Leadership Reports Letters from CEO, Board Chair

Message from Carol Dover

As we start a new year hopeful and driven to continue on the recovery success of Florida’s hospitality industry, I’m thrilled to introduce the winter issue of Florida Restaurant & Lodging which brings you the latest in technology news, workforce updates and our government relations effort, including priorities for the next legislative session.

An exciting tech update from FRLA is the upcoming release of the FRLA Mobile App. We recently launched the app to our board and will soon be sharing it with all members, so you can stay engaged and informed on all of the issues affecting your business and your teams. Download the FRLA Mobile App today in the Apple Store or Google Play Store.

With the 2022 legislative session underway, we will continue to advocate for business and employee-friendly policies and the priorities that will help our industry continue its recovery and rebuild to be an even stronger one. Some of the issues we are working on this year include vacation rental regulations, special restaurant and hotel liquor licenses, protecting tourist development tax revenues, ensuring that regulations are reasonable and compliance attainable for businesses when it comes to data privacy legislation, corporate income tax/ qualified improvement property, and the revision of existing Florida Statutes to clarify the distinction between guest and tenant under the law.

I also want to wish my good friend, Richard Turner, a very happy retirement. We will miss him both on a professional and personal level. With more than 20 years on FRLA’s Governmental Relations team, we wish him well.

Carol B. Dover

Carol B. Dover FRLA President & CEO

Message from the Chairman

What a wild ride! Missing employees, skyrocketing food and labor costs, massive insurance increases and supply train nightmares — 2021 could have been grim. It was the year the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association really showed its mettle — its members and staff rallying to help us navigate our way to host a great resurgence in tourism; staff created a new statewide hiring platform from scratch; and they helped make alcohol-to-go permanent!

Most of us are still short staffed, so we’ve all looked to technology to help us do more with less. At the Marketing and Operations summit in August, there were great solutions to inventories, food and beverage costing, guest and server paging, robots that bring food from the kitchen and vacuum your floors (some executive committee members have been singing the praises of theirs), scheduling and tableside payments, and the top priority: to-go ordering!

Look to FRLA’s magazine and webinars to keep you up to date on what’s in the pipeline.

The metaverse will be our next advertising frontier, and cryptocurrency could be the next step in payment evolution.

I’m signing off as Chairman now — it’s been a honor to serve our incredible industry!

Yours in Grits,

Jim Shirley

Jim Shirley 2021-22 Chairman of the Board