Meanwhile, Compass Group subsidiary Morrison Healthcare, which provides the foodservice for more than 650 hospitals and healthcare systems, has marked African food as one of three cuisines — along with Chinese and Thai — for culinary exploration in 2019.

On top of that, Southern chefs have been exploring the heritage of their cuisine, mindful to be more inclusive of the non-white people who contributed to it, and that will lead them straight to West Africa.

— Bret Thorn, senior food and beverage editor

This one’s a bit of a longshot, but it’s on the 2019 trend lists of two veteran predictors — Baum + Whiteman in New York City and AF&Co. in San Francisco — so people will at least be talking about khachapuri. Besides, it’s a slightly exotic cheesy bread. What’s not to like?

This national dish of the Republic of Georgia is often topped with a runny egg, making it Instagram gold, and it’s starting to appear on menus at non-Georgian restaurants, such as Narcbar in New York City, which introduced it in 2017, and Barbounia, a Mediterranean restaurant also in New York.

Eater.com featured khachapuri in New York earlier this year, but despite the buzz, and the two exceptions mentioned above, this dish remains mostly at Georgian restaurants such as Supra in Washington, D.C., and Bevri in Palo Alto, Calif.

Still, 2019 could be the year that it bursts onto the mainstream.

— Bret Thorn, senior food and beverage editor

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, in its annual survey of its staff, found that 80 percent of the company’s bartenders were planning to add more non-alcoholic cocktails to their menus next year.

That’s not surprising. There’s no reason for someone who doesn’t drink alcohol to be denied a complex beverage, nor for a restaurant not to be able to charge them for one. With all those fresh juices and house-made shrubs and other bar mixes that bartenders have been working on in recent years — and better sodas and mixers that manufacturers are rolling into the marketplace — they have the tools to make truly great drinks that leave their customers high on life, and maybe sugar, but otherwise sober.

On top of that, a growing number of restaurant workers are out and vocal about their alcoholism. That doesn’t keep them from loving a good drink, though. It just might be a drinking vinegar, or something like Gordon’s Chip, made with juiced pineapple, cucumber, hot sauce, lime and pepper, sold at Crawford and Son in Raleigh, N.C., for $6, or that restaurant’s $7 Capital Bounce, made with cherry, hibiscus, cinnamon and soda.

— Bret Thorn, senior food and beverage editor

The viral food craze may have ushered in an era of overly indulgent, Instagram-friendly desserts, but rainbow unicorn milkshakes aren’t the only scroll-stopping foods. Next year will bring a new trend of social media-worthy health-focused restaurants.

Until now, the social media health food space has been taken up predominantly by lifestyle influencers. But with the opening of lunch spots like the Village Den — once a New York City West Village staple revamped in October by nutrition-conscious chef and Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski — restaurateurs are proving that healthful, calorie-conscious food can also be a social-media magnet.

We predict that the healthy fast-casual market will become the new test kitchen for businesses created with social media posts in mind. At the Village Den, for example, natural lighting and twee wall décor provide a photo-friendly backdrop to colorful, vegetable-forward bowls. Instead of using teetering ice cream towers or oozing cheeseburgers to catch eyes on newsfeeds, customers can munch on and post pictures of aesthetically pleasing lunch bowls topped with bright red beets and vinegar drizzle.

— Joanna Fantozzi, assistant editor

Traditional charitable giving has always been a major part of restaurant operations. But the fractured political climate has given rise to restaurants that place their causes front and center to spread awareness of issues, not just raise money for charity.

For example, this fall a Kickstarter-backed gourmet grilled-cheese shop called All Square opened in Minneapolis that is entirely staffed by formerly incarcerated individuals and helps raise awareness of rehabilitation and career training for ex-felons.

Starbucks opened its first unit staffed by deaf and hard-of-hearing workers in Washington, D.C., this year. In Denver, Brewability Lab is expanding as a concept that employs adults with disabilities.

— Joanna Fantozzi, assistant editor

The coming year will see more designers cleverly and seamlessly drawing well-thought-out areas into restaurants to provide for to-go and delivery orders.

Some forward-thinking operators are already designing those areas into their units. San Diego-based Luna Grill Restaurants LLC, which has 48 fast-casual units in California and Texas, offers attractive wall shelving near the counter and the kitchen to accommodate dozens of orders for pick-up or delivery couriers.

Nicole Bushnell, Luna Grill’s vice president of marketing, said, “Online ordering and third-party delivery services have become an important part of the industry.

“We want each guest, whether just picking up, ordering to-go at the counter or dining in our restaurant, to have a smooth and welcoming experience.” 

Bushnell said the process of incorporating the to-go holding areas began early, yielding an area that doesn’t look added on.

“We started by looking at how all of these services were changing the traffic flow in our restaurants during peak hours,” Bushnell said. “The shelving for pick-up matches our overall design aesthetic and organizes orders more efficiently. Online and third-party delivery pick-ups can get in and out quickly without impacting other guest touch points.”

— Ron Ruggless, senior editor

Asian and European diners have grown accustomed to seeing seaweed — or sea vegetables, as they are also known — on their finer dining menus, and U.S. customers are starting to ride the wave of popularity.

Seaweed consumption is growing 7 percent annually in the United States, according to James Griffin, an associate professor at Johnson & Wales University.

“Sea vegetables in the higher level of dining have been growing rapidly over the past 10 years — and over the past three incredibly fast,” the educator at the Providence, R.I.-based university told an NRA Show audience in May.

“It’s an umami bomb,” Griffin said. “The secret behind all that is that it has a high level of glutamic acid, which is in the flavor enhancer MSG [monosodium glutamate], and it’s found in a natural form in almost all sea vegetables.” Seaweed also includes naturally occurring sea salt, he said, as well as other minerals.

Griffin said chef Rene Redzepi at Noma in Copenhagen is using seaweed in a variety of ways. At Smyth in Chicago, chefs John Shields and Karen Urie Shields have earned two Michelin stars with such sea vegetable creations as a Sea Lettuce Cookie amuse bouche.

“For chefs,” Griffin said, “this is something sexy. It’s something exciting, and something we don’t work with all that often.”

It can be purchased fresh or dried, with the dry version being the most common. About 90 percent of the seaweed consumed in the United States is imported from Asia.

Sea vegetables are highly sustainable, with the typical six- to eight-month farming span done without fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides or feed.

— Ron Ruggless, senior editor

The number of communal tables that seat eight or more customers have been growing in casual-dining concepts, but they pose something of a challenge for seating management at these restaurants.

Chicago’s Beatrix, a five-year-old concept from Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, like a smattering of other operators has found a great solution: Table Walls.

“The popularity of communal tables has a lot to do with the fact that guests, and Millennials in particular, love to eat together and enjoy experiences as a big group,” said Marc Jacobs, Beatrix’s divisional president and executive partner.

“A larger table and guest count allows them to try even more food, cocktails and order more plates to share,” Jacobs said. “On the restaurant side, it provides us more options to create beautiful and elaborate buffet styles for catered events, as well as the ability to accommodate larger groups.”

But when large groups aren’t on the wait list, the dividers, which span the width of the communal table and stand about six inches high, help split the table into smaller parties.

“We started using them when we opened Beatrix River North more than five years ago,” Jacobs said, adding that the idea was a team decision. “It provides flexibility to take on more reservations and split tables up into separate parties as needed, without needing to move tables and disrupt service.”

— Ron Ruggless, senior editor

Superfoods were just the beginning. Now, more consumers — not just athletes and hippies — want to know exactly what their food can do for them. Whether that’s plumping up cells to fight Mother Nature’s march across our faces or giving us the vital energy needed to make it through the day, people are looking to food for not just medicine, but for solutions.

In New York City, a fresh nut-milk bar and café, Tulo House, is set to open in January 2019 with fresh, organic nut and oat milks “custom-zhushed” with collagen, CBD, adaptogenic mushrooms and more. Christie Lombardo, founder of Freshyfare, has created collagen kisses, chocolate in the shape of plump lips on a stick. Chicago-based Hellowater includes flavored waters (without artificial colors or sugar) infused with fiber.

— Tara Fitzpatrick, senior editor

Millennials are having children. And they’re expecting restaurants to be welcoming to their offspring and their parenting style. Furthermore, they’re not afraid to take to social media to demand the changes they want to see in restaurants, either.

High chairs must be at the ready. Kids’ menus should go beyond chicken fingers. And access to changing tables for all patrons will soon be standard.

In August, a Canadian dad expressed outrage on Twitter when he found his local Tim Hortons didn’t have a changing station in the men’s room. The next month, a photo of a dad awkwardly changing his child’s diaper while squatting in a restroom went viral with the hashtag #squatforchange.

— Gloria Dawson, senior editor