After years of traveling the world, eating at hundreds of restaurants annually, and representing thousands of restaurants spread across six continents, I finally found time to get a blog going! It's about time, as I sure got a lot of flack about not having one up sooner.

So, what can you expect from this blog? There are tens of thousands of blogs, so I need to make sure this one stands out and is worth your time. Here's what you can expect:

• Culinary Adventures - So far I have personally been to 35 countries. My goal is to visit all seven (7) continents, all seven (7) wonders, 70+ countries and all 50 United States. I'm more than half way to my goal. I'll take you with me all around the world; sending Twitter updates of cool places, blog posts of amazing foods and culinary adventures, and even slideshows of must-see places of interest to foodies and restaurant industry professionals. I'm seeking out inspirational travel, so if it moves me, I'll bring it to your attention. It will be sort of like an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations but from a restaurant consultants perspective, not a chef's.


• Peeves & Praise - It's no wonder I'm single! No date of mine can put up with all the analysis of the restaurants we visit. As a seasoned restaurant consultant and 3rd generation restaurateur, I have a trained eye for how a restaurant should operate and it's hard to shut that off. This section of the blog won't be about random gripes. Instead, I'll post the good and the bad of my restaurant experiences in hopes of providing insights to help restaurateurs evaluate their own operations. It's like a traveling restaurant critic but evaluating from a consultants perspective. Oh, and I'll feature some of our new Restaurant Cartoon series, "The Peeves".


• Restaurant Marketing - You can come to expect a heavy focus on restaurant marketing, branding and growth strategies from this blog. Having worked with thousands of restaurants around the world on just that, you'll get a steady diet of tips, techniques and trends focused on helping emerging restaurant brands grow. You'll get case studies of those doing it right, those doing it wrong, and approaches for senior management at high volume independent restaurant operations to the multi-national industry giants.


• Industry News & Analysis - I'm fortunate to have a dedicated team of researchers that cull through thousands and thousands of articles each week to provide me with a custom restaurant industry news digest. It keeps me in the know with what's happening in the restaurant industry on a global scale. I'll share the best with you here on my blog, via Twitter and our newly launched newsletter: Aaron'sBrief (www.aaronsbrief.com)

Please keep in touch and let me know what you think and what you'd like to see. My goal is to give you a restaurant industry perspective currently absent among regional and national trade publications and to provide some inspiration on improving restaurants and embarking on global culinary adventures. You can rate blog posts and make comments too, so please get involved so this is a conversation, not just a one-way broadcast.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,

Aaron D. Allen