This article was originally written for and published by Foodservice Consultant, FCSI’s (Foodservice Consultants Society International) trade magazine, for which Marius writes a monthly column.
Hey Young World,
The start of a new year invites big promises. In hospitality, we tend to frame those promises in numbers: more covers, higher spend, better margins. However, the resolutions that actually move the industry forward are rarely the loudest ones. They’re quieter, harder, and far more structural. If we were to make just three this year, these would be mine.
Choose authenticity over imitation (and Instagrammability)
The industry has never had easier access to inspiration – or more pressure to look good on a screen. Restaurants are designed to photograph well before they are designed to function. Menus are built around visual impact rather than coherence. But a place that exists mainly for Instagram rarely holds up in real life.
Authenticity isn’t about rejecting trends outright, but rather about about alignment. The strongest restaurants are the ones where menu, room, and service clearly belong together. ‘Instagrammability’ might fill seats once, but it doesn’t build loyalty. Guests don’t return for backdrops, they return for places that feel real, lived-in, and honest. In the long run, chasing likes is a poor substitute for earning trust.
Treat staff like the experience
Hospitality still tends to talk about people mainly when there’s a shortage. Staffing is framed as a problem to be solved, not as the core of the product. But guests don’t experience concepts or spreadsheets, they experience people. A meaningful resolution would be to design operations around human energy. Realistic menus, clearer schedules, better preparation, fewer last-minute compromises. Not because it’s soft or idealistic (though the industry could also use a little more of both), but because burnt-out teams cannot deliver warmth. Hospitality only works when the people providing it still have something left to give.
Make sustainability normal, and affordable.
Sustainability has too often been positioned as a luxury add-on: noble, expensive, and slightly out of reach. That’s not a model that survives economic pressure. The real opportunity lies in making greener choices ordinary rather than exceptional. Less meat, smarter sourcing, better portioning, less waste. Done well, sustainability isn’t more expensive, but often more efficient. And in a time when guests are watching their spending, affordability isn’t the enemy of responsibility, but part of it.
None of these resolutions are flashy. But hospitality, at its best, never really was.
One Love,
Marius | 1520