Recruiting and retaining employees is biggest challenge quick service operators expected to face in 2002, with roughly one-third of survey respondents rating it their top challenge.

Spending on food, both at home and away from home, accounted for 13.6 percent of total average annual household expenditures in 1999, or $5,031 per household.

August is most popular month to eat out, and Saturday is most popular day of week for dining out.

At such a school, you can quickly master culinary techniques that took chefs of centuries past lifetimes to create and perfect. As at other schools, you can make good friends while studying in a culinary program, but you can also learn deeper trust and skilled interpersonal organization it takes to function as part of a team in a restaurant or hotel. If you're so inclined, you can learn how to manage such a team. You might even learn how to make dozens of new dishes well enough to dazzle your family and friends, and not just your customers.