Merry Christmas Edition of MRM’s Daily Bite

120 Min Watch By MRM Staff

The #MerryChristmas edition of MRM’s Daily Bite features Waffle House, Krispy Kreme, sweetFrog, KFC and BlueCart.

Send news items to Barbara Castiglia at bcastiglia@modernrestaurantmanagement.com.

MRM Daily Bite LogoA new Christmas Classic

Did someone burn the Christmas dinner? Or maybe your travel plans didn’t go as you thought? These holiday emergencies and more are all resolved in the latest release from Waffle House.

“The Waffle House Saves Christmas” is an anthem of bad holidays turned good because of the friendly experience at Waffle House restaurants. Since opening the first restaurant in 1955, Waffle House has been open every Christmas Day.

“I love working Christmas,” says Dave Rickell, executive vice president of operations. “One of the reasons is because as a child, Waffle House saved my family’s holiday.”
 
Growing up in New York, Rickell did not know about Waffle House restaurants. One December his family was traveling and found themselves in Virginia. Hungry and tired, he and his family stopped in a Waffle House for Christmas Eve dinner. They liked it so much they came back the next morning as well. While it was his first time at Waffle House, it would not be his last. Little did he know that years later he would be a Waffle House executive responsible for the operation of 680 restaurants.
 
“It’s because of that experience that I love working Christmas day” added Rickell. “Many come to Waffle House because it’s their family tradition; however, for some we are a beacon of light during what can be a stressful time.” And like all Waffle House restaurant management, he will be behind the counter working this Christmas and New Year’s.
 
The 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year restaurant welcomes everyone for the holidays, even those who burned their dinner or missed their flight or find themselves alone away from home. “The Waffle House Saves Christmas,” penned and performed by Atlanta artist Jason Phelps is now available on Waffle House TouchTunes jukeboxes in all 1,850 restaurants. 
The Happy Holiglazer

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is putting a unique spin on a popular holiday tradition, the Yule Log. Krispy Kreme is switching out the traditional Yule Log for Doughnuts – Yes! A Yule Log of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a fire of glaze available on all digital platforms, top.

Feeling the stress of the holiday season? Fill your home or office with the warmth of the Happy Holiglazer, a yule log made of real Krispy Kreme doughnuts being covered in glaze accompanied with classic holiday harmonies. 

sweetFrog Decks the Halls

sweetFrog Frozen Yogurt put on a real Christmas spectacle throughout the holiday season with “Deck the Halls” benefit nights hosted by participating locations from coast to coast.

Church and school choirs throughout the country have partnered with local sweetFrog shops to host benefit night fundraisers.   These choirs performed holiday favorites as part of “Deck the Halls” events built to help them raise much-needed funds for local initiatives.  To make these events even more special, sweetFrog will produce a video Christmas Card, using a montage of local choirs performing all over the country. The video Christmas Card will then be posted on all sweetFrog social media outlets.

As part of the “Deck the Halls” event, each participating sweetFrog shop helped the choir raise funds while providing each member with a free frozen yogurt. And for parents, grandparents, neighbors, friends, and other choir supporters who come to enjoy the music, sweetFrog will donate a portion (25 percent recommended) of the sales from all items purchased by those guests while the choir is performing.

“All of us at sweetFrog love this annual event that gets us in the Christmas spirit,” said sweetFrog’s CEO, Patrick Galleher.  “It’s a wonderful time of community fellowship as people come together to celebrate Christmas. What better way to do that than enjoying the sounds of the season sung by local choirs?  We are proud to showcase great local talent and support local churches and schools, while helping our sweetFrog owners generate some serious winter foot traffic!”

Two sweetFrog owners, in particular – Holly Silveous of Charles Town, WV and Angela Houle of Biddeford, ME – are all-in on Deck the Halls this year and are thrilled to give back to their community.   Silveous, who also works as a teacher in her small town, hosted the first “Deck the Halls” event in her store on Wednesday, Dec. 13.

“We invited a local school choir of fourth and fifth graders to perform,” according to Silveous. “Because its kids, I’m anticipating a huge crowd, which is great. Children really shine when they have a chance to perform in front of an audience, so I want to pack the place out.  We’ll move tables out of the way to make more room, if needed!  Also – my manager will be taping their performance because I want to make sure they’re included in sweetFrog’s video Christmas Card. How cool will that be for them to be a part of something this big?”

Similarly, Houle had events with a girl scout troop on Thursday, Dec. 14 and a local high school choir on Friday, Dec. 15.

“We’ve been looking forward to ‘Deck the Halls’ since we launched our sweetFrog store earlier this year,” said Houle.   “We’re very close with local high schools and girl scout troops, so it was easy for us to coordinate these benefit nights.  As the mother of a chronically ill child, it’s very important for me to give back to local organizations because I am acutely aware of their importance.   The holidays are our happy place as a family, so hosting ‘Deck the Halls’ nights will be a staple of us.   We can’t wait!”

KFC Escape Pod

For those who wanted to escape the commotion that comes along with the holidays there is KFC’s Internet Escape Pod.

A true respite, sit in the Internet Escape Pod with your friends or family while going tech-free (it comfortably fits four adults and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken) and find yourself comforted by the Colonel’s reassuring embrace.

“We’ve come up with several technologically advanced, creative experiences for our customers and fans this year. But even we feel the burden of technology during the holiday season. So we decided to go in the opposite direction and create an anti-technology product, using technology, to help one lucky buyer literally escape the holiday chaos,” said George Felix, director of advertising, KFC U.S.

A true respite, sit in the Internet Escape Pod with your friends or family while going tech-free (it comfortably fits four adults and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken) and find yourself comforted by the Colonel’s reassuring embrace. Made in the USA out of steel, adorned with enamel paint and eight-pound high-density architectural foam, it is designed to be a safe space from the internet coming to and from your devices.

The KFC Internet Escape Pod is available for $10,000 on KFC Ltd., the brand’s e-commerce store full of quality fried chicken apparel and merchandise for their finger lickin’ faithful.

“We were going to sell this for the ridiculously high price of $96,485.34, but in the spirit of the season, I said, ‘nah, let’s make it a deal,'” said Felix.

The Spirit of Christmas

BlueCart, a B2B software company, supports the national non-profit organization Feed the Children to provide food for those children in need during this holiday season. Feed the Children’s mission is to prevent any child from going to bed hungry. Poverty is the number one reason kids go to sleep hungry every night. During this holiday season BlueCart will be donating $7.00 to Feed the Children with each new BlueCart customer sign up.

“We wanted to give back this season and take part in not only volunteering our staff time at food banks across the country, but to also directly contribute financially to an organization that is tailored to ensuring every child gets fed,” said Konstantin Zvereff, CEO of BlueCart.

Every $1 donated to Feed the Children equates to $7 in essentials and food. According to the USDA, a family earning less than $61,530 per year can expect to spend a total of $176,550 on a child from birth up to age 18. With an awareness of this single income bracket we gain perspective of how important children are in this world.

BlueCart runs their “Help Us Help Them” campaign through the month of December. To support their cause, simply sign up for an account at http://www.bluecart.com and BlueCart will happily donate on your behalf.