Ask the Editors, Restaurant Show Edition: What to Look Out for in 2024

Patricia Cobe is senior menu editor at Restaurant Business. She covers the menu beat in all segments of the industry, from quick-service to fine dining. Pat writes newsy stories and in-depth articles about food, beverage and restaurant trends, the research and development behind menus, and profiles of chefs and restaurateurs. She also hosts Menu Feed, a biweekly podcast that covers a wide range of menu topics through interviews with chefs and operators.

Lisa Jennings, executive editor of Restaurant Business, is a veteran restaurant industry reporter and editor who covers the fast-casual sector, independent restaurants and emerging chain concepts. Before joining the Restaurant Business team, she was an editor at Nation’s Restaurant News for 18 years. She was also a reporter and editor at the daily newspaper The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., where she was Food Editor. Her work has been cited in the Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, FoodBeast, The Huffington Post, Time.com and more.

Restaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze is a longtime industry journalist who writes about restaurant finance, mergers and acquisitions and the economy, with a particular focus on quick-service restaurants. He writes daily about the factors influencing the operating environment, including labor and food costs and various industry trends such as technology and delivery.
Jonathan has been widely quoted in media publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and has appeared on CNBC, Yahoo Finance and NPR. He writes a weekly finance-focused newsletter for Restaurant Business, The Bottom Line, and is the host of the weekly podcast “A Deeper Dive.”

Peter Romeo is Editor At Large and Vice President of Content Innovation for the foodservice group of Winsight Media, which includes RestaurantBusinessOnline.com and FoodServiceDirector.com.

He also helps to plan content for Winsight’s foodservice-related conferences and expositions, including the National Restaurant Association’s annual convention, the Restaurant Leadership Conference, MenuDirections and FSTEC.

As VP of content innovation, Romeo is also involved in brainstorming new ways of delivering content and generating revenue for the foodservice group.

The multi-media positions cap a 44-year career as a business journalist, including 30 years as a chain-restaurant specialist for such information channels as Nation’s Restaurant News, QSR magazine, and the website of the National Restaurant Association. Romeo’s columns for Restaurant Business earned him two Jesse H. Neal Awards, business publishing’s equivalent of the Pulitzers.

He has been a frequent speaker at industry events and delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, in 2007.

Romeo graduated from New York University in 1979 with honors in history and journalism and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He resides in the New York town of Port Washington with his wife and former retail editor Holly Klokis; three rescued greyhounds; four slightly nervous cats; and six chickens.

Leigh Anne Zinsmeister is the managing editor for Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Hospitality, Food Management, and Supermarket News. She also manages the group’s digital engagement team.

Leigh Anne lives in New York City, but also claims Phoenix, Dallas, and Cleveland as hometowns. She holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where she also studied European history.