The restaurant industry is facing dramatic changes in the coming years. The business is saturated in the U.S., with no room to generate additional sales without taking them from existing locations. It faces new competitors in ghost kitchens that promise new economic models that could undercut existing players. And it faces a dramatically changing consumer that has more choices and more information than ever. All of this is putting operators on their heels and changing the very nature of what it means to be a restaurant.

Jonathan Maze, the executive editor of Restaurant Business Magazine, is the author of The Bottom Line blog and its companion newsletter and is the host of the weekly restaurant finance podcast A Deeper Dive. He gives his overview on the future of the restaurant industry, and how operators can combat these changes.