Industry Headlines - Department of Labor’s new standards for exempt employees, managers, administrators, and professionals goes into effect July 1, 2024.

In summary, restaurant base salary for a manager increases from $35,888/yr to $43,888/yr and on January 1, 2025 the base salary of a manager increases to $58,656/yr. In addition to pay increases, there are a plethora of new guidelines as to who qualifies for salary, overtime, etc. which will increase the administrative burden on operators to insure qualifications are met and adhered to.

Restaurant Industry Outlook - The restaurant industry is under assault from many directions this year. Attempts to control restaurant costs, hire and maintain quality employees, efforts to improve traffic and sales, manage new government regulations – from labor to construction to environmental, not to mention competition from peers, but now with increasing menu prices Fast Casual and Casual Dining have become active competitors for consumers. Added to these pressures, there has been an increase in restaurant closures and bankruptcies. Yes, there has been an even larger amount of new store openings thus far in 2024 but it’s the closures and bankruptcies of big names like Red Lobster, Tijuana Flats, Boston Market and store closures among chains as well like Applebee’s, Rubio’s (all California locations), Cracker Barrel, TGIFridays, Denny’s, MOD Pizza, PDQ, Outback Steakhouse, Hardees. Several large franchisees have filed for bankruptcy protection in the last 12 months – Burger King, Wendy’s (were the largest so far), and an unknown amount of independent restaurants. While not the level of Doom & Gloom, these closures/bankruptcies do raise a level of concern among operators. A situation to keep on your radar.

For the immediate future, Technomic has lowered their restaurant sales forecast for the remainder of 2024; as well as restaurant stocks (S&P Restaurant Stock Index) is down 2.1% since July 1. 

View full report here.

Did you know you can post job openings on the FCSI The Americas website? If your firm is hiring, send the job description and contact details to penny@fcsi.org and your post will be added to the job board within 48 hours.

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FCSI has established standards to ensure consistency, optimum functionality and quality of the BIM content provided for foodservice equipment. The standards document has been created in cooperation with input from representatives of the three FCSI divisions APD, EAME & TAD, having formed the FCSI BIM Taskforce of Professional Consultants. The FCSI BIM Taskforce proposes that this document is used as guidelines to assist content creators globally. The objective of this Standard is provided as a template when content creators are commissioned with producing Revit families of foodservice equipment for the manufacturers of foodservice equipment. This document is not catch all to solve all issues in all regions. We acknowledge that some additional work will need to be tailored to suit local applications and codes. View the full document here.