Duckhub Blog
Guides, news and comparisons to help your restaurant grow online.
- Comparisons
Static vs dynamic QR codes: the choice that decides whether a price change means a reprint
The short answer: use dynamic for anything that changes, static for anything permanent. But the interesting part is the third option most vendor comparisons never mention, where a free static code pointed at a subdomain you own gives you dynamic behaviour with no subscription and no third party in the redirect path. This guide covers the technical difference, the reprint arithmetic, the expiry question, and where each option actually wins.
By Duckhub TeamAug 21, 202614 min read - Guides
How to price a restaurant menu: one dish, from the recipe card to the number on the page
Menu price = plate cost divided by target food cost percentage. That formula is the easy part. This guide runs one dish end to end through all five formulas, gives the real 2024 food and labour medians the National Restaurant Association published from 900+ operators, classifies items with the Kasavana and Smith matrix, and separates the pricing psychology with evidence behind it from the two most repeated pieces of menu folklore.
By Duckhub TeamAug 19, 202618 min read - Guides
Bistro, gastropub, fast casual: the types of restaurants, and why the labels keep colliding
A gastropub is not the opposite of casual dining. It is a venue style, and casual dining is an industry segment, and one restaurant is usually both at once. This guide separates the two classification layers, defines 16 restaurant types with dictionary and industry sources, compares them in a single table, explains why average check by segment is not publicly published, and debunks the Russian origin story for bistro.
By Duckhub TeamAug 17, 202620 min read - Guides
Who does what in a restaurant: the kitchen brigade, decoded for a team of six
The classical brigade de cuisine defined a station for every task. Most of those titles are gone, and the ones that survive mean something different now. This guide maps each classical position to its 2026 equivalent, gives realistic rosters for 5, 15 and 40-person kitchens, settles the busser vs food runner vs server assistant confusion, lists BLS median wages from the May 2025 release, and explains the federal tip-pool rules that decide who can legally share gratuities.
By Duckhub TeamAug 12, 202613 min read - Guides
A la carte or prix fixe? The menu format you pick decides your food cost
A la carte prices every dish separately and hands the guest maximum choice. Prix fixe, table d'hote and tasting menus trade that choice for predictability: you know what the kitchen will cook before service starts. This guide gives the dictionary definitions, an eight-criteria comparison table, the honest answer on whether prix fixe and table d'hote are actually different, and what US fee-disclosure law does and does not require on a fixed-price menu.
By Duckhub TeamAug 10, 202612 min read - Guides
Restaurant terms and kitchen slang: the glossary we wish we'd had on day one
Restaurant vocabulary is six separate vocabularies wearing one coat: floor shorthand, kitchen commands, menu formats, bar tiers, French classical terms, and accounting metrics. This glossary separates them, gives every metric its exact formula, settles the legal difference between a service charge and a tip, and corrects the definitions competing glossaries routinely get wrong.
By Duckhub TeamAug 5, 202622 min read 
NewsGoogle's April 2026 Review Policy: Staff-Name Requests and Review Quotas Now Banned
In mid-April 2026 Google tightened its Maps review rules: staff review quotas and asking customers to mention an employee by name are now explicit violations, and the bans on review gating and on-site review kiosks were reinforced — with pre-publication screening backing enforcement. Combined with the FTC's fake-review rule ($51,744 per violation) and Google's 292-million-review purge, the message is uniform: any review program that filters, incentivizes, or scripts is now a liability.
By Duckhub TeamAug 1, 20264 min read
NewsMcDonald's Bets on AI Drive-Thru Again: ArchIQ Passes 1 Million Orders at 90% Automation
Two years after shutting down its IBM drive-thru experiment, McDonald's is back with ArchIQ — a Google Cloud-powered voice AI unveiled at its 2026 convention. The numbers behind the retry: 1 million+ test transactions, roughly 90% completed without a human stepping in, bilingual English/Spanish ordering, and Google Edge Cloud hardware going into US restaurants ahead of a nationwide rollout targeted for 2027. The industry lesson: drive-thru AI didn't die in 2024 — it went back to engineering.
By Duckhub TeamAug 1, 20264 min read
NewsSquare Turns On Restaurant Ordering Inside ChatGPT and Claude: Agentic Commerce Arrives
On July 1, 2026, Square switched on restaurant ordering inside ChatGPT and Claude: eligible US food & beverage sellers were auto-enrolled, AI assistants can read live menus and place orders routed into Square's ordering system, and the only cost is standard processing — no marketplace commission. With only 6% of restaurants taking orders via AI (NRA) and ~6 in 10 younger diners saying they'd order through an AI bot, the demand-readiness gap just became the industry's next race.
By Duckhub TeamJul 31, 20264 min read
GuidesRestaurant Review Statistics 2026: How Online Reviews Drive Revenue & Choice
The review economy in verified numbers: 97% of consumers read reviews and 31% demand 4.5+ stars (BrightLocal 2026); one extra Yelp star causes 5–9% more revenue for independents (Harvard); an extra half-star makes prime-time sellouts 49% more frequent (Anderson & Magruder); ~16% of Yelp restaurant reviews are filtered as suspicious; and since October 2024 the FTC fines fake-review schemes $51,744 per violation. Plus: 89% expect owners to respond — and 50% are put off by templated replies.
By Duckhub TeamJul 31, 20268 min read
GuidesRestaurant Food Waste Statistics 2026: How Much Restaurants Waste & What It Costs
Foodservice wasted 290 million tonnes of food globally in 2022 — 28% of all consumer-level waste (UNEP). US foodservice surplus runs ~12.5 million tons a year worth ~$104 billion (ReFED), yet the viral '30–40% of purchases' claim misreads a USDA economy-wide statistic — real kitchen waste is 4–10% of purchases, and ~70% of US restaurant waste happens on the plate, not in the kitchen. The strongest number in the niche: $7 saved per $1 invested in prevention (Champions 12.3).
By Duckhub TeamJul 30, 20269 min read
GuidesRestaurant Labor Statistics 2026: Turnover Rates, Staffing & What It Costs
The '75% restaurant turnover' stat everyone quotes is a methodology error waiting to happen — BLS 'separations' count events, not people, and include firings. The verified 2026 picture: hourly turnover runs ~110% in limited service and ~92% in full service (Black Box), the voluntary-quits wave has ended (BLS quits rate back to ~4.2%), understaffing collapsed from 78% of operators in 2021 to 22% in 2025 (NRA), and replacing one hourly worker costs $2,706 — a GM, $17,651.
By Duckhub TeamJul 30, 20269 min read