In the restaurant business, if you're not constantly evolving, you're dead. What's on the horizon? What's fresh and new? What's filling seats and keeping the cash register busy? If you're looking for inspiration, consider these five trends, which have “winner” written all over them.

1. .Just Like Mom's — Only Better

With unemployment remaining high and the economy still sputtering, Americans are doing what they do in times like this — hunkering down. At restaurants, they are looking for value and comfort, or food that reminds them of happier times.

Nostalgia takes many forms. At Denver's Duo, it means buttermilk fried chicken, paired with mashed potatoes and hoppin' john. For dessert, there's lemon icebox cake, reinterpreted for today's palate.

Parish, in Atlanta, serves its own take on traditional TV dinners, presenting the $15-or-less combos on cafeteria trays. The dinners, which change weekly, include combinations such as BBQ pork shoulder, coleslaw, potato salad, buttermilk biscuit and house-made Oreo; or red beans and rice, smoked corn maque choux, fried okra, buttermilk cornbread and oatmeal cream pie.

In New York this summer, Gotham Bar & Grill features a 1980s “retro” Sunday meal — with 1980s prices. Executive chef Alfred Portale's selections include cured Atlantic salmon with cracked wheat, golden beet, shaved fennel and orange oil; and Gotham roast chicken with summer vegetables and shoestring potatoes.

Boston's Ashmont Grill focuses on value-priced salads, pizzas, burgers and wood-fired meats; but it's the sides (mashed bourbon sweet potatoes, cheesy grits and onion rings) and desserts (carrot cake, sticky toffee pudding, chocolate brownie sundae) that tug at guests' nostalgic feelings.

The ultimate in nostalgia: Ovaltine mousse, served at Delicatessen in New York, to complete a meal of a smoked salmon knish or a Reuben on rye.

In Berkeley, CA, executive chef Banks White and consulting chef Scott Howard have designed a menu for Five with variations on regional comfort food. Among the choices: a deconstructed short rib “pot roast,” orzo mac ‘n cheese with smoked Gouda and tomato jam and vanilla bean butterscotch pudding.

In San Francisco, a street cart called Toasty Melts peddles seven variations on an ultimate comfort food, grilled cheese; in Cleveland, Melt Bar & Grilled has a menu with dozens of variations on the classic favorite. Options include the Big Popper, a beer-battered sammy with fresh jalapeno peppers, cheddar and herbed cream cheese, served with mixed berry preserves, or the Tokyo Tuna Melt, with Asian marinated grilled yellowfin steak, ginger wasabi dressing, lettuce, tomato and Muenster. Drooling fans wait two hours for a table.

2. They're a Gas: Gastropubs

It's been happening for several years now, but gastropubs — especially those run by notable chefs — are becoming part of the landscape in many destinations. They tap into a variety of macro trends, among them price sensitivity and a craving for a regular, casual hangout, quality food and drink and interesting flavors. Chefs like Allen Susser, who recently opened Taste Gastropub in South Florida (see p. 10) can let their hair down, have some fun and make some money, since a presumably higher ratio of alcohol-to-food sales translates into fatter margins.

Againn, which opened its second location last month in Washington DC, presents pub traditional — fish and chips with mushy peas, bangers and mash, shepherd's pie — alongside more refined choices such as a whole roasted fish, pork belly, charcuterie board and ale-battered softshell crab. Chef Wes Morton buys whole hogs and butchers them on site.

At CommonWealth, Washington, DC's first British-inspired gastropub, chef Jamie Leeds focuses on small plates and veggie sides, but also offers very popular whole lamb or pig roasts on Sundays.

At Tap, named the city's best gastropub by Atlanta magazine, the seasonal menu includes espresso-braised pork served with endive, blue cheese, candied pecans and orange dressing; fried oysters with Rockefeller toasts and fried lemons; and a pub burger that's half brisket, half chuck served on an English muffin with house-made bread and butter pickles and a chocolate milkshake shot. Guests can enjoy a choice of 21 beers and 16 wines on tap, including a nice variety of U.S. microbrews and international beers. All are stored in and served from a 72-barrel glass-enclosed vault suspended above the bar.

Woodward and Stoddard's Fine Food & Ale, two new gastropubs in Boston, put different spins on the experience. Woodward, which opened in Boston's boutique Ames hotel last fall, presents a modern take on the tavern, with house-pickled and preserved local produce, and plates like rock shrimp with olives, garlic and tomato; mushroom toast with Taleggio cheese and roast garlic; and short rib pot roast with parsnips and carrots.

Continue to next page