Congratulations to our very own Victoria Vega who was featured among the top women in Foodservice and Hospitality 2020.
Note from the publishers
As we prepare for 2020, it dawned on us that many of the significant stories shared a common theme: women in foodservice!
The City Council of New York made a move to promote and bring some sense of order to the City’s nightlife. A woman is guiding the fortunes of that office as the City selected Ariel Palitz, to be the city’s very first “Nightlife Mayor.” With the spectre of Governor Mario Cuomo threatening to ban tipping, one of the more vocal advocates against the potential move is Albany based waitress Maggie Raczynski. She emerged among the leaders of an impassioned outpouring from the restaurant industry at New York State’s labor hearings.
From the incomparable Alice Elliot of the Elliot Group who is America’s “go-to” head hunter for top restaurant executives to Brooklyn chef/owner Missy Robbins and Singer’s Morgan Tucker, women are making their mark on the restaurant and foodservice industry.
We are convinced that the stakes have become so high with restaurant space rents fluctuating from $500 to $2K a square foot in Manhattan, that proverbial glass ceiling continues to crack. There simply isn’t any time or wiggle room to worry about gender, it is all about competence.
Women are finding increased opportunity as ownership and management focuses on the ability to consistently create a signature customer dining experience in a Manhattan restaurant, a New Jersey corporate dining facility or a Long Island healthcare facility to deliver a world-class customer experience.With an on-going influx of technology in our industry, Grubhub took the lead in promoting the growth of women in the restaurant and foodservice industry.
In honor of Women’s History Month in March, the popular delivery service partnered with Women Chefs & Restaurateurs (WCR) to launch RestaurantHER, an effort that includes a map highlighting women-led restaurants across the United States. When users are deciding where to order food or sit down to eat, the map made it easy to support women in the industry by introducing them to nearby women-led restaurants.
That’s why once again we have dedicated this issue to profiling the impact that women have had on the Tri-State foodservice scene. They have risen to amazing heights and turned the Greater NYC Marketplace into the epicenter of the world’s restaurant and food service industry. We owe special thanks to a number of colleagues that represent many segments of the Tri-State foodservice community. They were gracious with their time to help us build this list of the “best and the brightest” women in our industry. We selected categories based on that input.
Our mission for the criteria of this list was to identify innovators within each of those major disciplines of the foodservice and hospitality industry. Women are having a major impact on the bricks and mortar design of restaurants, and the sales of equipment supplies and service. They also have major impact on what food and beverage is being served on local menus, and the management and marketing of foodservice facilities.
Our goal is to share some of their amazing stories and to make all of us realize that any goal is accomplishable with a measure of hard work and some good luck sprinkled in.
Leslie Klashman & Fred Klashman
Publishers, Total Food Service
Read the full list in Total Food Service