Editor-in-Chief at Restaurant Business Magazine. Egghead. Married up to @HailaMaze. Serving up hand-crafted tweets with a laser-like focus.

Joined May 2010
3,970 Photos and videos
For a long time the beverage selections at most fast-food restaurants were pretty limited. That's changing pretty quick because consumers are demanding it, which is a good thing.
We only have 6 national flavors: - Coke - Diet Coke - Sprite - Fanta Orange - Orange Hi-C - Dr Pepper Each business unit ONLY has 2 local options to add to the national lineup. You can pick many options from @CocaCola or @drpepper brands. I stopped by the DP booth and here are some options. Interesting that DP Zero is now becoming available. I don’t care what anyone says, Big Red is amazing. What are your top DP options? #McDWW26
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Jonathan Maze retweeted
OUT TODAY! Four years in the making: the sequel to my bestseller “Space: 1969”! @nlyonne returns to star as Nurse Nancy in an even more incredible adventure! Get it now at audible.com/pd/Space-1972-Au…
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Or ... and maybe I'm just being naive here ... it raised its guidance. But hey make your own conclusions because why the hell not.
🚨 #BREAKING: Cracker Barrel stock surges nearly 30% after announcing plans to deploy artificial intelligence for critical business operations.
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The average Chick-fil-A does roughly $9 million in annual sales. The average McDonald's does around $4 million. Chick-fil-A is closed 52 days more per year than McDonald's and still generates millions more in revenue per location. Their drive-thru operation is not comparable to any other fast food franchise Many locations have employees outside taking orders on tablets, multiple drive-thru lanes, dedicated traffic directors, and can serve over 300 cars per hour during peak periods.
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Food away from home prices are coming in lower than inflation, up 0.3% month-over-month and 3.5% yoy. But inflation is higher, moderately, than food-at-home prices, which are up 2.7% yoy. Full-service prices up 3.8%. Limited-service up 3.3%.
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"You can't eat a PowerPoint presentation. You can't drink a PowerPoint presentation." Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, talking at the Bernstein conference about the importance of getting into the stores to see how things are going. $SBUX
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More on the jobs report: Restaurants and bars have now added more jobs so far this year than in all of 2025. And the industry has been hiring at a relatively healthy clip for about a year now. nrn.com/restaurant-finance/r…
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Restaurants added 48,000 jobs last month and employ 12.4 million people, according to new BLS data. They accounted for one out of every 3.5 jobs in May.
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Protein everything.
I’ve been vocal on adding some form of protein drinks to the @McDonalds menu, great to see these options getting tested. Next, let’s see some type of protein water 🙏! ☕️ Iced Golden Protein Macchiato ☕️ Iced Protein Coco Mocha #McDWW26
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Meanwhile, I looked at Pizza Hut and LongRange Capital, which is reportedly in talks with Yum to buy the chain. If LongRange does what it says it does, that's a positive for PH. But it's a tough fix. More here: restaurantbusinessonline.com…
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But my favorite of LongRange Capital's holdings is Batesville, which makes caskets, so make your own jokes here.
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But when technology fails as it often does the result is super frustrating and ultimately requires a person anyway.
Replying to @jonathanmaze
Interactions w a McDonald’s drive thru worker don’t tend to be great experiences and they get your order wrong
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I wouldn’t know because I’m too much journalist and not enough influencer to warrant an invite to the convention.
Replying to @jonathanmaze
Tell me the CEO destroyed a double big mac on stage.
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The question to me with McDonald's, and any other restaurant chain that uses drive-thru AI: If your goal is to improve hospitality, why are you using a robot to interact with customers?
Meet Archy IQ - no, we are not new to AOT. In fact, we have been in this AI field for about 8 years. We sold our in-house model to IBM and moved on as it wasn’t good enough for our needs. As mentioned below, I wanted to hire Google (who uses NVIDIA) to service our AOT 3 years ago and found out today that Google is behind this project. We are currently in 5 test stores, having processed over 1M transactions with about 90% of orders completed without human escalations. Impressive for a new test Every McDonald’s in the US is getting their Google Edge Cloud blades installed in anticipation of this rollout. Archy will not only assist drive-thru orders but act as a master brain to help managers run a better restaurant. It’s like a personal assistant that alerts you to potential bottlenecks or issues. #McDWW26
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Breaking: Chain that sells sugary baked goods starts selling a sugary drink.
This is literally insane Crumble Cookie just launched a drink that has 186 grams of sugar - That's almost half a pound of sugar - Equivalent to 5 cans of Coke - That’s roughly 19 Krispy Kreme donuts IN ONE DRINK This should be illegal. This is more than 5x the American Heart Association’s daily recommended max for added sugar We need to Make America Healthy Again I looked into this and if you drink this regularly you can cause extreme harm to yourself - Rapid weight gain - Fatty liver disease - Huge Increased diabetes risk - Tooth decay and gum disease - Mood swings This has to stop
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Tough morning for Shake Shack, which lowered its guidance for 2Q same-store sales, revenue and store-level profitability. The company cited "macroeconomic uncertainty" and competition. Its stock is down 8% premarket. $SHAK
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Jonathan Maze retweeted
Due to an incredible influx of nominations, we’re extending the deadline for the 2026 GRLC Globie Awards! You now have until June 15, 2026 to submit your nominations and honor the visionaries, innovators, and changemakers shaping the global restaurant and foodservice industry. 🏆 Don’t wait—time is running out! Submit your nomination today and be part of this prestigious celebration. 👉 Nominate now: bit.ly/42ghg9Y #GRLCGlobies #RestaurantLeadership #FoodserviceInnovation #DiningExcellence #Cannes2026 #RestaurantAwards #FoodserviceLeaders
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McDonald's just revealed a sweeping new strategy at its Worldwide Convention, called McDonald's Next, that will include menu upgrades, more technology including AI, more influencer marketing and better service. $MCD restaurantbusinessonline.com…
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As a side note, journalists were not invited to this. But the company did bring in social media influencers, just in case you want to know where we stand these days.
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