Publications

March 2005 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Noodles & Company (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Cyr

Aaron Kennedy has successfully grown Noodles & Co. from a single global noodle shop to a chain of 58 restaurants spanning six states in seven years. In the face of increasing competition, Kennedy has plans to roll out 240 new stores in the next four years. He must... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Entrepreneurship; Franchise Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

July 2018 (Revised November 2018)
Case

The Robin Hood Army

By: Susanna Gallani

In 2014, Neel Ghose and a handful of friends spent one evening distributing excess food they had collected from local restaurants to the less fortunate people living under the Hauz Khas flyover in South Delhi. Four years later, this initiative had developed into The... View Details

Keywords: Volunteer-based Organization; Food Redistribution; Nonprofit Organizations; Food; Human Needs; Expansion; Global Range; Growth and Development

23 Sep 2013
News

Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You

April 2018
Supplement

Breakfast at the Paramount

By: Ryan W. Buell

The Paramount is a 44-seat diner on Charles Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. A frequent "Best of Boston" award winner, the restaurant is a perennial favorite among locals and tourists, particularly for brunch on the weekends, when lines often stretch... View Details

Keywords: Food; Management Practices and Processes; Service Delivery; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Boston

April 2008 (Revised September 2008)
Case

Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A)

By: Fabrizio Ferri, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber

Two activist investors, one a founder and one a hedge-fund manager, seek to improve board oversight at a chain restaurant company. Prestley Blake founded Friendly Ice Cream in 1935 with his brother, and the two created a chain of full-service restaurants. In 1979 they... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Governing and Advisory Boards; Lawsuits and Litigation; Business or Company Management; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict of Interests; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

June 2024
Supplement

Pal's Sudden Service (B)

By: Gary P. Pisano, Francesca Gino and Ruth Page

Pre-Abstract: Instructors should consider the timing of making videos available to students, as they may reveal key case details.

Abstract: Pal's Sudden Service has developed a unique operating model and organizational culture in the quick service... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Motivation and Incentives; Service Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

March 2017
Case

Breakfast at the Paramount

By: Ryan W. Buell

The Paramount is a 44-seat diner on Charles Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. A frequent "Best of Boston" award winner, the restaurant is a perennial favorite among locals and tourists, particularly for brunch on the weekends, when lines often stretch... View Details

Keywords: Food; Management Practices and Processes; Service Delivery; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Boston

January 2011 (Revised April 2011)
Case

TripAdvisor

By: Sunil Gupta and Kerry Herman

By 2010, TripAdvisor was the largest travel site in the world operating in 24 countries and 16 languages, with listings for 455,000 hotels, 92,000 attractions and 564,000 restaurants in over 71,000 destinations worldwide. It had over 40 million reviews from 35 million... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Growth and Development Strategy; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Service Industry; Travel Industry

31 Jul 2012
News

Two Harvard Business School Teams Win Chef Ferran Adrià's Global Ideas Challenge Competition

September 2018
Article

Aggregation of Consumer Ratings: An Application to Yelp.com

By: Weijia Dai, Ginger Jin, Jungmin Lee and Michael Luca

Because consumer reviews leverage the wisdom of the crowd, the way in which they are aggregated is a central decision faced by platforms. We explore this "rating aggregation problem" and offer a structural approach to solving it, allowing for (1) reviewers to vary in... View Details

Keywords: User Generated Content; Crowdsourcing; Yelp; Social and Collaborative Networks; Information; Internet and the Web; Learning; Mathematical Methods; E-commerce

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February 2006 (Revised June 2007)
Case

Brazos Partners and Cheddar's Inc.

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

Randall Fojtasek, a partner at Brazos Private Equity Partners, must decide whether to invest more money in Cheddar's restaurant chain, which the firm invested in 10 months earlier. The incremental investment would fund a real estate subsidiary that would own the... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Deal; Price; Partners and Partnerships; Management; Investment; Leadership; Business Subsidiaries; Stocks

November 2005 (Revised October 2012)
Case

The Auction for Burger King (A)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and James Quinn

Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo, must evaluate bids received in an auction of the Burger King restaurant unit. Describes how Diageo came to own Burger King, the attempts to turn the unit around, the strategic reasons for its sale, the auction process, and various bidders'... View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Leveraged Buyouts; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Auctions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Tactics; Service Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

March 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Noodles & Company

Aaron Kennedy has successfully grown Noodles & Co. from a single global noodle shop to a chain of 58 restaurants spanning six states in seven years. In the face of increasing competition, Kennedy has plans to roll out 240 new stores in the next four years. He must... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Organizational Culture; Franchise Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

16 May 2018
News

How Companies Can Use the Data They Collect to Further the Public Good

January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Showdown at Cracker Barrel

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Tim Gray

In the fall of 2011, activist investor, Sardar Biglari, has acquired nearly 10% ownership in the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. He believes that the board and senior management have failed and the company has underperformed relative to its peers. When he is denied a... View Details

15 Jul 2022
News

The Right Step: Q+A With Rakoh Founder Raphael Kohlberg (MBA 2018)

May 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Sales Compensation Vignettes

By: Frank V. Cespedes

This case study is comprised of two vignettes about startup companies considering whether and how to change their sales compensation plans. ElMenus.com is a restaurant app venture in Egypt seeking to lower customer churn while confronting new competition. BigBelly is a... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; Sales; Strategy