May 8, 2023
Sippin' Success: Tips from Bar & Restaurant Expo 2023

Unlock the food & beverage potential of attraction with the latest insights and tips from the 2023 Bar & Restaurant Expo. In this special, we blend food trends with practical advice and mouth-watering inspiration!
Unlock the food & beverage potential of attraction with the latest insights and tips from the 2023 Bar & Restaurant Expo. In this special, we blend food trends with practical advice and mouth-watering inspiration!
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From our studios in Los Angeles and
Abu Dhabi. This is Green Tag Theme
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Parking thirty. I'm Philip. My
co host is Scott Swinson. And Scott
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today let's do something special. I
thought we would talk about takeaways from the
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Bar and Restaurant Expo, which happened
March in Vegas, March twenty eighth through
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twenty ninth, twenty six to twenty
ninth. Sorry, I did happen to
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go there this year. One of
my clients paid for me to attend and
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to attend and kind of study what
was going on. So I'm gonna give
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all that value to our listeners for
free. Wow, you are a generous
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human being, Philip. Yeah,
I hope the client isn't listening. I'm
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sure it's fine. Yeah, I
bet they are. I bet they are
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right now. Doubtful, doubtful.
So anyway, so we have out there.
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We really appreciate you. Yes,
I won't name names, but so
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what happened? So, Philip,
what happened at the at the restaurant show?
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So I'll talk about some takeaways from
the main keynote presentation. First,
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you know, it's not that large
of a show, and they didn't do
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too much. They had like a
main keynote, plus they had some classes
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and then the exhibit hall which had
food and all sorts of cool stuff.
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But I thought we'd break it down. I'll talk about some of the information
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from the keynote, and then some
of the information from the classes, and
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then some of the I think top
products that I found. But something that
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came up in the keynote a lot
is something that you will be familiar with
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authenticity, which that sounds so familiar, doesn't it. I love it.
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So yeah. The keynote speaker,
who is a very popular chef who worked
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on a lot of the stuff in
Vegas there, he really talked about how
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this movement into authenticity, and then
he kind of gave a breakdown of some
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of the food trends, so not
just it's in authentic dying experiences. And
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really what he was talking about really
jived with what the executive chef at Sea
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World talked about in our special that
we did, the Ayappa Trade Summer special,
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just about representing different cultures in an
authentic food palette type of way.
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That's kind of what he was talking
about. Heat and then in terms of
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his trends, he talked about how
vegetables are cool, and Korean food is
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cool, and Asian food is coming
into it, but basically this whole idea
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that vegetarian options are becoming more mainstream
and should be available. He also talked
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about ready to drink items being becoming
more popular, like less stigma. You
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know, they used to the stigma
about like boxed wine, where people kind
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of thought it was a lesser type
of thing. But he talked about the
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ready to drink items losing that,
losing that stigma. He talked also about
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sustainability, another thing that we have
talked about, and how consumers are looking
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a little bit more for sustainability in
terms of not just the less plastic and
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that type of thing, but also
a little bit of sustainab ability in terms
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of how they're how they're being served
and you know, like less disposable products
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if they can, like disposable trash
if they can help it, and more
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busting and all that, which again
reminds me of going to Disney and you
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know, their their quick service stuff
being served in the new docking base seven
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on actual actual plates that you return. There's not you don't just throw toss
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it away. I mean all these
things are here. He talked about beeria
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being a big kind kind of like
this, this year's big thing is that
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beeria, which is a type of
beef and the ways you can do it.
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But it's it's a big trending food, which was a menu item at
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Sea World, and the chef did
talk about that as well. And then
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also the trend towards non alcoholic spirits, basically saying this is an emerging trend,
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but that a lot of the younger
generation they don't they want the same
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drink, but they want it to
be known alcoholic, which is more complicated
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than it seems on its surface,
because you want it to taste the same
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without the alcohol. And that's kind
of a new technology which I met several
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boosts actually trying to specialize in that
to create a spirit that tastes with the
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tastes and works the same and that
could be added in in a one to
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one basis into a drink. So
that's really what we're looking at, not
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just not just a virgin x y
Z like a virgin dacri where you can't
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tell because there's so much sugar,
but really getting into these vision drinks version
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cocktails that have to have an alcohol
substitute. So that that was the first
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section, which was the trends and
where we are, And I'm thinking,
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what do you think of that?
You know, I mentioned all the allusions
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to the previous thing, but what
do you think? So so many of
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the things that you've just mentioned as
trends are things that are commonplace here in
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the new The mocktails the idea.
Let's start there and we'll work backwards.
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The idea of mocktails is something mainly
because culturally there are the Until just recently,
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it has been very difficult to get
actual alcohol, and to this day,
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alcohols like liquor stores here are licensed
and there are certain certain people who
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are unable to go to them because
of their affiliations, because of the government's
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religious feelings on alcohol. There are
now on Ya's Island there are quite a
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few bars and restaurants that do serve
alcoholic beverages. However, culturally there are
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a bunch of people who simply don't
drink. So the idea of mocktails.
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You will go into even a bar, half the menu will be mocked oils.
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They will be the faux cocktail,
the adult version. So as you
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say, not the not the virgin
dacre or the you know, but truly
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mocktails that have the same level of
of mixology involved, UM in order to
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create something that is unique and flavorful
and and worthy of consumption without that That's
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a really good way to put it, you know that basically that have the
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same level of mixology involved. I
think that's exactly what he was talking about,
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where you can't just phone it in. You have to think about creating
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it so that it tastes the same. And also the experience again, the
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authentic experience of mixing it looks the
same, right and and and they they
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are, they are beautiful. When
they come out, they you you cannot
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tell the difference as to who is
consuming alcohol and who is not, at
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least not until about the third drink
UM and their behavior changes. But so
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so that is a thing that is
already part of the entertainment culture, the
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dining entertainment culture here UM in the
UA. From what I've examined. As
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far as sustainability, uh, it's
it's interesting here that in one of the
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large grocery stores UM in the in
the car four store here in Abu Dhabi,
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as you leave, they have a
hydroponic garden which is growing their herbs.
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So it's very interesting to see the
farm to table food in general here
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has significantly fewer preservatives than it does
in the United States. You can tell
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because you can look at the at
the labels of even prepackaged food and they're
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significantly shorter here than they are for
things that are produced in the States.
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So that that level of farm to
table or freshness or sustainability, or however
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you want to position it is already
very much part of the culture here.
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And then when it comes to plastics
and one use items. In the project
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that I am working on, they
have started testing their culinary options and offerings
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and one of the one of the
restaurants, which is a grab and go,
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is utilizing actual plates. They're glass
plates, are ceramic plates, actual
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silverware that is collected and washed and
returned. And then even in the malls,
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you know when you go and get
when you go and get ice cream,
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it doesn't come in a plastic cup
with a plastic spoon. It comes
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in a cardboard cup with a with
a paper spoon. And that has required
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a great deal of architecture to make
it so it doesn't just collapse when you
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when you start to eat it,
and then the most fun for me.
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And I don't know whether you saw
this at the show or not, but
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one of the things that I've just
started to discover with a couple vendors here
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is sugar straws. So for things
like slushy or so, there are straws
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that are literally made of compressed and
compacted sugar. So after you finish your
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tasty sugary drink, you add your
extra shot of sweetness or or bouncing off
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the wallness by eating the straw or
if you even if you throw it out,
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it disintegrates completely the moment water,
well not the moment, but shortly
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after water hits at once, it's
submerged in water for any length of time,
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it just disintegrates into sugar or sugar
water. So all of these trends
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are not all, but many of
these trends are already in wide scale implementation
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here in a Ya's Island, which
again is the next is what they're hoping
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to be is the next level of
the attractions. And and not just from
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a theme park standpoint, but just
from a resort and vacation standpoint in general.
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I mean there's there's an entire waterside
area. There's the corniche here,
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there's the the I can't remember what
it's called, the entertainment zone, which
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has which is right along the water
and has restaurant after restaurant after restaurant,
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and all of them are working very
hard to implement many of these types of
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trends and sustainability issues. Well,
on that point, the next bit of
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the conversation of the keynote kind of
had to do with the menu adoption curve,
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which I had not heard of before. But it basically is the same
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thing as in any industry where there's
like it's like crossing the chasm. There's
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a book about that about where anytime
there's a new technology or a new thing,
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there's always the early innovators and there's
a chasm basically between like the early
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innovators that have to try it and
it has to be proven before you'll get
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to the mass adoption and then it'll
phase out. So he kind of he
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talks about the menu adoption curve and
how that relates to what I thought it
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was a cool concept, but how
the menu adoption curve basically is unique to
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each market and it takes exactly what
you're saying. It kind of dictates how
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far you can push these items,
and also whether or not your brand is
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targeting the people at the very tip
they're early innovators or they're targeting the main
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people, and just be aware of
it in all contexts. So, for
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example, if you are expected to
be an innovator, then you need to
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be you need to have more of
this ceramic plate you need to have,
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you need to be at the very
top of the curve. Versus if you're
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targeting the general public in an area
that isn't that far advanced, you you're
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being more like you're being led by
the innovators. It's it's kind of understanding
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are you leading or are you being
led and making sure you're not going to
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fall behind onto where it is.
But I just I thought that that kind
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of explained it very well and explains
exactly what we're talking about. How clearly
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the UAE and the area you're in, they're at the upper end of that
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curve where they're really he's saying trends, and the fact that you're seeing them
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everywhere means they're not trends there.
They're like the main stay there versus here,
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you know here in the US,
I would say that it is it
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is a trend because even looking at
that the examples I used, you know,
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Dockum Bay seven has ceramic stuff,
and we see that at some of
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those parks, but not all the
restaurants at Disneyland have ceramic even not all
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the grab and go and see world
doesn't. Right, so you're you see
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that dichotomy play out. But I
thought that was such an interesting moment and
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a big takeaway for all of our
listeners, no matter whether you're a theme
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park or an independent operation, is
to really sit down and consider where are
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you on this and are you falling
behind or do you have the opportunity to
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be a trendsittor Well, I think
the interesting thing here is so much there
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are two things you have to take
into consideration. That why if you're looking
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at this as a continuum, why
this area in this particular way is ahead
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of the curve back in the States. There's there's two things to consider.
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Number One, the UA is only
fifty one years old, so it's a
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very young country. And so therefore
when they start, they don't they didn't
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have to unlearn much. They were
able to say, oh, Okay,
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well, here's as we develop this, here's where are Here's where the States
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are starting to trend in, or
Europe is starting to trend in, or
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Asia is starting to trend in.
And we can just start there. So
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we don't have to waste our time
to unlearn the the clamshell burger holders.
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We don't have to unlearn that.
We can just automatically go to a cardboard
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cup with a much smaller plastic lid
or or a paper lid that goes on
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top of it. Um. So
unlearning was was was not something they had
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to deal with. And secondly,
again coming from a cultural difference, there
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are certain there's a huge there is
a huge um vegetarian option here. And
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you know you mentioned earlier about vegetables
trending andgetarian options being essential here. Because
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the UAE is such a multicultural um
base when it comes to population, there
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are people who, because of their
cultural or religious backgrounds, are innately vegetarian.
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So there are vegan and vegetarian options
everywhere here on the as Island.
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Everywhere it is. It is unique
to find someplace that doesn't. Plus again,
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pork is not available in most places. There are buying pork is sort
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of like it used to be when
you were buying drugs. You'd go into
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a back corner and a special little
section of the coordinate off section of the
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of the butcher shop that does have
pork. You can get it. But
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in order to be culturally sensitive to
those people who find pork offensive, they
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have made it a separate entity.
But you will rarely see pork on the
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menu in restaurants. You will rarely
see like for example, where I'm living,
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i have a breakfast buffet every morning. The sausage and the bacon are
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both. It's turkey bacon and chicken
sausage. So already there is a trend
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towards healthier food products because of the
cultural elements that combine here in the UAE.
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And there's always there's always beans,
there's always vegetables, there's always cheeses,
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so vegetarian and or vegan, and
even some of the cheeses or vegan
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are are things that are are commonplace
because of the cultures that come together here.
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So when we say trends in food, although not every trend that is
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coming to be in the US is
already implemented here, but in these particular
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cases because of you know, sort
of the cultural jump start. They're already
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here, so I think that's great. Well, that the final section from
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the keynote really was about marketing food, and I'm gonna combine this with the
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classes I went to, because I
went to all of the marketing classes since
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that's kind of what I was there
to do, because I do marketing for
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my clients. So that's what I
went to. And I think I could
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basically break it down to three elements
that were echoed not just in the classes,
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but in the keynote, and that
is element number one. Remember that,
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as Scott does say that we are
creatures that are most by stories,
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and you tell a much better story
with images than you do with text.
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So understanding that when you communicate your
food and your brand and you need to
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be able to communicate it with only
images and then you can text from there,
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but image centric is where we are. Number two is that the first
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impressions. Also, as Scott has
talked about that the first moment and the
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last moment of your dining is the
thing they're going to remember, and the
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first impressions matter, and you need
to put thought into crafting a first impression,
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not just of the experience as a
whole, but of the food moment,
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like the reveal. So if it's
a cocktail, it's when the cocktail
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is placed down to the customer,
or when it's being crafted and given to
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them, or when it's a plating. You know, this whole idea of
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the first impression is very important and
the impression they leave with it. And
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the third element is the focus that
social media is not going anywhere, that
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understanding how your food translates into social
media is critical for your success, and
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understanding working with influencers, working with
the vloggers and the food tasters and all
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those people. That's all part of
this whole idea of it's no longer only
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about the reviews on Yelp. You
know, it's expanded into people being able
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to share your food on social media
and influencers being able to talk about it.
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So I think those elements, I
think we're also echoed in the previous
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trade suit we went to with that. You know, just some of those
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concepts about about the images and whatnot. But but I think those are for
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again going to take away to listeners. Those are things that I think there's
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a lot of improvement that can be
made with everyone across the board, from
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your haunts to your independent attractions,
all the way up to your theme parts.
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Just even just thinking about how important
the imagery is, and you know
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how important it is to sell the
experiences when it comes to the food,
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and especially it's hard, especially with
parks. Right when you are like,
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I was just thinking about this because
at this point, everyone does a food
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testival, right, and we just
think about when you're serving it to the
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person, it's usually on those cardboard
boats, right, and it's like,
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uh, you know it, that
experience is so far removed from the trailer
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for the food festival right where it's
a gorgeous background and everything looks so cool.
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So I do think that there's there's
some of this disconnect with the parks
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and also, you know, potentially
with the restaurants. Whenever you're serving a
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dish where the there's a there's a
If somebody sets a dish in front of
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me that has a smudge on the
on the rim, I will clean it
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and then take a picture of it. I'm just saying that's because you're kind,
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and not everybody will do and there
are those people who will actually take
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a picture of the smudge and be
like, h yeah, well, and
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again all of this goes back to
the concept many of the concepts that were
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part of fine dining. You know, if you are sitting in a fine
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dining restaurant, when they set the
plate in front of you, they will
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then turn it a quarter so it
faces you. That is a sense of
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presentation that creates not only a good
look for the food, but also a
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first impression and a first impression even
for each course when it comes to when
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it comes to first impressions. One
of the things that I experienced here for
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the very first time as a smoked
cocktail. I had never I'd never been
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through this and when it is served, when it would serve to me,
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it was and I know this goes
on in the US as well, so
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this is nothing unique to this part
of the world. But it was served
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under a glass a glass dome,
and the dome was filled with smoke which
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was pumped in with a gun,
and then you lift it off and the
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smoke billows out and there's this lovely
cocktail sitting in the middle. So that
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sense of arrival. We used to
we used to joke inly refer to it
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as a VEX show. So it's
it's with a prison tation flourish that is
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super important. But it's something that's
been around in fine dining forever. It's
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just getting more and more important now
because food, the taste of food is
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important, but equally as important,
I would say, is the experience of
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dining. And that is true not
just a fine dining, but also of
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the good I won't call it grab
and go, but but I will to
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a certain extent. One of the
recent experiences here that I've noticed and it's
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either frustrating but I understand why.
It's kind of frustrating, but I understand
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why it happens is everywhere from the
mall to the mall food court to the
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theme park, if you walk up
to a counter, all of the menu
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boards have been replaced with video monitors
and they scroll through the menu with pictures
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of the food, not a list, but pictures thereof and then they reinforce
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that with a printed menu that you
can look at if you choose to,
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so you can see so you don't
have to wait for everything to scroll around
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and watch it again. Um,
So the visuals are are clearly something that
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is coming in that are coming into
their own forefront. Here you've got to
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make the food look good. Um, and then it has to carry through
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going back to the story that you're
telling. It has to carry through from
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That's what I ordered up on the
on the video monitor to hear is what
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is delivered to me and you don't
want it, you know, looking on
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looking like it's on fine china with
the sauce swirl and then it gets handed
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to you on a paper napkin.
You don't. That's a that's a disconnect
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and is going to disappoint your guests. Um. And uh So I think
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that's that's important to recognize. And
it's one of those things that I think
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continues to be um obviously from this
keynote and from all of these classes,
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continues to be something that is is
incredibly important. And then finally, you
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know, Instagram food port is a
real thing. People take pictures of the
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food and post it on their social
media and even even old guys like me
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who didn't grow up with social media, I did it. Just recently.
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I was in I was in Vienna. I had venischnitzel for the first time
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in Vienna. I've had it before, but for the first time in Vienna.
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I was sitting in Cafe Mozart,
and I, like you, Philip,
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I positioned my photos so you can
see the sidewalk cafe ambiance in the
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background, and my apparel sprits sitting
there, and and the veneransel I had
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more people say, oh, my
gosh, it looks so good, and
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it was, but the fact that
it looked so good and then tasted so
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good is what really made it impactful. So I think all of these I
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agree with all of these things one
hundred percent, and I've seen them just
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recently in my daily life. When
I was in culiny school as a chef's
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apprentice, my chef would always tell
me, you eat with your eyes,
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and it's kind of like there's a
baseline, as in, like it needs
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to taste good, but most people, most people's palates are not refined enough
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to really pick up that. So
it's kind of like the baseline needs to
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be is it good? But does
it look incredible? That will make up
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for the rest, you know,
And that's always what we were trained on.
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That's why we were trained to.
That was so important to plate things
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properly and to make sure that the
servers are putting something down with a presentation
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flourish and that doesn't. But I
think you can carry that through again takeaways
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to our listeners, carry that through
to the way that we're presenting food at
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at our establishments. And I think
the other big takeaway that I had,
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now here's where it jumps into me
and my takeaways versus the summary of presentation.
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But my takeaway in this is that
huge opportunity exists here for attractions to
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create novel dining experiences. And we've
talked about this when we talked about all
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of the food and how you know
Universal Horrornites now has a whole, has
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all of these pop up places,
and everyone makes a big deal about all
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the food, but you know,
it's it's because I think the opportunity is
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there to create something novel, and
I think that it's that intersection. I'm
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sure Scott can speak about this,
but you know, like, where's the
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intersection between making something novel and operationally
effective. I think that is growing.
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You know, I think that it
is possible for even a haunt to do
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a cocktail, a smoked cocktail.
I think that's possible, and I think
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that if you spun it in a
Halloween way, then it would be not
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only would it sell, but you
could charge your premium for it. But
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also then again it's about the marketing. You know, people again, people
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want to share novel experiences. So
if they have you know, the world's
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biggest scone kind of the thing,
or the biggest chocolate cookie, a cookie
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the size of your head for a
Christmas experience, I mean, these are
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the you know, these are the
things that people want to talk about and
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they just want to show off.
I think that's a big opportunity that we
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have going forward. And to that
point, there were a few products.
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I think the top products if I
were to give a list from the expo
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floor, all have to do with
this theme, and I thought there were
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four of them out of the entire
show floor. First is cookie shots.
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There is a company selling cookie shots. So they are shot glasses that are
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cookies and you can customize them to
be any decoration whatever. You can fill
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them with hot or cold beverages,
and you can ice it whatever. But
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essentially, you know, you're just
ordering these blank cookies and you can decorate
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them or customize them how you want. But that's portable, it's store is
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easy. It's an easy thing you
can do almost anywhere in any attraction.
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The next thing is spiked whipped cream, so basically whipped cream that has vodka
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in it or something for alcohol in
it. So again you could add that
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to the cookie. You could add
it to almost anything that you could have
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whip cream on and suddenly it's an
alcohol. Here's a piece of pie,
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Now it has alcohol. You know, here's a regular cocktail, Now it
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has alcohol. It's a really easy
way to add that spiked whipped cream.
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Number three was as yet, now
it has exactly and it looks great.
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Again that's the thing. Now it
has alcohol, but you can see this
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spiked whip cream on it, and
you can put some flavor sprinkles on it
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and it looks great. And the
third fit item is a flavor blaster,
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which is actually a derivative of the
spiked the smoked cocktail Scott. It's like
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a flavor blasters, and you can
put bubbles of fog on top of a
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cocktail that don't pop until the customer
pokes them. So in this instance you're
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giving the agency to the customer,
so they just put the bubble. The
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bartender puts the bubble on there with
a little mini bubble machine and then it
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had They can have sense as well, so it can explode an assented mist
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basically. And the last thing is
robots. I saw a lot of robots
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and delivery robots and robots that shake
your martinis and that make your smoothies.
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I mean that kind of thing right
now. It's novelty, but I think
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it's also an efficiency thing. You
know. I ate at a restaurant in
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Little Tokyo here in Los Angeles,
and our food was my curry was delivered
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by a robot, and I was
taking pictures of the robot and like not
359
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the curry. Yeah, it's it's
interesting because I was just not too long
360
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ago at Global Village in Dubai and
they had a robot ice cream machine.
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So in essence, and yes,
it was one novelty, but it had
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a line. It was a vending
machine with a line because the robot instead
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of just plopping out a prepackaged ice
cream cone, the robot actually assembled the
364
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ice cream in front of you.
And it was soft serve, so it
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was real easy. But it was
a robot that assembled it and served it
366
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to you, which obviously it was
the experience of the delivery method that made
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it. And the ice cream was
good, I mean it was frozen custard,
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so it was good. But but
it was the delivery method that created
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the line which I thought was which
I thought was absolutely wonderfully brilliant. UM.
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It's it's funny, the cookie shots. I think that's ah, it's
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well, it's the next generation of
the taco salad bowl. You know,
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it's now the dessert, the dessert
version of the taco salad bowl. UM,
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I think. But the one that
the one that hit me the most,
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and again just recently experienced something very
similar to it is when you said
375
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gives agency to UM, the dining
person UM, with the with the the
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flavor blasters. UM. I recently
went to a what I'm believing to be
377
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is a pop up dining experience called
Seven Paintings UM in Dubai, and it
378
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was UM. The concept was brilliant, the execution was good, but it
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was the things that that really stuck
out in my mind were not necessarily the
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conceptual things that involved the media,
because it was all about projections. They
381
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were projecting on your your dining surface. So each for each course, each
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course was based on a different famous
painting and you'd learn a little bit from
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the screen at the end, which
was a talking mona Lisa painting, and
384
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then from a little tiny artist who
appeared on your table via projection, and
385
00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:23.880
then they would project on your place
mat, on your food on the creating
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00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:29.559
a table runner. So the entire
look of the table changed from course to
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course to course, which was really
cool. But the things that stuck with
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me the most were the interactive food
moments. For example, our salad was
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celebrating the work of Pollock, so
very abstract, and we were given a
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00:29:48.200 --> 00:30:00.079
clean white sort of silicone place mat
and three different colored dressings and paintbrush and
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we were told to do the Sydney
Pollock painting on the white place mat,
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and then they delivered basically a bouquet
of greens that we would then pick up,
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dip into our painting, and eat
them. So it was very,
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very interactive. The dessert, though, was Salvador Dali inspired, which I
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00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:33.519
totally was impressed with. But you
were delivered a box and inside the box
396
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was a potato. This is going
to sound bizarre, but was a potato
397
00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:42.400
which had sort of a caramelized broulet
on top. It was sliced and then
398
00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:48.279
had a caramelized broulet on top,
and you were told to take the tears.
399
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It was it was all about the
beach, and take the tears of
400
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.599
the woman on the beach, and
which was actually a mister of olive oil
401
00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:00.880
and spray that across and then mix
in the phone from the sea. And
402
00:31:00.920 --> 00:31:03.440
the foam was actually a whip cream
or a custard that you mixed into the
403
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:07.880
potato with the broulet and the olive
oil and then sprinkle it with the sand
404
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:12.279
from the beach, which was crystallized
sugar. So you created your own sort
405
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of custard potato dessert thing. But
it was all very interactive, and it
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was it was sort of like the
escape room version of dining. So the
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00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:29.119
idea of putting everything together and making
it so the diner does that last assembly
408
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:33.880
and has that last bit of control. It makes it less. It's not
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just you eat with your eyes,
it's you eat with your whole experience.
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And I thought that was really cool. So anything you can do to do
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00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:45.279
that is I think really beneficial.
What is also beneficial is if I look
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00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:48.480
at my timer and I realized that
we have already gone over our thirty minutes.
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Sorry I kind of commandeered that,
but it was really fun experience.
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00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:53.839
If you have the opportunity to do
seven paintings, check it out because it'll
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00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:56.880
be fun. So on behalf of
Philip and myself Scott Swenson. This has
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00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.319
been green tag Theme Park in thirty
Please make sure that you find us.
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00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:06.480
We are now living on our own
independent feed on pretty much every network out
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00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:08.680
there, especially YouTube, And if
you want to try to find us,
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00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:13.359
just go to green Taggedshow dot com
and there are links that will take you
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00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:15.880
to everywhere. We now up here. Once again, thanks for listening another
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week and we will see you next
week.
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From our studios in Los Angeles and
Abu Dhabi. This is Green Tag Theme
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00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:08.199
Parking thirty. I'm Philip. My
co host is Scott Swinson. And Scott
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00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:12.279
today let's do something special. I
thought we would talk about takeaways from the
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Bar and Restaurant Expo, which happened
March in Vegas, March twenty eighth through
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00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:20.519
twenty ninth, twenty six to twenty
ninth. Sorry, I did happen to
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go there this year. One of
my clients paid for me to attend and
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00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:29.000
to attend and kind of study what
was going on. So I'm gonna give
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00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:35.520
all that value to our listeners for
free. Wow, you are a generous
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00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:38.759
human being, Philip. Yeah,
I hope the client isn't listening. I'm
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00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:42.039
sure it's fine. Yeah, I
bet they are. I bet they are
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right now. Doubtful, doubtful.
So anyway, so we have out there.
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We really appreciate you. Yes,
I won't name names, but so
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what happened? So, Philip,
what happened at the at the restaurant show?
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So I'll talk about some takeaways from
the main keynote presentation. First,
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you know, it's not that large
of a show, and they didn't do
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too much. They had like a
main keynote, plus they had some classes
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and then the exhibit hall which had
food and all sorts of cool stuff.
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But I thought we'd break it down. I'll talk about some of the information
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from the keynote, and then some
of the information from the classes, and
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then some of the I think top
products that I found. But something that
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came up in the keynote a lot
is something that you will be familiar with
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authenticity, which that sounds so familiar, doesn't it. I love it.
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So yeah. The keynote speaker,
who is a very popular chef who worked
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on a lot of the stuff in
Vegas there, he really talked about how
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this movement into authenticity, and then
he kind of gave a breakdown of some
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of the food trends, so not
just it's in authentic dying experiences. And
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really what he was talking about really
jived with what the executive chef at Sea
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World talked about in our special that
we did, the Ayappa Trade Summer special,
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just about representing different cultures in an
authentic food palette type of way.
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That's kind of what he was talking
about. Heat and then in terms of
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his trends, he talked about how
vegetables are cool, and Korean food is
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cool, and Asian food is coming
into it, but basically this whole idea
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that vegetarian options are becoming more mainstream
and should be available. He also talked
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about ready to drink items being becoming
more popular, like less stigma. You
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know, they used to the stigma
about like boxed wine, where people kind
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of thought it was a lesser type
of thing. But he talked about the
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ready to drink items losing that,
losing that stigma. He talked also about
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sustainability, another thing that we have
talked about, and how consumers are looking
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a little bit more for sustainability in
terms of not just the less plastic and
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that type of thing, but also
a little bit of sustainab ability in terms
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of how they're how they're being served
and you know, like less disposable products
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if they can, like disposable trash
if they can help it, and more
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busting and all that, which again
reminds me of going to Disney and you
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know, their their quick service stuff
being served in the new docking base seven
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on actual actual plates that you return. There's not you don't just throw toss
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it away. I mean all these
things are here. He talked about beeria
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being a big kind kind of like
this, this year's big thing is that
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beeria, which is a type of
beef and the ways you can do it.
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But it's it's a big trending food, which was a menu item at
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Sea World, and the chef did
talk about that as well. And then
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also the trend towards non alcoholic spirits, basically saying this is an emerging trend,
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but that a lot of the younger
generation they don't they want the same
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drink, but they want it to
be known alcoholic, which is more complicated
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than it seems on its surface,
because you want it to taste the same
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without the alcohol. And that's kind
of a new technology which I met several
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boosts actually trying to specialize in that
to create a spirit that tastes with the
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tastes and works the same and that
could be added in in a one to
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one basis into a drink. So
that's really what we're looking at, not
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just not just a virgin x y
Z like a virgin dacri where you can't
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tell because there's so much sugar,
but really getting into these vision drinks version
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cocktails that have to have an alcohol
substitute. So that that was the first
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section, which was the trends and
where we are, And I'm thinking,
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what do you think of that?
You know, I mentioned all the allusions
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to the previous thing, but what
do you think? So so many of
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the things that you've just mentioned as
trends are things that are commonplace here in
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the new The mocktails the idea.
Let's start there and we'll work backwards.
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The idea of mocktails is something mainly
because culturally there are the Until just recently,
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it has been very difficult to get
actual alcohol, and to this day,
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alcohols like liquor stores here are licensed
and there are certain certain people who
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are unable to go to them because
of their affiliations, because of the government's
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religious feelings on alcohol. There are
now on Ya's Island there are quite a
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few bars and restaurants that do serve
alcoholic beverages. However, culturally there are
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a bunch of people who simply don't
drink. So the idea of mocktails.
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You will go into even a bar, half the menu will be mocked oils.
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They will be the faux cocktail,
the adult version. So as you
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say, not the not the virgin
dacre or the you know, but truly
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mocktails that have the same level of
of mixology involved, UM in order to
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create something that is unique and flavorful
and and worthy of consumption without that That's
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a really good way to put it, you know that basically that have the
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same level of mixology involved. I
think that's exactly what he was talking about,
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where you can't just phone it in. You have to think about creating
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it so that it tastes the same. And also the experience again, the
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authentic experience of mixing it looks the
same, right and and and they they
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are, they are beautiful. When
they come out, they you you cannot
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tell the difference as to who is
consuming alcohol and who is not, at
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least not until about the third drink
UM and their behavior changes. But so
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so that is a thing that is
already part of the entertainment culture, the
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dining entertainment culture here UM in the
UA. From what I've examined. As
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far as sustainability, uh, it's
it's interesting here that in one of the
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large grocery stores UM in the in
the car four store here in Abu Dhabi,
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as you leave, they have a
hydroponic garden which is growing their herbs.
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So it's very interesting to see the
farm to table food in general here
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has significantly fewer preservatives than it does
in the United States. You can tell
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because you can look at the at
the labels of even prepackaged food and they're
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significantly shorter here than they are for
things that are produced in the States.
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So that that level of farm to
table or freshness or sustainability, or however
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you want to position it is already
very much part of the culture here.
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And then when it comes to plastics
and one use items. In the project
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that I am working on, they
have started testing their culinary options and offerings
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and one of the one of the
restaurants, which is a grab and go,
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is utilizing actual plates. They're glass
plates, are ceramic plates, actual
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silverware that is collected and washed and
returned. And then even in the malls,
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you know when you go and get
when you go and get ice cream,
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it doesn't come in a plastic cup
with a plastic spoon. It comes
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in a cardboard cup with a with
a paper spoon. And that has required
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a great deal of architecture to make
it so it doesn't just collapse when you
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when you start to eat it,
and then the most fun for me.
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And I don't know whether you saw
this at the show or not, but
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one of the things that I've just
started to discover with a couple vendors here
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is sugar straws. So for things
like slushy or so, there are straws
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that are literally made of compressed and
compacted sugar. So after you finish your
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tasty sugary drink, you add your
extra shot of sweetness or or bouncing off
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the wallness by eating the straw or
if you even if you throw it out,
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it disintegrates completely the moment water,
well not the moment, but shortly
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after water hits at once, it's
submerged in water for any length of time,
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it just disintegrates into sugar or sugar
water. So all of these trends
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are not all, but many of
these trends are already in wide scale implementation
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here in a Ya's Island, which
again is the next is what they're hoping
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to be is the next level of
the attractions. And and not just from
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a theme park standpoint, but just
from a resort and vacation standpoint in general.
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I mean there's there's an entire waterside
area. There's the corniche here,
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there's the the I can't remember what
it's called, the entertainment zone, which
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has which is right along the water
and has restaurant after restaurant after restaurant,
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and all of them are working very
hard to implement many of these types of
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trends and sustainability issues. Well,
on that point, the next bit of
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the conversation of the keynote kind of
had to do with the menu adoption curve,
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which I had not heard of before. But it basically is the same
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thing as in any industry where there's
like it's like crossing the chasm. There's
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a book about that about where anytime
there's a new technology or a new thing,
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there's always the early innovators and there's
a chasm basically between like the early
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innovators that have to try it and
it has to be proven before you'll get
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to the mass adoption and then it'll
phase out. So he kind of he
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talks about the menu adoption curve and
how that relates to what I thought it
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was a cool concept, but how
the menu adoption curve basically is unique to
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each market and it takes exactly what
you're saying. It kind of dictates how
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far you can push these items,
and also whether or not your brand is
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targeting the people at the very tip
they're early innovators or they're targeting the main
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people, and just be aware of
it in all contexts. So, for
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example, if you are expected to
be an innovator, then you need to
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be you need to have more of
this ceramic plate you need to have,
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you need to be at the very
top of the curve. Versus if you're
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targeting the general public in an area
that isn't that far advanced, you you're
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being more like you're being led by
the innovators. It's it's kind of understanding
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are you leading or are you being
led and making sure you're not going to
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fall behind onto where it is.
But I just I thought that that kind
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of explained it very well and explains
exactly what we're talking about. How clearly
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the UAE and the area you're in, they're at the upper end of that
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curve where they're really he's saying trends, and the fact that you're seeing them
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everywhere means they're not trends there.
They're like the main stay there versus here,
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you know here in the US,
I would say that it is it
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is a trend because even looking at
that the examples I used, you know,
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Dockum Bay seven has ceramic stuff,
and we see that at some of
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those parks, but not all the
restaurants at Disneyland have ceramic even not all
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the grab and go and see world
doesn't. Right, so you're you see
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that dichotomy play out. But I
thought that was such an interesting moment and
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00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:07.720
a big takeaway for all of our
listeners, no matter whether you're a theme
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park or an independent operation, is
to really sit down and consider where are
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you on this and are you falling
behind or do you have the opportunity to
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be a trendsittor Well, I think
the interesting thing here is so much there
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00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:26.559
are two things you have to take
into consideration. That why if you're looking
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at this as a continuum, why
this area in this particular way is ahead
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of the curve back in the States. There's there's two things to consider.
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Number One, the UA is only
fifty one years old, so it's a
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very young country. And so therefore
when they start, they don't they didn't
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have to unlearn much. They were
able to say, oh, Okay,
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well, here's as we develop this, here's where are Here's where the States
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are starting to trend in, or
Europe is starting to trend in, or
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Asia is starting to trend in.
And we can just start there. So
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we don't have to waste our time
to unlearn the the clamshell burger holders.
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We don't have to unlearn that.
We can just automatically go to a cardboard
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cup with a much smaller plastic lid
or or a paper lid that goes on
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top of it. Um. So
unlearning was was was not something they had
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to deal with. And secondly,
again coming from a cultural difference, there
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are certain there's a huge there is
a huge um vegetarian option here. And
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you know you mentioned earlier about vegetables
trending andgetarian options being essential here. Because
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the UAE is such a multicultural um
base when it comes to population, there
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are people who, because of their
cultural or religious backgrounds, are innately vegetarian.
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So there are vegan and vegetarian options
everywhere here on the as Island.
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Everywhere it is. It is unique
to find someplace that doesn't. Plus again,
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pork is not available in most places. There are buying pork is sort
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of like it used to be when
you were buying drugs. You'd go into
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a back corner and a special little
section of the coordinate off section of the
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of the butcher shop that does have
pork. You can get it. But
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in order to be culturally sensitive to
those people who find pork offensive, they
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have made it a separate entity.
But you will rarely see pork on the
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menu in restaurants. You will rarely
see like for example, where I'm living,
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i have a breakfast buffet every morning. The sausage and the bacon are
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both. It's turkey bacon and chicken
sausage. So already there is a trend
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towards healthier food products because of the
cultural elements that combine here in the UAE.
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And there's always there's always beans,
there's always vegetables, there's always cheeses,
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so vegetarian and or vegan, and
even some of the cheeses or vegan
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are are things that are are commonplace
because of the cultures that come together here.
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So when we say trends in food, although not every trend that is
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coming to be in the US is
already implemented here, but in these particular
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cases because of you know, sort
of the cultural jump start. They're already
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here, so I think that's great. Well, that the final section from
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the keynote really was about marketing food, and I'm gonna combine this with the
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classes I went to, because I
went to all of the marketing classes since
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that's kind of what I was there
to do, because I do marketing for
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my clients. So that's what I
went to. And I think I could
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basically break it down to three elements
that were echoed not just in the classes,
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but in the keynote, and that
is element number one. Remember that,
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as Scott does say that we are
creatures that are most by stories,
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and you tell a much better story
with images than you do with text.
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So understanding that when you communicate your
food and your brand and you need to
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be able to communicate it with only
images and then you can text from there,
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but image centric is where we are. Number two is that the first
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impressions. Also, as Scott has
talked about that the first moment and the
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last moment of your dining is the
thing they're going to remember, and the
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first impressions matter, and you need
to put thought into crafting a first impression,
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not just of the experience as a
whole, but of the food moment,
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like the reveal. So if it's
a cocktail, it's when the cocktail
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is placed down to the customer,
or when it's being crafted and given to
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them, or when it's a plating. You know, this whole idea of
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the first impression is very important and
the impression they leave with it. And
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the third element is the focus that
social media is not going anywhere, that
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understanding how your food translates into social
media is critical for your success, and
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understanding working with influencers, working with
the vloggers and the food tasters and all
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those people. That's all part of
this whole idea of it's no longer only
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about the reviews on Yelp. You
know, it's expanded into people being able
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to share your food on social media
and influencers being able to talk about it.
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So I think those elements, I
think we're also echoed in the previous
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trade suit we went to with that. You know, just some of those
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concepts about about the images and whatnot. But but I think those are for
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again going to take away to listeners. Those are things that I think there's
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a lot of improvement that can be
made with everyone across the board, from
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your haunts to your independent attractions,
all the way up to your theme parts.
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Just even just thinking about how important
the imagery is, and you know
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how important it is to sell the
experiences when it comes to the food,
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and especially it's hard, especially with
parks. Right when you are like,
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I was just thinking about this because
at this point, everyone does a food
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testival, right, and we just
think about when you're serving it to the
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person, it's usually on those cardboard
boats, right, and it's like,
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uh, you know it, that
experience is so far removed from the trailer
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for the food festival right where it's
a gorgeous background and everything looks so cool.
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So I do think that there's there's
some of this disconnect with the parks
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and also, you know, potentially
with the restaurants. Whenever you're serving a
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dish where the there's a there's a
If somebody sets a dish in front of
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me that has a smudge on the
on the rim, I will clean it
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and then take a picture of it. I'm just saying that's because you're kind,
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and not everybody will do and there
are those people who will actually take
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a picture of the smudge and be
like, h yeah, well, and
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again all of this goes back to
the concept many of the concepts that were
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part of fine dining. You know, if you are sitting in a fine
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dining restaurant, when they set the
plate in front of you, they will
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then turn it a quarter so it
faces you. That is a sense of
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presentation that creates not only a good
look for the food, but also a
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first impression and a first impression even
for each course when it comes to when
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it comes to first impressions. One
of the things that I experienced here for
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the very first time as a smoked
cocktail. I had never I'd never been
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through this and when it is served, when it would serve to me,
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it was and I know this goes
on in the US as well, so
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this is nothing unique to this part
of the world. But it was served
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under a glass a glass dome,
and the dome was filled with smoke which
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was pumped in with a gun,
and then you lift it off and the
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smoke billows out and there's this lovely
cocktail sitting in the middle. So that
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sense of arrival. We used to
we used to joke inly refer to it
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as a VEX show. So it's
it's with a prison tation flourish that is
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super important. But it's something that's
been around in fine dining forever. It's
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just getting more and more important now
because food, the taste of food is
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important, but equally as important,
I would say, is the experience of
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dining. And that is true not
just a fine dining, but also of
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the good I won't call it grab
and go, but but I will to
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a certain extent. One of the
recent experiences here that I've noticed and it's
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either frustrating but I understand why.
It's kind of frustrating, but I understand
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why it happens is everywhere from the
mall to the mall food court to the
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theme park, if you walk up
to a counter, all of the menu
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boards have been replaced with video monitors
and they scroll through the menu with pictures
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of the food, not a list, but pictures thereof and then they reinforce
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that with a printed menu that you
can look at if you choose to,
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so you can see so you don't
have to wait for everything to scroll around
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and watch it again. Um,
So the visuals are are clearly something that
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is coming in that are coming into
their own forefront. Here you've got to
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make the food look good. Um, and then it has to carry through
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going back to the story that you're
telling. It has to carry through from
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That's what I ordered up on the
on the video monitor to hear is what
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is delivered to me and you don't
want it, you know, looking on
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looking like it's on fine china with
the sauce swirl and then it gets handed
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to you on a paper napkin.
You don't. That's a that's a disconnect
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and is going to disappoint your guests. Um. And uh So I think
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that's that's important to recognize. And
it's one of those things that I think
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continues to be um obviously from this
keynote and from all of these classes,
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continues to be something that is is
incredibly important. And then finally, you
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know, Instagram food port is a
real thing. People take pictures of the
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food and post it on their social
media and even even old guys like me
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who didn't grow up with social media, I did it. Just recently.
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I was in I was in Vienna. I had venischnitzel for the first time
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in Vienna. I've had it before, but for the first time in Vienna.
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I was sitting in Cafe Mozart,
and I, like you, Philip,
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I positioned my photos so you can
see the sidewalk cafe ambiance in the
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background, and my apparel sprits sitting
there, and and the veneransel I had
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more people say, oh, my
gosh, it looks so good, and
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it was, but the fact that
it looked so good and then tasted so
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good is what really made it impactful. So I think all of these I
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agree with all of these things one
hundred percent, and I've seen them just
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recently in my daily life. When
I was in culiny school as a chef's
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apprentice, my chef would always tell
me, you eat with your eyes,
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and it's kind of like there's a
baseline, as in, like it needs
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to taste good, but most people, most people's palates are not refined enough
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to really pick up that. So
it's kind of like the baseline needs to
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be is it good? But does
it look incredible? That will make up
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for the rest, you know,
And that's always what we were trained on.
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That's why we were trained to.
That was so important to plate things
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properly and to make sure that the
servers are putting something down with a presentation
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flourish and that doesn't. But I
think you can carry that through again takeaways
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to our listeners, carry that through
to the way that we're presenting food at
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at our establishments. And I think
the other big takeaway that I had,
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now here's where it jumps into me
and my takeaways versus the summary of presentation.
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But my takeaway in this is that
huge opportunity exists here for attractions to
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create novel dining experiences. And we've
talked about this when we talked about all
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of the food and how you know
Universal Horrornites now has a whole, has
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all of these pop up places,
and everyone makes a big deal about all
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the food, but you know,
it's it's because I think the opportunity is
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there to create something novel, and
I think that it's that intersection. I'm
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sure Scott can speak about this,
but you know, like, where's the
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intersection between making something novel and operationally
effective. I think that is growing.
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You know, I think that it
is possible for even a haunt to do
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a cocktail, a smoked cocktail.
I think that's possible, and I think
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that if you spun it in a
Halloween way, then it would be not
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only would it sell, but you
could charge your premium for it. But
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also then again it's about the marketing. You know, people again, people
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want to share novel experiences. So
if they have you know, the world's
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biggest scone kind of the thing,
or the biggest chocolate cookie, a cookie
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the size of your head for a
Christmas experience, I mean, these are
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the you know, these are the
things that people want to talk about and
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they just want to show off.
I think that's a big opportunity that we
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have going forward. And to that
point, there were a few products.
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I think the top products if I
were to give a list from the expo
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floor, all have to do with
this theme, and I thought there were
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four of them out of the entire
show floor. First is cookie shots.
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There is a company selling cookie shots. So they are shot glasses that are
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cookies and you can customize them to
be any decoration whatever. You can fill
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them with hot or cold beverages,
and you can ice it whatever. But
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essentially, you know, you're just
ordering these blank cookies and you can decorate
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them or customize them how you want. But that's portable, it's store is
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easy. It's an easy thing you
can do almost anywhere in any attraction.
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The next thing is spiked whipped cream, so basically whipped cream that has vodka
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in it or something for alcohol in
it. So again you could add that
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to the cookie. You could add
it to almost anything that you could have
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whip cream on and suddenly it's an
alcohol. Here's a piece of pie,
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Now it has alcohol. You know, here's a regular cocktail, Now it
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has alcohol. It's a really easy
way to add that spiked whipped cream.
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Number three was as yet, now
it has exactly and it looks great.
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Again that's the thing. Now it
has alcohol, but you can see this
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spiked whip cream on it, and
you can put some flavor sprinkles on it
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and it looks great. And the
third fit item is a flavor blaster,
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which is actually a derivative of the
spiked the smoked cocktail Scott. It's like
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a flavor blasters, and you can
put bubbles of fog on top of a
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cocktail that don't pop until the customer
pokes them. So in this instance you're
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giving the agency to the customer,
so they just put the bubble. The
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bartender puts the bubble on there with
a little mini bubble machine and then it
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had They can have sense as well, so it can explode an assented mist
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basically. And the last thing is
robots. I saw a lot of robots
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and delivery robots and robots that shake
your martinis and that make your smoothies.
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I mean that kind of thing right
now. It's novelty, but I think
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it's also an efficiency thing. You
know. I ate at a restaurant in
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Little Tokyo here in Los Angeles,
and our food was my curry was delivered
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by a robot, and I was
taking pictures of the robot and like not
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the curry. Yeah, it's it's
interesting because I was just not too long
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ago at Global Village in Dubai and
they had a robot ice cream machine.
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So in essence, and yes,
it was one novelty, but it had
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a line. It was a vending
machine with a line because the robot instead
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of just plopping out a prepackaged ice
cream cone, the robot actually assembled the
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ice cream in front of you.
And it was soft serve, so it
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was real easy. But it was
a robot that assembled it and served it
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to you, which obviously it was
the experience of the delivery method that made
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it. And the ice cream was
good, I mean it was frozen custard,
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so it was good. But but
it was the delivery method that created
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the line which I thought was which
I thought was absolutely wonderfully brilliant. UM.
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It's it's funny, the cookie shots. I think that's ah, it's
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well, it's the next generation of
the taco salad bowl. You know,
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it's now the dessert, the dessert
version of the taco salad bowl. UM,
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I think. But the one that
the one that hit me the most,
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and again just recently experienced something very
similar to it is when you said
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gives agency to UM, the dining
person UM, with the with the the
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flavor blasters. UM. I recently
went to a what I'm believing to be
377
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is a pop up dining experience called
Seven Paintings UM in Dubai, and it
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was UM. The concept was brilliant, the execution was good, but it
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was the things that that really stuck
out in my mind were not necessarily the
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conceptual things that involved the media,
because it was all about projections. They
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were projecting on your your dining surface. So each for each course, each
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course was based on a different famous
painting and you'd learn a little bit from
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the screen at the end, which
was a talking mona Lisa painting, and
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then from a little tiny artist who
appeared on your table via projection, and
385
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then they would project on your place
mat, on your food on the creating
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a table runner. So the entire
look of the table changed from course to
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course to course, which was really
cool. But the things that stuck with
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me the most were the interactive food
moments. For example, our salad was
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celebrating the work of Pollock, so
very abstract, and we were given a
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clean white sort of silicone place mat
and three different colored dressings and paintbrush and
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we were told to do the Sydney
Pollock painting on the white place mat,
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and then they delivered basically a bouquet
of greens that we would then pick up,
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dip into our painting, and eat
them. So it was very,
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very interactive. The dessert, though, was Salvador Dali inspired, which I
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totally was impressed with. But you
were delivered a box and inside the box
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was a potato. This is going
to sound bizarre, but was a potato
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which had sort of a caramelized broulet
on top. It was sliced and then
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had a caramelized broulet on top,
and you were told to take the tears.
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It was it was all about the
beach, and take the tears of
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the woman on the beach, and
which was actually a mister of olive oil
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and spray that across and then mix
in the phone from the sea. And
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the foam was actually a whip cream
or a custard that you mixed into the
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potato with the broulet and the olive
oil and then sprinkle it with the sand
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from the beach, which was crystallized
sugar. So you created your own sort
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of custard potato dessert thing. But
it was all very interactive, and it
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00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:22.319
was it was sort of like the
escape room version of dining. So the
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00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:29.119
idea of putting everything together and making
it so the diner does that last assembly
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and has that last bit of control. It makes it less. It's not
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just you eat with your eyes,
it's you eat with your whole experience.
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And I thought that was really cool. So anything you can do to do
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that is I think really beneficial.
What is also beneficial is if I look
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at my timer and I realized that
we have already gone over our thirty minutes.
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Sorry I kind of commandeered that,
but it was really fun experience.
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If you have the opportunity to do
seven paintings, check it out because it'll
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be fun. So on behalf of
Philip and myself Scott Swenson. This has
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00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.319
been green tag Theme Park in thirty
Please make sure that you find us.
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00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:06.480
We are now living on our own
independent feed on pretty much every network out
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00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:08.680
there, especially YouTube, And if
you want to try to find us,
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00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:13.359
just go to green Taggedshow dot com
and there are links that will take you
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00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:15.880
to everywhere. We now up here. Once again, thanks for listening another
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00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:17.640
week and we will see you next
week.











