Essential stories from the past week

This week, Restaurant Hospitality checks out what others are saying about the impact of a post-fiscal cliff economy, how consumers define healthful eating and why hotels are adding fast-casual restaurants to their mix.

• Dealing with higher taxes. Casual-dining restaurants may feel the sting of higher taxes as smaller paychecks and reduced disposable income mean consumers will have to decide where and how to spend with less (Fox Business). Small operators are also expected to feel the impact of the fiscal cliff deal (Nation’s Restaurant News).
 
• Hotels embrace fast-casual concepts. Hotels, tired of losing money on in-house full-service restaurants, are turning to fast-casual concepts to feed their guests (USA Today/DelawareOnline).

• Defining healthful. Technomic, tracking the growth of healthy dining, points out how consumers perception of  “healthy” is a moving target (Technomic Blog).

• The Cheesecake Factory tries new marketing. The casual-dining chain cleverly uses scent in a new campaign to lure diners (MediaPost).