Bacall Conniff and Associates Review: A Quick History of the Restaurant Business



Have you ever wondered how restaurants started? Well, we always assumed restaurants have been there all this time without realizing that the evolution of the business brought about a revolutionary effect on the family, industrialization and the whole economic system of the world.

What really happened? Let us take a quick trip back to the past when people practically did everything at home like for example in Singapore: planted their own food, raised animals for meat and even built their own homes, especially those who started out as pioneers in the wilderness places. Fast forward to the birth of the towns and cities when people had established formal education and also learned to specialize into various skills or enterprises to earn a living, instead of the old, barter-trade system. It was inevitable for people to eventually delegate the former home-based task of cooking food to a person or an enterprise that made good money doing so.

The restaurant was born out of that need not merely to save time but also to avoid the tediousness of preparing food day-in and day-out. And one could have various choices as to the menu, instead of the usual leftovers or the staple egg-and-bacon breakfast or mashed-potato-and-steak dinner. One could now order continental food, French cuisine or shish kebab. And have it delivered home as well!

With more and more people going into the business, the food choices became even more diverse. The simple beverage, coffee, drove the proliferation of chains of restaurants, generating a multi-billion business worldwide. And before that, of course, were the hamburger and the doughnut. The restaurant did not only change the economic texture of civilization but also the lifestyles of people in general. Many people today rarely cook at home and simply “take-out” on working days. And on weekends, the family would try out the newest food trips or just go on a gustatory adventure to neighboring cities and even foreign cities.

One adverse effect of the restaurant, particularly that brought about by the fast-food shops, is the degradation of the population’s health. Whereas people used to eat “healthy”, they were now eating “junk” – food catered to them by many commercial establishments whose main goal was to make money, no matter how devoid of nutrition their food was.

But restaurants are slowly wizening. With the growing wellness and fitness industry and the move to go “organic”, more and more restaurants now cater fresh alternatives in healthy diets. It seems restaurants are here to stay and will surely provide a lasting support to the ordinary individual’s penchant for good and appetizing food any time of day.

Bacall Conniff and Associates helps the restaurant industry remain a strong force in the world economy through providing excellent accounting and financial services.