Duckhub Blog
Guides, news and comparisons to help your restaurant grow online.
- Guides
Thanksgiving restaurant menu: prix fixe or to-go feasts, priced so the holiday actually pays
Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, 26 November. Diners are shifting from eating out to ordering the meal home: Popmenu's 2025 survey found 53% planned takeout or delivery for Thanksgiving dinner and only 5% planned to dine in. This guide helps restaurant owners pick a format (prix fixe, family-style or to-go feast), price it from food cost, follow USDA reheating rules and run a six-week timeline.
By Duckhub TeamOct 5, 202614 min read - Guides
Cafe and coffee shop name ideas: 280 names, plus the checks that tell you if one is free to use
A list of 280 cafe and coffee shop names is the easy half. The half that saves money is the clearance protocol: search the USPTO database before the state registry, the state registry before the domain, and know that registering an LLC or a DBA gives you no trademark rights at all. This guide has both, plus the Google Business Profile naming rules that get profiles suspended.
By Duckhub TeamSep 11, 202618 min read - Guides
Ghost kitchen menus in 2026: what still works now the shakeout has taken the hype with it
The infrastructure bet on ghost kitchens collapsed between 2023 and 2024, but delivery-only menus did not go away with it. This guide covers what a ghost kitchen actually is versus a virtual brand, what the closures proved, how a delivery menu differs from a dine-in one, what platforms now require of virtual brands, and where the money goes on a $30 order once a 25% commission is taken.
By Duckhub TeamSep 7, 202615 min read - Guides
Catering menu guide: the per-head math that decides whether a 50-guest event makes money
A catering menu is priced per head, committed before the event, and produced for a guaranteed count, which makes it arithmetic rather than a list of dishes. This guide covers the six service styles and what each one costs in labour, portion planning with sourced institutional numbers, how to build three-tier packages, a transparent per-head calculation, the nine major US allergens, and the contract clauses that stop a late cancellation from becoming your loss.
By Duckhub TeamSep 4, 202618 min read - Guides
Fall and Oktoberfest menu ideas: the six-week season, planned as an operation not a recipe list
Almost every fall menu article is a list of recipes for a home kitchen. This one treats the season as what it actually is for an operator: a six-week window with a launch date, a purchasing commitment, and an exit. It covers the 2026 calendar, what Oktoberfestbier legally means under its EU protected designation, why the beer served in Munich is not the style most US bars pour, how many items to add before purchasing breaks, and how to close the season without a walk-in full of squash.
By Duckhub TeamAug 26, 202614 min read - Guides
Well, rail, call and top-shelf: bar drink terminology from the side that pays for the bottle
Most bar glossaries are written for the guest. This one is written for whoever signs the liquor invoice. It defines well, rail, call, premium and top-shelf and explains why three of those five are not really a ladder, gives the pour cost formula with the arithmetic shown, covers the service terms that need a written house spec, and lays out corkage and BYOB law across California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where the rules genuinely contradict each other.
By Duckhub TeamAug 24, 202616 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 
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