Publications

24 Apr 2017
News

Minimum wage hikes do close restaurants. Just not the ones you care about.

May 1998 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Taco Bell Inc. (1983-1994)

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Dave DeLong

Details the actions of John Martin, newly named CEO, as he leads Taco Bell through a decade of incremental and radical changes. By the end of the case, total system sales within Taco Bell, a Mexican style fast-food restaurant chain and a division of PepsiCo, have grown... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Transformation; Economic Growth; Food; Leadership Style; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; Mexico

May 2014 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Gastón Acurio: A Recipe for Success

By: Anat Keinan, Michael Norton, German Echecopar and Cintra Scott

Gastón Acurio, star chef and restaurateur from Peru, must decide whether and how to adapt his signature Peruvian cuisine to local tastes as he opens restaurants in new countries. View Details

28 Jan 2013
News

Helping Yelp Create More Accurate Reviews

27 Sep 2013
News

Yelp admits a quarter of submitted reviews could be fake

12 Mar 2020
Video

Robert Brozin

Robert Brozin, the co-Founder of Nando’s, a South African-based restaurant chain specializing in Portuguese food, describes the distinctive corporate culture based on diversity, respect and fun.

View Details

September 2000 (Revised November 2000)
Case

Panda Management Company, Inc.

Panda Management Co. is the largest Chinese restaurant chain in the United States. At the time of the case, Panda is facing multiple problems in operations, mostly stemming from rapid growth, and must choose a path for expansion. View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Service Operations; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Find at Harvard

July 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Case

McDonald's Plan to Win (A)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Karla Ingrid Gravis and Annette Kristine Rodriguez

As of 2007, McDonald's had made significant progress on its “Plan to Win,” and the company was rewarded by reaching an all-time high share price. However, McDonald's competitors had expanded beyond the typical fast food giants, such as Wendy's and Burger King, as... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Complexity; Supply and Industry; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

May–June 2023
Article

Which Firms Gain from Digital Advertising? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Weijia Dai, Hyunjin Kim and Michael Luca

Measuring the returns of advertising opportunities continues to be a challenge for many businesses. We design and run a field experiment in collaboration with Yelp across 18,294 firms in the restaurant industry to understand which types of businesses gain more from... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Digital Marketing; Outcome or Result

16 May 2016
HBS Case

Food Safety Economics: The Cost of a Sick Customer

in some cases, less finished-product testing. Outsourcing food safety testing A growing number of food manufacturers, grocery stores, and restaurants are choosing to outsource some or all of their food testing—and in many cases, they are... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Food & Beverage

27 Mar 2024
News

Behind the Research: Isamar Troncoso

22 Dec 2013
News

How to keep amazing cooking affordable

2022
Working Paper

Getting on the Map: The Impact of Online Listings on Business Performance

By: Michael Luca, Abhishek Nagaraj and Gauri Subramani

We evaluate the extent to which small businesses maintain an online presence, looking at restaurant listings on a major online review platform. While the majority of restaurants have an online presence, we find that roughly 18 percent in our sample have no presence as... View Details

Keywords: Small Business; Internet and the Web; Revenue; Digital Marketing; Food and Beverage Industry

2011
Case

Wrapitup

By: W. Earl Sasser

A restaurant chain based in California offers made-to-order sandwich wraps using fresh, healthy ingredients. The founders of the company take a very active role in day-to-day business and tightly control every aspect of the restaurant operation from hiring store... View Details

Keywords: Service Operations; Governance Controls; Revenue; Employee Relationship Management; Planning; Customer Satisfaction; Problems and Challenges; Profit; Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Leadership Style; Service Industry; California

15 Apr 2020
Video

Foodology Grand Prize Winner of the 2020 New Venture Competition Alumni Track

12 Mar 2020
Video

Robert Brozin

Robert Brozin, the co-Founder of Nando’s, a South African-based restaurant chain specializing in Portuguese food, discusses how he started the business with Fernando Duarte, after tiring of being an auditor and... View Details

September 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Briscola—Pizza Society: Scaling Affordable Luxury

By: Gary P. Pisano and Federica Gabrieli

Riccardo Cortese and Federico Pinna were the CEOs of Briscola—Pizza Society, a restaurant chain they had founded in 2014 with a clear ambition: create a distinctive international pizza chain that would combine a fast-casual format with the devotion to quality that... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Geographic Location; Business Model; Ownership Type; Food and Beverage Industry; Europe; Italy

08 Aug 2013
News

Study finds online ratings vulnerable to bias

August 2016 (Revised January 2020)
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