Restaurant And Hospitality News – April 11, 2016
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In news this week, local family leave provisions proliferate; Starbucks is poised to open a second Roastery and Café in New York City; and Big Data ownership is about as clear as mud.
New York and San Francisco Enact New Local Family Leave Provisions
On the heels of local initiatives to boost minimum wages for restaurant workers, now New York City and San Francisco have enacted new provisions for family leave initiatives, leaving operators scrambling to deal with their complexities, according to the Nation’s Restaurant News. New York has joined California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island in passing measures providing workers the ability to take time off for births, sick relatives, or in the wake of active military service. In New York, the initiative is to be funded through an employee payroll deduction. And San Francisco just approved a local law that requires employers to offer six weeks of family-leave for new parents, expanding existing required coverage under state law.
“Today’s families need both higher wages and paid leave to pay the bills, care for children and loved ones, and have a fair shot at a decent life,” asserted Joanna Blotner, manager of the DC Paid Family Leave Campaign. “We’re excited to see New York lead the way – leadership we hope the D.C. Council and Mayor [Muriel] Bowser will follow.”
But the pressure to expand family leave measures has left some restaurant groups a bit bitter. Marilou Halvorsen, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, said that her organization opposed such expansion. “There currently isn’t a statewide bill, but it is in 13 municipalities and more to come,” she told NRN in an email. “Most recently the mayor of New Brunswick reached out to my members and the association before an ordinance was introduced and asked for our feedback. WE offered suggestions to make it more palatable and he incorporated our changes.”
Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act employees qualify for an unpaid, 12-week family-leave policy nationwide, but about 40 percent of workers are not covered because of such limits as working for companies that employ fewer than 50 people or work part time.
Starbucks To Open 20,000 Square Foot New York Café and Roastery
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is betting that consumers will flock to his new megastore. Called The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room, the second location planned for new York City will be the largest Starbucks in operation and should be open by 2018. Schultz unveiled the first Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle in 2014, and it occupies 15,000 square feet. A typical Starbucks storefront measures between 1,700 and 2,700 square feet. Starbucks president Howard Schultz has said that he aims to “create the Willy Wonka of coffee,” with the Roasteries.
A Starbucks spokesperson told CBS News that “The menu [at the new Roastery] is dedicated to highlighting Starbucks Reserve coffees from around the world, all roasted within the walls of the Roastery. Everything a customer experiences at the Roastery from small-batch roasting to single-cup brewing and coffee education reflects the handcrafted nature of these coffees.” That also translates to higher prices, running between $4 and $7 for a cup of Roastery coffee, much higher than the average $2.45 for a Venti at a traditional Starbucks location.
Schultz reported that the first Reserve Roastery is performing “well ahead of original expectations,” though no additional details were release. In a press release, Schultz stated, “Our Seattle Roastery experience created something that had never been done before, transforming a retail environment into something far beyond just coffee shop into the single best retail experience of any kind. In New York, we want to take elements from what we originally created and build something even bigger and bolder, celebrating coffee and craft in a completely unique and differentiated way. We want this experience to tell our customers that we’re coming to Broadway.”
The coffee chain is also adding Starbucks Reserve coffee bars to more than 500 existing locations serving the premium micro-lot coffees using one-on-one brewing methods.
Ownership Of Data Is About To Get More Complicated
The question of who actually owns the data is about to become a lot more complicated, according to Forbes. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile devices that are now ubiquitous, many companies are turning to Big Data Analytics to drive their marketing. Smartphone feed location and other information to carriers and device makers, and apps collect all sorts of data that helps push personalized offers directly to customers.
According to Fortune, as part of the IoT, billions of devices collect data and send it back to somebody’s cloud for storage and/or processing. That data has value, not only to the company generating it, but to the technology companies that provide the data-crunching services. But because the underlying concept behind “big data” involves aggregating data from many sources in order to analyze it, the issue of data provenance and ownership becomes murkier. In fact, Fortune asserts, some organizations just might be paying twice to access their own information.
“The value chain of who owns the data can be complicated already and as you aggregate more sources it just gets more complicated,” said Dan Vesset, group vice president for analytics and information management for market research firm IDC.
And John Edgar, co-founder and managing director of Stae, a New York City-based startup that wants to help government entities make the most efficient use of their data, says that one hitch that some organizations have faced is that they may pay a tech provider to collect sensor or other data to monitor performance, but they have to shell out money a second time in order to “backhaul” that data – which is its own data – back onto its own servers.
And Nigel Jacob, co-founder of Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, also warned that cities and localities (as well as other organizations) need to be aware of that ownership issue. He stressed that in particular cities need to ensure that they retrieve their data from companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and so on that are doing business in their jurisdiction.