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Biography

Nancy Kruse

Nancy Kruse is a menu maven and president of The Kruse Company. She is a well known and highly regarded expert on menu trends. Her monthly State of the Plate column provides insight into the trends influencing menu innovation.

Articles by
Nancy Kruse

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Food

Beef is still what's for dinner

Nancy Kruse: RB's menu trends columnist writes about the continued popularity of beef, and how restaurant brands have been expanding and upgrading their beef offerings.

Food

Introducing the Summer of Soft Serve

State of the Plate: Menu trends columnist Nancy Kruse finds plenty of delicious examples that soft-serve ice cream's reach is expanding far beyond fast food.

Food

Picking the food stars among miles of booths at the National Restaurant Show

From schnitzel to soft serve, Nancy Kruse and Lisa Jennings put in the mileage and tasted it all at the biggest restaurant event of the year.

Operations

Playing the reservation game

Nancy Kruse and Lisa Jennings discuss restaurant reservation scalpers, cancellation fees and what to do when you can't get into the hottest concept in town.

Food

Pizza serves as a blank canvas for culinary innovation—in the U.S. at least

State of the Plate: Italians are strict about their pies, but American pizza chefs have an array of seemingly endless riffs on the popular dish, menu trends columnist Nancy Kruse writes.

Beverage

Will consumers stay thirsty amid this tsunami of beverages?

Nancy Kruse and Lisa Jennings swim with the gummy sharks to understand the rising tide of drinks, from dirty sodas to turmeric lattes.

Food

All hail the Caesar salad

State of the Plate: The iconic dish, which turns 100 this year, continues to be a platform for creative culinary reinvention on restaurant menus, RB menu trends columnist Nancy Kruse writes.

Food

Bread is rising again on menus and in emerging concepts

State of the Plate: Once shunned by carb-cutters, bread baskets, baguettes, rolls and other yeast-raised items —especially higher-quality baked goods —are proving to be a hit with customers.

Operations

Food halls: A fad still figuring it out

Nancy and Lisa debate the up and downsides of these multi-concept outlets that are a leading cause of Choice Paralysis.

Operations

The restaurant brands we just can't let go

We loved them once. Will we love them again? Nancy Kruse and Lisa Jennings talk about the wave of restaurant brand revivals attempting to make what's old new again.

Food

Inside the tasty evolution of Mexican food in the U.S.

State of the Plate: RB menu trends columnist Nancy Kruse explains how Glen Bell’s “tay-kohs” walked so birria and other authentic dishes and flavors could become runaway hits with American diners.

Food

On restaurant menus, texture matters more than you think

State of the Plate: RB menu trends columnist Nancy Kruse dishes on texture on restaurant menus. But while Americans are culinary adventurers, they remain pickier when it comes to how a food item feels.

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