Happy Trends Tuesday!

The winter restaurant week just concluded in NYC and Philly, and I’m feeling major FOMO for missing both. 🥲 

As diners, we celebrate chefs who serve up new concepts and flavors, but it’s easy to forget all the other restaurant workers (from kitchen staff to servers) who are vital to these businesses – but don’t always have the best experience on the job.

The good news: Restaurants are starting to prioritize employee well-being. Today we'll explore how entrepreneurs can seize opportunities arising from this positive shift.

In today's email…

• Sizzling perks: The rise of better restaurant employee benefits 
• A spellbinding genre of books are selling wicked fast
• What we’re surfin’, from AI in the circular economy to the paradox of time

Dig in!

🕵️‍♀️ FIND FIRST-CLASS FREELANCERS

The perfect freelancer is out there – you just have to meet them halfway. Read our free guide to finding, hiring, and managing freelancers that helps you scale up your business.

🚀 WHERE TO BUILD NEXT

Restaurants are spicing up employee benefits

Source: Bentobox

Benefits like PTO and health care, which we take for granted in the tech world, are being touted as restaurants evolve into better workplaces. 

Quick-service chains are also the quickest to adapt: 

• Chipotle recently added 401(k) matching for Gen Z workers who make their student loan payments. Many other chains also have retirement benefits.  
  
  
• Noodles & Company offers immigration reimbursement, which covers USCIS-related fees, like renewing a visa or applying for work authorization.
  
  
• DIG introduced the four-day workweek to their hourly staff, and while the daily hours are longer, 87% report they’re happier with the new schedule. 

Mental health benefits are on the rise, too, as restaurants wake up to worker burnout in an industry that doesn’t have the healthiest work culture.

Source: Giphy

You don’t need to be in the food service business to take a piece of this pie. Three ideas to start: 

1. Go small

Not all restaurants have the level of resources national chains do to care for their employees – small to medium sized establishments will need help catching up. 

You could become a benefits consultant and help these businesses design the best employee packages within their budget. Responsibilities include:

• Interviewing workers about their needs
• Updating employers on the latest benefits options and market trends
• Monitoring the impact of benefits on retention

Or, build a marketplace like OS Benefits, which connects hospitality businesses with a network of vendors (like Sesame, Classpass) for a $35/mo per-employee fee. The website traffic is low, signaling an opportunity to build it better. 

2. Go niche

Nearly half of restaurant and food service workers are minorities, compared to 38% in the total US labor force. The industry also employs more minority managers than any other sector in the economy.

You could develop leadership training tailored to minorities, like teaching women or immigrants how to be assertive in a commercial kitchen (traditionally dominated by white men).

Or, provide mental health counseling to niche groups, either by identity (first-time managers, LGBTQ+ staff, single moms) or by position (sous chefs, line cooks, waiters), and help them address unique challenges at work. 

3. Go to online communities 

One r/KitchenConfidential post inspired a Redditor to create this Glassdoor-style review site for hospitality jobs. It’s not great – you could definitely build it better. 

For $65k/hr, I might be ok with some toxicity… Source: Kitchen Confidentials

But it’s a good way to brainstorm (Sam would agree) – comb through subreddit posts for common pain points, and you might stumble upon a great business idea. Other subreddits like r/Waiters and r/Serverlife might also offer some inspiration. 

🔎 OUR LATEST OBSESSION

“Romantasy” novels cast a love spell on readers worldwide

Source: Google Trends. Six months rolling average. 

Romance is already the highest earning genre of fiction – with 1.4B+ in yearly revenue – and sales grew even stronger when it’s spiced up with dragons and castles.  

• #Romantasy gets 187.5k+ views on TikTok

• Sarah J Mass, a leader in this genre, has sold 38m+ copies of all her series combined. Videos about her books rack up 14B+ views on the ‘Tok

• Rebecca Yarros, another romantasy chart-topper, sold 1.2m copies of her book Fourth Wing in 2023.

The genre’s breakout success is largely attributable to #BookTok, where readers share their recommendations, predictions and thoughts. 

🌈 A sub-trend we’re excited about: Romance novels are becoming more diverse, featuring protagonists with different races, ethnicities and identities.

Stories are not just about white dukes and princesses anymore – traditionally marginalized groups now have more powerful, barrier-breaking storylines in a fantasy backdrop. 

This coincides with the rising popularity of LGBTQ+ fiction, whose sales are growing faster than general romance, despite being a tiny slice of the market. 

👉 The opportunity: Go the ecommerce route and sell merch for popular romantasy books on Etsy, or curate a book subscription box for readers new to the genre. You can also build online courses and bootcamps for aspirational romantasy writers, and help them map out their careers. 

🗂️ OPEN TABS

👔 Future of work: Whose jobs are actually being disrupted by AI? 

📈 From X: Early blog posts that gained The Hustle its first 100k users

♻️ Green: Two AI startups helping accelerate the circular economy 

⏳ Brain tease: Watch this mesmerizing explainer on the paradox of time