Publications

August 2013
Case

Desi Shack: Location Choice in the Big Apple

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Desi Shack is a “fast casual” restaurant, started by two HBS alumni, that serves Indian and Pakistani cuisine in midtown Manhattan. The founders are looking to expand into a second location and also plan to hire a COO, and there is very little room for error in the... View Details

Keywords: Restaurant; New York City; Location Choice; Entrepreneurship; Food; Geographic Location; Food and Beverage Industry; New York (city, NY)

December 2017
Teaching Note

Yemeksepeti: Growing and Expanding the Business Model through Data

By: William R. Kerr and Alexis Brownell

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-095. View Details

Keywords: Turkey; Internet; Online Ordering; Restaurants; Big Data; Entrepreneurship; Analytics and Data Science; Internet and the Web; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

Teaching Interest

Overview

Lena teaches the required first year MBA course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability, an elective second year MBA course on Law, Management and Entrepreurship, and an elective second year MBA course on Challenges and Opportunities in the Restaurant Industry. View Details

2022
Working Paper

An Anatomy of Performance Monitoring

By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

Performance monitoring is a mainstay management tool in most organizations. Yet we still know little about whether—and why—better monitoring yields better performance in practice. To shed light on these questions, we study the introduction of a performance monitoring... View Details

Keywords: Performance Monitoring; Worker Skills; Skill Depreciation; Managerial Inattention; On-the-job Training; Productivity; Multitasking; Quick Serve Restaurants; Performance Evaluation; Employees; Competency and Skills; Training; Performance Productivity; Management; Information Technology; Food and Beverage Industry; Puerto Rico

June 2015
Case

The Valuation and Financing of Lady M Confections

By: Mihir A. Desai and Elizabeth A. Meyer

This case explores the decision-making process that small, private businesses must undertake when considering an expansion and when selling equity to outside investors. In the process, students are asked to complete two exercises: a break-even analysis and a valuation... View Details

Keywords: Lady M; Bakery; Foodservice Industry; Breakeven Analysis; Restaurant Industry; Forecasting; Forecast; Financial Analysis; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Equity; Financial Management; Financial Strategy; Finance; Food; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry; New York (city, NY)

November 2022
Case

Arcos Dorados’ Quest for the Digitalization of Last-Mile Delivery in Colombia

By: Jorge Tamayo, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In 2018, Francisco Staton, Managing Director of Arcos Dorados in Colombia had to decide on the company’s strategy to expand its food ordering and delivery business in the country. Arcos Dorados stood as McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, and Colombia was one of... View Details

2011
Case

The Haidilao Company

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming and Ziqian Zhao

Haidilao Hot Pot brings customers delightful dining experiences. Like most restaurants, its workforce is mostly composed of young employees born in underdeveloped suburban areas. Instilled with the founder's unique entrepreneurial values, they are enthused and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Customer Service; Employee Empowerment; Global Corporate Cultures; Organizational Values; Transformations; China; Restaurants; China

2011
Teaching Note

The Haidilao Company

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming and Ziqian Zhao

Haidilao Hot Pot brings customers delightful dining experiences. Like most restaurants, its workforce is mostly composed of young employees born in underdeveloped suburban areas. Instilled with the founder's unique entrepreneurial values, they are enthused and... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Customer Service; Employee Empowerment; Global Corporate Cultures; Organizational Values; Transformations; China; Restaurants; China

2018
Working Paper

Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit

By: Dara Lee Luca and Michael Luca

We study the impact of the minimum wage on firm exit in the restaurant industry, exploiting recent changes in the minimum wage at the city level. We find that the impact of the minimum wage depends on whether a restaurant was already close to the margin of exit.... View Details

Keywords: Wages; Business Exit or Shutdown; Food and Beverage Industry

SSRN

24 Oct 2023
Research & Ideas

When Tech Platforms Identify Black-Owned Businesses, White Customers Buy

Luca, Abhay Aneja at the University of California-Berkeley, and Oren Reshef of Washington University in St. Louis, shows that making it easier to search for Black restaurant owners on Yelp substantially increased their demand, leading to... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Food & Beverage

December 2015 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Chicken Republic

By: Jose Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

Deji Akinyanju, founder of Nigerian fast-food chain Chicken Republic, and Ayo Oduntan, founder of an integrated Nigerian poultry operation (Amo Byng Group), are among a growing cadre of skilled food-industry entrepreneurs for whom the opportunities to serve the... View Details

March 2016 (Revised February 2023)
Exercise

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades

By: Michael Luca, Weijia Dai and Hyunjin Kim

Advertising Experiments at RestaurantGrades is an exercise in which students are asked to analyze and make a recommendation on the basis of simulated experimental data. The setting is a hypothetical restaurant review company called RestaurantGrades (RG), which shows... View Details

Keywords: Analysis; Digital Marketing

2016
Working Paper

Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com

By: Michael Luca

Do online consumer reviews affect restaurant demand? I investigate this question using a novel dataset combining reviews from the website Yelp.com and restaurant data from the Washington State Department of Revenue. Because Yelp prominently displays a restaurant's... View Details

Keywords: Revenue; Network Effects; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; Washington (state, US)

SSRN

02 Jun 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Careers: Cloud Kitchens Are Now Serving

The restaurant industry is one of those most devastated by COVID-19, and social distancing will continue to make many small restaurants unviable. Reduced revenue flows will never cover the rent. But not all... View Details

Keywords: by Lena Ye and Geoffrey Jones; Food & Beverage

24 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Yelp Factor: Are Consumer Reviews Good for Business?

Professor Michael Luca set to find out exactly by how much, and identify winners and losers in the process. "I have always been interested in how companies form their reputations, not only restaurants and hotels but also schools and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

2023
Working Paper

The Benefits of Revealing Race: Evidence from Minority-owned Local Businesses

By: Abhay Aneja, Michael Luca and Oren Reshef

Is there latent demand to support Black-owned businesses? To explore, we analyze a new feature that made it easier to identify Black-owned restaurants on a large online platform. We find that labeling restaurants as “Black-owned” increased customer engagement and... View Details

Keywords: Black-owned Businesses; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Ownership; Knowledge Dissemination; Digital Platforms; Consumer Behavior; Food and Beverage Industry

SSRN

December 2021 (Revised June 2022)
Case

Darden Restaurants: The Nine Square Feet

By: Joshua D. Margolis and James Barnett

In June 2021, Darden Restaurants CEO Gene Lee contemplates how to position the world’s biggest full-service restaurant more than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Agribusiness; Change; Decision Making; Food; Human Resources; Leadership; Operations; Strategy; Health Pandemics; Opportunities; Food and Beverage Industry; United States