Here in the city, it's not just the Applebees/Ruby Tuesdays who are growing; there's another emerging level of corporate food service.
For example, a friend of mine is a data scientist who reports up into the CFO of a company that owns around 10 restaurants in New York, California, and Las Vegas. The flagship of the brand is a Michelin-starred celebrity chef.
His entire job is presenting to executives the profitability impact of experiments in changing the formulation of espresso martinis and leek soup. He says that the company is entirely, quantitatively, incrementally profit driven and "joyless, from the executive team down to the dishwashers". It honestly sounds to me like the most miserable, furthest possible thing from the romantic old new york storytelling of Anthony Bordain that could still be legally called restauranteuring.
