Remember the telephone game? Wait — let’s back up, do you remember landline telephones that used to sit on your desk? No? How about desks themselves?
All right, forget all that…we can all agree that the workplace has changed dramatically in recent years. I will admit that all the changes are somewhat daunting to the publisher of this decidedly old-fashioned form of communication: a printed trade publication. Especially so for one like restaurant development + design that is only five years old — a mere toddler in human terms.
Upon further reflection, however, many of the commonplace things from our daily lives, once so familiar, haven’t disappeared at all but have merely morphed into new forms. You have witnessed it in your own work with restaurants. Whether you are an architect, a designer, a consultant or an operator, you have seen the accelerating pace of change transform the status quo. The once clear lines between formal and casual, fast and slow, commercial and noncommercial, grocery store and restaurant, food truck stop and stopped food truck have been blurred, melded and reinvented at breakneck speed.
All of this change gives us plenty to write and talk about at rd+d.
For our part, in many ways, we are still finding our voice and working to refine and reach our target audience. In our quest, we are buoyed by the generous comments from readers who appreciate what we are trying to do with this magazine. That is, to reach a niche audience of professionals who are charged with the creation of new and the reimagining of old restaurant concepts and designs. We see this magazine, in whatever form it is consumed, from digital to print, as the beginning of a conversation between professionals who share some common goals and face some common challenges.
So, back to the telephone game: if you like what you see in this issue and you share our vision for peer-to-peer learning as a way to educate yourself and enhance the industry, please take a minute to pass a copy of rd+d to a colleague who might also enjoy receiving it. Invite them to subscribe.
While you are visiting the website, take a minute to check out the new landing page for our second annual Tour the Design Trends event in Chicago this summer. Last summer (as seen in the photo above), we had a blast boarding some trolleys with our readers and going on a tour of some of the coolest restaurant designs in the Windy City. Between stops, our editors explained what we were about to see and why they felt it was worth the attention. If you’d like to be included this year, visit Tour the Design Trends.