If there's anyone who can prevent a bar or restaurant from going belly up, it's Jon Taffer. Widely considered the greatest authority in the food and beverage, hotel, and hospitality industries, he has turned around countless bars and restaurants. Raise the Bar distills the secrets to running a successful enterprise with Reaction Management, a strategy and philosophy Taffer developed and uses in his business. It works whether you're running a storefront operation or a web-based company, whether you're manufacturing widgets or providing a service. Raise the Bar is the definitive manual on transforming a bar or restaurant with actionable, proven strategies for immediate impact.

Food trucks are hitting the streets from Miami to Maui but greasy reheated tacos and soggy burgers are a thing of the past. Today's mobile eateries have foodies flocking for gourmet bacon jam burgers, delicious Parisian-style crepes, and decadent handcrafted organic ice cream cones just to name a few. A less expensive alternative to opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, food trucks, food trailers, food carts, and even food bicycles can be started by anyone whether you're a trained chef or an amateur baker. If you've ever dreamed of jumping on the food truck bandwagon this book will provide you with all the information necessary to get you on the road. Highlights include: * Understanding all the startup costs and sources for purchasing or leasing your kitchen on wheels; * Building a business plan that will guide decision making and set you up for success; * Scouting locations for optimal visability and sales; * Calculating your true product costs and how to price your menu in a way that will be profitable; * Connecting with customers inexpensively by using traditional marketing tools and social media to keep them coming back for more; and * Appendices containing detailed worksheets that clearly walk you through the financial side of the business and comprehensive lists of resources and business licensing offices broken down by state and territory.

The flourishing fast food industry represents one particular blueprint of how to live. Reiter analyses the profound consequences of this blueprint for many spheres of life: women's work, youth employment, the labour movement, the family, and the community. Since the 1970s young people and women have increasingly entered the job market in low waged, service-sector jobs. Family life, she explains, has changed dramatically in the last forty years as many activities that were traditionally part of the home have been replaced by services available in the marketplace. The production of meals and those who produce them have moved from the family kitchen to the highly regulated corporate workplace where workers are like the interchangeable parts of a machine.

A highly decorated Israeli military officer, leader, and former director of the internal security service, Shin Bet, sees the light on what his country must do to achieve a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In this deeply personal journey of discovery, Ami Ayalon seeks input and perspective from Palestinians and Israelis whose experiences differ from his own. As head of the Shin Bet security agency, he gained empathy for 'the enemy' and learned that when Israel carries out anti-terrorist operations in a political context of hopelessness, the Palestinian public will support violence, because they have nothing to lose. Researching and writing Friendly Fire , he came to understand that his patriotic life had blinded him to the self-defeating nature of policies that have undermined Israel's civil society while heaping humiliation upon its Palestinian neighbours. 'If Israel becomes an Orwellian dystopia,' Ayalon writes, 'it won't be thanks to a handful of theologians dragging us into the dark past. The secular majority will lead us there motivated by fear and propelled by silence.' Ayalon is a realist, not an idealist, and many who consider themselves Zionists will regard as radical his conclusions about what Israel must do to achieve relative peace and security and to sustain itself as a Jewish homeland and a liberal democracy. 'How can a staunch Zionist who was raised on one of Israel's earliest settlements and trained as a kill-or-be-killed elite commando spearhead a campaign for peace with his enemies? The answer, in Ami Ayalon's captivating narrative, is an eye-opener for Palestinians and Israelis alike.' -Sari Nusseibeh, author of Once Upon a Country- a Palestinian life , former president of the Al-Quds University, and former Palestinian National Authority representative in Jerusalem ' Ayalon's aims and accomplishments are ... undeniably impressive ... Hope finds a prominent presence in what so many think is a hopeless, endless conflict.' - Kirkus Reviews 'Ami Ayalon discusses how he came to see a two-state solution with the Palestinians as the best way to ensure Israel's security, not just through analysing numbers and statistics, but through a humanistic approach. He discusses ... how his humanist paradigm not only allowed him to see how the Palestinians' grievances and aspirations are intertwined with Israel's security, but also how he still acknowledges and sympathises with the narratives of those in Israel whom he may disagree with.' -Jonah Naghi, The Times of Israel