When Soul Daddy, the winning concept on NBC’s America’s Next Great Restaurant, closes two of its three locations after just six weeks of operation, is it a sign that the fast casual segment is slowing down? No one thinks so at 300-store Pizza Inn, which opened its first fast casual spinoff, Pie Five Pizza Co., earlier this month. The company expects to franchise this new brand at a 100-unit-per-year clip.

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Wall Street analysts poring over deal giant Groupon’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) documents express worry about merchant and customer fatigue. Wait until they see a new survey showing that only 43 percent of restaurants make a profit on their daily deal promotions, and only 36 percent of restaurants plan on offering more deals.

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Full-service operators, beware: The quick-service competition is nipping at your heels on the customer satisfaction front. According to just-released annual scores from the American Custom Satisfaction Index, fast food operators are improving at a quicker pace than their table-service counterparts

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