Toronto – A fight that broke out at a Toronto Pizza Pizza restaurant and was later filmed and posted on YouTube began with a complaint that an order was taking too long, a witness said. The Toronto Star reports. | READ MORE

Orlando, FL – More than half of U.S. workers would rather find another job than be promoted by their company. How many employees would honestly recommend their employer as a place to work? A place to eat? And are companies putting as much importance behind these statistics as they do guest satisfaction? Aaron Allen and Associates explores foodservice employee engagement in a restaurant blog. | READ MORE

Personalization can mean anything from remembering customers’ names to issuing timely email reminders. As customer service expert Shep Hyken writes, creating a great personalized experience for customers leads to the best kind of word-of-mouth marketing.

What does it mean to be a customer-centric company?

How close to going cashless is your pizzeria? Unless you’ve been hiding under the till for the last 20 years, you’ll have noticed the slow but sure shift from cash to cashless forms of payment in this country. One veteran pizzeria operator told us he saw a tipping point last fall when his cash take for one evening consisted of $20, a small fraction of his sales.

Mention the phrase “alternative payments” and it may conjure up visions of underground economies, spice trade networks or Orson Welles’ black-marketer Harry Lime from The Third Man.

Your point-of-sale system should serve your pizzeria’s every need. It should be able to tell you everything about your business at any point in time, past or present. As your business grows, so will its point-of-sale (POS) needs and when it’s time for a change, there are a few things you should know.  

There is no one single secret to running a successful pizza operation. Opening and maintaining a pizzeria requires a great deal of hard work, discipline and dedication, and demands a lot of organizational skills.

Chicago – Takeout service Grubhub will acquire independent North American online food-ordering Foodler.

Victoria - Johnny Rockets of Canada has opened its first two locations in Victoria, where it is offering employees a minimum wage of $15.

Canada is turning 150 years old this year and as we ramp up for the big event July 1, you can sense the momentum.

Toronto – The way small businesses are accepting payments has changed – it’s no longer just cash or even debit and credit – as mobile payments and digital currency have become even more prevalent in the retail sector. The Globe and Mail reports. | READ MORE

Taste for Luxury Rare and Precious Foods has a delicate cheese called Dolce Nuvola made with full-fat, pasteurized milk.

Barrie, Ont., entrepreneur Shelby Taylor has developed a chickpea-based pasta that ticks the boxes of several special diets.

Canadian operators can now upgrade their AMI jukeboxes by adding a music video kit to connect their NGX digital jukebox models to nearby televisions.

If you're looking to jazz up your charcuterie board, Piller’s has a new line of cured meats.

Mobile app and platform ClickDishes works with local restaurants to give customers in-app ordering, streamlining to-go ordering, dine-in eating and payment services.

Dragontail Systems’ Algo Dispatching System uses a patented algorithm to manage the food preparation process from order to delivery.

A novel staffing app aims to connect the restaurant and hospitality industry with skilled workers.

Food Profit, based in Moncton, N.B., has created software that categorizes restaurants' product invoice data into the seven primary food-costing categories to help them see the true cost of menu items.

Simply Milled, Ardent Mills’ new line of bread flour, all-purpose flour, pastry flour and whole-wheat flour, features products made without bleach, bromate or other additives, the company said in a press release.

EGE Marketing SEO service help small business owners turn traffic into leads and leads into sales.A new Toronto search engine optimization company that helps small business owners in Canada achieve higher Google rankings has seen their reputation catapulted due to their success rate.

Heckler Design has introduced its WindFall Coaster as a solution to the decline in table turn many restaurants have experienced as a result of phone distractions.

Leamington, Ont. – Dominos Pizza of Canada chief executive Mike Schlater and his wife Lilibeth picked up the tab for the London Health Sciences Centre’s new brain surgery robot, forking over a $500,000 donation Tuesday. The Windsor Star reports. | READ MORE

Los Angeles – Eric Vose launched Vivace Pizzeria from his Los Angeles food truck about a month ago to feed his obsession with leopard-spotted wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas. The Los Angeles Times reports. | READ MORE

The most successful small businesses share an important quality: they make themselves part of their communities. Entrepreneur magazine lists getting involved among its top 25 common characteristics of successful businesses and Forbes says those who succeed long term are often motivated not by profit but by being able to work where they live.

Regina – Among three different sets of owners, west Regina pizzeria Juliana Pizza has always had a Peter. Today, it’s Peter Yannitsos, who bought Juliana Pizza with his cousin-in-law Paul Howie back in September 2006. The Regina Leader-Post reports. | READ MORE

When you talk to Carlo Raillo get ready to listen because you will learn.

Thunder Bay, Ont. – The owners of a new restaurant on the south side of Thunder Bay, Ont. are hoping their business could be part of an entertainment revival in the area. CBC News reports. | READ MORE

New York – Scott Wiener loves pizza so much he gave up having a regular job to found a tour of pie hotspots in New York. He's so obsessed with it that he has collected over 1,300 pizza boxes from around the U.S. The Independent reports. | READ MORE

When in Rome, you do as the Romans do. For Roberto (Rob) Federici, owner of Ciao Roma in Woodbridge, Ont., that means sampling fresh, delicious pizza made in hole-in-the-wall pizzerias in the land of his heritage.

As a-ha moments go, the one that conceived Junior’s Handmade Sourdough Pizza in Bowmanville, Ont., was a quiet but significant one. It came when, after years of working in the restaurant industry, Jade Chaput and husband Victor Hanc Jr. planned to get into the pizza business.

Red Tomato Pies is crushing it when it comes to customer service. The fun-loving pizzeria with locations in Williams Lake and Golden, B.C., is a favourite pizza spot for locals and tourists alike.

Berlin – In the southeastern Kreuzberg borough of Berlin, a restaurant parodies Canadian culture and specializes in “Canadian Pizza.” The Globe and Mail reports. | READ MORE

Grace Yeh and Jean-Daniel Nadeau are seriously passionate about Neapolitan pizza.

Calgary – Dry-aged beef is a growing trend in Calgary, but you may want to rely on experienced butchers if you'd like a taste, a Calgary food columnist says. CBC reports. | READ MORE

San Francisco, CA – These 17 bright and beautiful pizza recipes from food blog Brit + Co are al fresco-approved, seasonal and ready to be plopped onto your plate. | READ MORE

My conversation with Rodolfo Santo begins with a description of limoncello that is almost a love letter. The version of the drink he loves is a specialty of the Amalfi Coast in Italy, says Santo, who was born in nearby Naples. “The lemons there are bigger and sweeter. If you are driving along the coast and look down, you’ll see a hillside of lemons covered with black nets for harvesting,” he says.

Did you know that women aged 19 to 49 require more than twice as much iron in their daily diet as men? And while you may already be eating foods with iron, depending on what you’re eating with them, your body may not be absorbing much of it. There are two kinds of iron: heme iron and non-heme iron. Heme iron, found in meat, fish, and poultry, is well absorbed by the body. Non-heme iron, found in beans, lentils, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and eggs, is not as well absorbed by the body.  

Here are the answers to Michelle Brisebois' Marketing Insights trivia:

Cambridge, MA – Researchers from MIT’s Tangible Media Group have created flat sheets of gelatin and starch that, when submerged in water, instantly sprout into three-dimensional structures, including common pasta shapes such as macaroni and rotini. The innovation could save on shipping costs. MIT News reports. | READ MORE

Troy, OH – Commercial food equipment manufacturer Hobart has announced the winners of its recent custom-painted mixer and food processor giveaways.

Pizza chefs seem to have an endless appetite for finding ways to improve their crust. Ancient grains are getting a lot of attention in the baking world these days, and including them in your pizza crust may be one way to make your pizza rise above the crowd and appeal to customers with adventurous palates and a keen interest in nutrition.

Food smoking is an artful way to add flavour and it’s not just for protein anymore. Learn how your pizzeria can tap into this hot trend.

Portland, OR – Inspired by the 2014 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which features a 99-cheese pizza called the “Novantanove Formaggio," Scottie's Pizza Parlour in Portland, Ore., has created a pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. The Independent reports. | READ MORE

Canada – Red Sun Farms of Dublin, Va., has an exclusive license on an organic grape tomato called Terneto in Canada. HortiDaily reports. | READ MORE

Canada – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's recall of Robin Hood brand flour linked to an E. coli outbreak has been expanded to the entire country. CBC News reports. | READ MORE

Chicago – Gen-Xers can now take centre stage as an important customer base for restaurants, according to a study by international information company the NPD Group.

Kingston, Ont. – A group made up of the personal chefs to world leaders and royalty is touring Canada to meet socially, discover trends, discuss food-related issues and promote healthy eating. The Kingston Whig-Standard reports. | READ MORE

Multan, Pakistan – Pakistan's first robot waitresses are serving up smiles for customers at a pizzeria in the ancient city of Multan. The restaurant's owner built the prototypes himself. Phys.org reports. | READ MORE

Kansas City, MI – As the organic, gluten-free, non-GMO and better-for-you trends influence the U.S. pizza market, frozen pizza companies are looking for ways to compete with quick-service, fast-casual and full-service pizza chains and independent pizzerias offering high-quality ingredients and innovative pizza. Baking Business reports. |

Toronto – A study of Canadian online shopping patterns by measurement and analytics company Comscore has found Canadians like to order their pizzas with their phones. The top three delivery sites – Dominos, Pizza Pizza and Pizza Hut – all showed year-on-year growth of at least 25 per cent. Mobilesyrup reports. | READ MORE

Orlando, FL – Restaurants and grocery stores will continue to steal ideas from one another, with grocery stores adding more prepared foods and cafés and restaurants adding more retail items both in their own restaurants and on grocery store shelves. This is one of 10 trends explored by Aaron Allen and Associates. | READ MORE

If you’re looking to gain an edge for your pizzeria, an industry event like the International Pizza Expo is a great place to start.

Toronto – Cucinato online food magazine is hosting a Tuscan wine and olive oil tasting event on May 15 at the Market Kitchen, overlooking historic St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.

Chicago – Canadian retailers continue to compete with restaurants for mealtime customers. Grocery stores are improving and expanding their selection of ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat foods and beverages, and consumers are recognizing these improvements, according to a new report from Technomic.

Miami, FL – Two high school sweethearts who tied the knot in December in Miami decided to forgo the traditional wedding cake and served their guests a tiered pizza “cake” instead. The Huffington Post reports. | READ MORE

Chicago – The use of mobile apps, text messages, and the Internet to order food from a restaurant or food-service outlet grew by 18 per cent last year in the U.S. and now accounts for 1.9 billion food-service visits, global information company NPD Group said in a news release.

Vancouver – Bakery, restaurant, food service and grocery chain operators will have a chance to network with suppliers at the Baking Association of Canada’s Bakery Congress 2017 in Vancouver in April.