ABOUT US

Everything we do challenges the status quo of the restaurant industry. We get individual restaurants and large international chains, from start ups to emerging growth brands to think differently about how to better engage their staff and guests, grow their business, and adapt to evolving environments.

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MEET ROGER

Roger Kaplan has over 39 years experience in the hospitality industry as a nationally acclaimed chef, owner, operator, entrepreneur, concept developer, manufacturing liaison and consultant. Roger’s background in both operations, culinary and manufacturing affords him a global perspective that encapsulates the total restaurant dining experience and its many facets.

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Brand Concept & Creation

We take your idea, vision or concept and turn it into a reality. We work with you from ideation to completion to build or evolve your concept. Our team specializes in leadership, operational excellence and creating sustainable, simple and craveable restaurant concepts and systems that are profitable, executable and on trend.

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Research & Development

Take your menu to the next level. We offer menu review and insights, menu development, and suggest product offerings that will increase trial with highly craveable menu items that are on point, on trend, and in demand. From bench top to implementation or from scratch to manufactured, we are your resource to customize any menu that can be simply executed by your team.

Manufacturing

From start to finish, we coordinate with your manufacturing partners to ensure your products reflect your brand identity and more importantly meet your timeline requirements. RK Innovation can supplement your team, serve as a resource to your clients and provide Blue Sky work (behind the scenes). We create customized, brand-specific prototypes while collaborating with your clients to achieve their goals.

Licensing & Co-Branding

Our team guides the recipe formulation for restaurants and food companies looking to expand into grocery store retail. We act as a liaison between you and your manufacturer to produce signature-labeled products and speed up the process so your prototypes meet major retail buyers’ slotting and acquisition timelines.

Operational Improv.

RK innovation helps elevate the core competencies of your team to build on and engage in practical execution to increase guest counts and profitability while elevating the company’s brand and prominence.

FEATURED CLIENTS

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We at East Hampton love working with Roger Kaplan and Restaurant Innovations. Roger played a key part during the conceptualization phase of the original East Hampton menu, helping me cultivate an efficient as well as tasteful array of menu offerings.

Roger is one of those rare chefs that develops creative, on-brand products while managing the logistics of the innovation process. He delivers items that are highly appealing to guests; that kitchens can execute efficiently and profitably. He is a seasoned and well-rounded professional, bringing insights and contacts that are valuable.

"Thank you for doing a great job for us! Your top to bottom review of our concept led to better systems and controls. Best of all, your out of the box thinking helped us to revise our menu to allow for better customer value and insanely craveable flavors. We look forward to a long-term partnership with you and Restaurant Innovations! Thank you so much!"

"Restaurant Innovations was instrumental in developing our core menu identity and conceptualization as well as leading our kitchen design prototype. Both helped deliver significant improvements in our overall margins and profitability. Roger Kaplan provided excellent hands-on oversight of the project from pre-planning through result analysis. I highly recommend Restaurant Innovations. They were a very valuable resource to our concepts development."

"Roger Kaplan was instrumental in the opening and operational development of our Rusty Taco concept store and no doubt that his efforts helped us to succeed well beyond our hopes and pro forma. Roger currently is sharpening our operations and improving our recipes as we prepare for a three store corporate expansion and four store franchisee openings. Roger's detail orientation and years of experience have enabled us to greatly shorten our own learning curve and eliminate much of the risk usually associated with restaurant start-ups. Roger understands business and his contributions are always logical and simply executable."

"...I was impressed with Roger's ability to combine strong culinary skills with business acumen and operations know-how. The key in my mind to a successful restaurant is translating creative concepts into an operational reality, something that actually can be executed at the restaurant level. This is Roger's strength. He has a keen sense of current food trends and is a gifted chef. But most importantly he has the operational chops of figuring out what will work in your particular concept..."

"Einstein Noah Restaurant group has proudly used the services of Roger Kaplan for many projects in both R&D and operations. Roger brings a very creative perspective on menu innovation and understands how to develop products that our operators and franchises can incorporate into their stores with minimum impact to their operating systems. Having a small R&D team, it is nice to know that I have a resource in Roger that I can call on when I need professional start to finish R&D project help."

"We had the opportunity to have Roger Kaplan to assist us in recipe development and standardization in our new concept. I worked closely with Roger and can confidently recommend him to anyone in need of someone that can bring creativity and "real world" application to recipe development. Roger was passionate and totally engaged in understanding our concept and what we are trying to get accomplished. His follow up was timely and thorough."

"Your work has helped deliver a new sense of purpose and clarity on how the brand better engages with the team, and most importantly, our guests through great food. You work has been over and above expectations and has made a real difference! I look forward to the opportunity to continue the association in the future."

"Roger has done several projects for Wendy's and has done exemplary work. He has a strong culinary background, but also knows operations which is a unique skill set. He has been very valuable to us. He is dependable, honest, and extremely thorough, and I would recommend him highly."

Deep community Investment

We believe, support and invest in the advancement of the restaurant industry and culture. We believe by providing educational opportunities, we are changing the fabric of people and communities at every economic level so they can achieve the life they deserve in an industry that is a stepping stone to the American work force.

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