private parties. The compromise bill would also allow for license holders to hire servers and wait staff and to sell some food items such as chips, nuts and packaged snacks as well as non-alcoholic beverages. They would be able to coordinate with food vendors, including food trucks and restaurants, to sell food on the premises and provide menus to consumers for the sale of food. The so-called pocket licenses, those inactive retail sale licenses that exist in municipalities throughout the state, are also addressed in the new bill. Licenses that are inactive for two consecutive license terms would expire, though a municipality could extend that for an additional year.
Bielat Santore & Company – Restaurant Industry Alert
READ ARTICLE ABOVE – NO SIGNIFICANT NJ LIQUOR LICENSE LAW CHANGES FORTHCOMING
NJ LIQUOR LICENSES FOR SALE
Wall Township “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $600,000
Long Branch “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $350,000
Jackson “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $400,000
Old Bridge “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $395,000
Seaside Heights “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $250,000
Berkeley Township “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $275,000
Neptune City “C” Liquor License – Type 33…Asking $400,000
Call 732.531-4200 for additional information
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2024 Outlook: Restaurant Trends and Challenges
Part Three. Over the coming years, we can expect technology to play an increasingly pivotal role in the restaurant industry. The likelihood is that the existing technology will continue to improve, becoming even more seamless, including contactless solutions, AI, automation, enhanced data analytics, and improved software integrations. Consider, for instance, a scenario in which your Point of Sale (POS) system can forecast the popularity of a new dish based on historical customer behavior. This capability can prove invaluable for refining pricing strategies, optimizing ingredient and waste management, and planning forthcoming shifts, among other benefits. Other advancements include: integrating data from various sources, including social media, reviews, and loyalty programs, to gain a holistic view of customer behavior as well as well as the implementation of real-time analytics for immediate insights into customer behavior and preferences. An issue that may arise from this in 2024 is data privacy. The restaurant industry must emphasize data privacy and security through key steps: compliance with data protection regulations – such as GDPR and CCPA – with robust data protection measures and explicit customer consent, transparent policies that clearly communicate data handling practices, strong data encryption techniques for safeguarding customer data, data minimization to collect only necessary information, and conducting regular security audits to identify and address vulnerabilities. The future of restaurant businesses will likely involve a hybrid approach, combining the efficiency of technology with the warmth and personal touch of human service. Staff will focus more on providing personalized experiences and addressing unique customer needs, while routine tasks can be automated. For example, there will be fewer human interactions when ordering takeaways during busy lunch hours, quick customer seating, or bill payments.
How Restaurants Can Plan for an Uncertain Economic Climate in 2024
Restaurant owners should work to forecast their busy and slow seasons. With ever rising costs for supplies and staffing, there are important measures restaurant owners can take to navigate an uncertain economic climate in 2024. That being said, unemployment remains low across the country and consumer spending is strong despite higher interest rates. We expect this to continue, at least in the near term. In these uncertain times, we encourage restaurant owners to take the following steps. Restaurant owners should determine whether they are likely to need capital going into the 2024 and if so, work to line up that capital now. The most common mistakes small business owners make is failing to properly forecast the cashflow needed to secure the inventory and staff required. Small business owners are by nature optimistic, and sometimes optimism causes us to overlook the downside contingencies that can become essential when things don’t go as planned. Restaurant owners should work to forecast their busy and slow seasons and use these projections to determine whether they are likely to need capital as they transition into their busy season. Banks have been reducing exposure to small businesses ever since the pandemic, and now with higher interest rates putting pressure on bank deposits and greater regulatory scrutiny, banks are reducing their loan books even more. Fortunately, there are a number of small business lenders who have been expanding their ability to provide small business capital in the face of this bank contraction. Small business owners should consider exploring options with their bank as well as these non-bank lenders.
Why Your Restaurant Needs an ‘Abundance Mindset’ in 2024
Those who have an abundance mindset understand that sales are not finite. There are two opposing mindsets in our world. The first is one based on fear: The Scarcity Mindset. The second is based on growth: The Abundance Mindset. Today’s Shift Happens Column excerpt is about why, if you want to run a successful restaurant, you HAVE to develop an Abundance Mindset. If you have been in the restaurant industry for a long time, like me, you were told you had to hit certain cost percentages. Your restaurant P&L was your report card. Prime costs (Cost of Goods and Labor) had to be 60–65percent. Controllables needed to be around 15 percent and non-controllables needed be 10–15 percent. The closer you were to the lower side of those numbers the closer you were to making a 20 percent profit. The problem was, only the most incredible, rock star restaurateurs could hit those numbers. Hence the reason 75 percent of restaurants go out of business within 5–10 years. The reality was, managers were fearful that if they didn’t hit those numbers they would be fired. So, what did they do? They cut the quality of product to a level that lowered the guest’s product experience. They lowered prices and offered discounts to drive guest counts. They cut labor and closed sections of the restaurant off from seating guests. Here is the problem with all of those things. Quality of product and ser-vice and hospitality are lowered to a point where guests are not excited to come back. They tell their friends on social media you are mediocre. When a restaurant cuts its prices, there is always someone else willing to charge less and it’s a race to the bottom. When they close sections of their restaurant off, they have real estate they pay rent for that isn’t generating income. And worse yet, if you do hit those numbers, your bosses now want you to cut even more and everyone is fighting over crumbs. Those managers that don’t succeed are fired and businesses that don’t succeed close.
Strategies for Financial Stability and Efficiency
In restaurant supply chains. While commodity shortages, transportation logjams and other disruptions have eased, restaurants and other food service providers continue to apply lessons learned from recent periods of instability to make logistics and resupply processes more nimble and resilient. To minimize service disruptions across restaurant operations, proactive businesses prioritize not just navigating the current economic environment but also preparing for any uncertainties in the future. As the food distribution industry continues to evolve, restaurant supply chains face inevitable and unpredictable fluctuations. Improved financial efficiency ultimately strengthens market position. Reevaluating operational processes helps find opportunities to increase a company and its restaurants’ financial position. Understanding current trends can help an overall approach to strategically aligning with projections for the future of the restaurant logistics and food distribution industries to stay ahead of the competition. Restaurant management businesses must deal with rapidly evolving markets, higher costs, supply chain shifts and delays, defensive business structures, higher interest rates and growing costs of borrowing. The best plans utilize:
- More sustainable and diverse suppliers.
- Regionalized supply chains.
- Production and warehousing investments.
- Increased use of automation, artificial intelligence and robotics.
- Modernizing sourcing technology.
However, cyber criminals often prey on companies during periods of instability, resulting in an increased need for supply chain technology investments both for fraud defense purposes and to streamline service.
House Agrees to Consider a Rollback of the New Joint-Employer Standard
To be put to a vote within days. A resolution overturning federal regulators’ re-definition of “joint employer” will be put to a vote by the full U.S. House of Representatives the week of Jan. 7, affording restaurant franchisors a late shot at averting increased litigation and union activity, the International Franchise Association said Friday. Under the new definition, franchisors would be regarded more readily as joint employers of their franchisees’ workers. As such, they’d be liable for the licensees’ infractions of labor rules, meaning the home office could also be sued or hit with regulatory sanctions. In addition, say opponents, the redefinition would likely make unionization of a franchised restaurant chain far easier. Instead of having to organize the brand franchisee by franchisee, the effort could be focused on the franchisor, since it’s technically the employer of all workers within a system. The Service Employees International Union has made an expansion of the joint-employer term one of its political priorities. It wants the joint-employer label to apply to any franchisor who could possibly influence a franchisee’s labor practices, regardless of whether that potential power is exercised or not. The new definition was put forth by the National Labor Relations Board, the quasi-independent federal agency that regulates union organizing and activities. The measure that will be put to a vote is a resolution rather than a law. Under a measure passed in the early 1990s, Congress gave itself the power to rescind rules and definitions that are promulgated by executive branch agencies. The law was intended to give lawmakers the chance to un-do measures that were championed by a hostile White House administration.
Opening a restaurant? These are the Metrics That Actually Matter
Figuring out which data insights are meaningful and actionable. When you’re opening your first restaurant, whether you’re seasoned and striking out on your own or new to the industry, it can be confusing and overwhelming to know what metrics actually matter. As both a restaurateur and tech leader in the industry, a focus in my work is figuring out which data insights are meaningful and actionable – and then how we can best surface those to operators. When I opened my first restaurant as a newcomer to the industry over a decade ago, I didn’t have a great concept of the key metrics associated with business performance other than the basics of accounting. I had to seek out key advisors and learn the basics from them – and this was also before the access (and overflow) of data we experience with technology now, which can be pretty overwhelming. Fundamentally, all operators should have access to understanding what strong business metrics look like, and here’s what I’ve learned. Your core metrics – those that matter the most – haven’t changed in the 12 years I’ve been in the restaurant industry: your prime costs and bottom line profit. What has changed is how quickly and accurately you can get those numbers, and the number one thing you can do as an operator is have a sense of these numbers on a more frequent basis.
The 39 Coziest New Jersey Restaurants to Beat the Winter Chill
Stop weeping and whining and whimpering about the cold. It’s winter, for heaven’s sake — and get outside. You heard me. This is the season we all love to hate, and yes, you need to get out of the house every once in a while and enjoy a mellow, memorable meal in a warm, cozy restaurant. Many of the restaurants on my coziest restaurants list have fireplaces, but the common ingredient is that they are great retreats on wicked wintry days and nights. Quite a few of those are still ahead of us. The places are not ranked, but are listed alphabetically by town.
Employee Tip
6 ways to be a smarter tipper in restaurants. Tipping has always been fraught. After all, there are no hard-and-fast rules governing it, and how much and when one tips is up to each individual. But the proliferation of various fees at restaurants — a phenomenon that started during the covid pandemic but has persisted as the industry encounters higher costs on linens, condiments and more — has added a new level of confusion to dining out. With these strategies, you can be smarter and more prepared for that post-meal moment.