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Five Green(ish) Mocktails That Will Make St. Patrick’s Day At Your FEC a Blast!

Iced Basil Lemonade: 

 

     Combining the unique flavors of Basil, Lemon, and seltzer water, this mocktail packs a tart punch full of flavor! This easy-to-craft mocktail is perfect for the fast-paced and low on space world of family entertainment centers and allows you to offer something unique for the parents of your most loyal customers. Make sure your freezer is stocked! This drink is best served over ice.   

 

The Faux-Jito

 

     Get ready for all the zest of a traditional Mojito, but without the alcohol! Combining lime juice, sparkling water, and fresh mint, this drink is sure to keep your guests refreshed and coming back for more! Want to up the ante? Add agave nectar or honey to your recipe to give your drink an added touch of sweetness guaranteed to satisfy even the largest sweet tooth! 

 

Frozen Coconut Limeade

 

     Let’s cool things down even more with a frozen drink! This Frozen Coconut Limeade puts a twist on a classic with the fresh tastes of coconut and lime, while adding below-zero temperatures that help keep your beverage colder longer! This recipe requires a blender, so things may get loud. Make sure you’re ready by having your blender clean and blades sharpened for a drink that’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser. 

 

Cucumber mint cooler

 

     We’re back to Cucumber! The versatile vegetable is once again the center of attention in this recipe, which combines the cool taste of mint and lemon-flavored sparkling water to make taste buds tingle! Consider serving this drink with lighter fare, like grilled chicken sandwiches, salad wraps, and paninis!  

 

Ginger Beer Concentrate

 

     A flavor familiar to many, this Ginger Beer Concentrate surprisingly comes minus the beer! Instead, we see a combination of raw ginger and soda water, for a flavor-packed beverage for those who love the taste of ginger. Add ice, shake, and serve.

     As we transition from cold temperatures to warm, these refreshing drink recipes are sure to be a hit at your family entertainment center. The best part? Most of these drinks require only a few ingredients, meaning less cost to you and faster service times! Try these recipes out this summer and watch the profits roll in!     

New Year, New Menu!

        If you’re looking for a way to spice up your FEC’s offerings in the new year, a menu revamp is a perfect place to start! Customers are used to traditional snack bar offerings like pizza, pretzels, and soda, and are tired of the same old options at every family entertainment center they visit. Set your business apart this year with a new, modern menu that uses Quik n’ Crispy’s air-frying technology to create new favorites that will keep customers coming back for more! 

        Potato Skins

        Load them up with chives, bacon, and cheese, or just enjoy plain! Potato skins can be made quickly with QNC machines and allow you to offer something most venues don’t! Potato skins are fresher than regular chips, and cooking them without fry oil helps keep the calorie count down! 

        Sweet Potato Fries

        A classic take on regular french fries, sweet potato fries have taken the world by storm recently! The quickest way to add them to your menu is by air-frying them with QNC machines. Eliminating fry oil and using the power of air helps keep this snack regarded for its relative health compared to traditional french fries healthier and customers satisfied! 

 

        Grilled Chicken Nuggets

        It’s hard to replace breaded chicken nuggets, but grilled chicken nuggets are seeing a surge in popularity nowadays! Consumers are asking for them, so why not add them to your menu? Grilled nuggets go great with any type of sauce, so make sure to put out a medley so customers can try different sauces! 

        Hot Dogs

        That’s right, Hot Dogs! Air fryers can cook just about anything, and Hot Dogs are no exception! The difference with QNC machines is that they cook quickly but preserve the snap of a traditionally-cooked Hot Dog, leading to a delicious lunchtime treat everyone will enjoy! 

        Quik n’ Crispy’s selection of greaseless air fryers are a fantastic addition to any business and adding these menu items can increase the profitability of your snack bar exponentially! Check out our selection of air fryers here. Happy cooking!

Five Ways to Renovate Your Snack Bar

It’s a new year, and with that comes an expectation from your customers that your facility will improve in some way! If you’ve taken a look around your business and found that the snack bar could use some attention, we’ve got some tips for you! Following these tips will help rejuvenate your food offerings and make your snack bar the place to be in town!

  1. Time for a deep clean! 

 

Before walls can come down or new appliances can be installed, it’s important to make sure your snack area is as clean as it can possibly be to avoid future issues. If you’re planning on installing new equipment anyway, this is the time to remove anything broken or destined for the trash and give the area underneath a refresh! Dust, dirt, and grease are a messy combination, so you’ll probably be surprised by just how nasty it is down there, no matter how often you clean! 

 

      2. Decide what needs to go

 

Broken equipment not only holds up service times, but it also downgrades the look of your business and can potentially be hazardous! If you have broken equipment in your kitchen space, it needs to be either repaired or replaced for the safety of your staff, customers, and business! 

 

      3. Revitalize that menu! 

 

The physical attributes of your snack bar are not the only parts that matter! You can have the cleanest kitchen in the world with all of the newest equipment, but if your menu isn’t up to customer’s expectations very little money will be made! Pay attention to trends like air-fried food and new twists on old favorites (like bagel pizzas) and add them to your menu! 

 

      4. Organize your space for optimal workflow

 

Observe how your team works in the space as it sits currently and note any slowdown points. The best kitchen is an efficient kitchen, so if there are obvious barriers to efficiency, find a way to remove them or reorganize your kitchen in a way that flows better! 

 

  1. Invest in quality machinery! 

Your crew can only be as good at their jobs as their equipment allows, so investing in current equipment every few years is the optimal choice for keeping your kitchen running smoothly! Devices like Quik n’ Crispy’s Greaseless Air Fryers help speed up cook times, are simple to set up and use, and cook without grease, leading to a safer and healthier cooking environment! 

Portrait of a male worker in uniform selling popcorn and soda at the concession stand in a movie theater

2024 is your year to shine, so follow these tips to help keep your kitchen a selling point when families are looking for entertainment! You’re sure to turn first-time visitors into loyal regulars! 

Message from Paul Artt, President and Founder of QNC, Inc.

After 33+ years of managing and growing the Quik n’ Crispy Greaseless Fryer product line, I’m announcing that the Quik n’ Crispy product line has been acquired by the HIX® Corporation out of Pittsburg, KS. HIX, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2023, is a renowned player in the dough-based food equipment industry through its doughXpress® brand. HIX has built a strong reputation for its commitment to quality and innovation, making it a trusted partner in the foodservice industry. Like Quik n’ Crispy, HIX is an American manufacturer that shares our unwavering dedication to quality and customer service, a commitment that has been at the core of Quik n’ Crispy since its inception. 

 

 I want to personally thank all of you for your support, business, and in many cases your mentorship and friendship, over the years. It’s been a great ride, and if I was 35 again, I would do it all over again! Please be assured that with the HIX Corporation and their management team, the Quik n’ Crispy product line is in great hands, with the commitment to grow it in both the short and long term. Please note that the QNC sales, manufacturing, and customer service team are working with the HIX team during the transition period and many of the QNC team with be staying on in their roles with the HIX team. 

 

For now, the QNC / Quik n’ Crispy website (www.q-n-c.com) and the email accounts (Sales@Q-N-C.com) are still active and we anticipate a smooth transition to the HIX website and email accounts in the near future. Once again, thank you for your support over the years, it’s been great working with you! 

 

Best Regards, Paul

Is Your Family Entertainment Center Ready for the Holiday Rush?

As the holiday season nears, family travel and entertainment budgets increase! This leads to a rise in business for family entertainment centers, as families are searching for places to celebrate the season with their loved ones. Whether you’re ready or not, the rush is coming. Make sure you’re prepared with these tips for managing the holiday rush! 

  1. Staff up!

 

Make sure your staff is well-stocked with reliable, hardworking folks! If you could use a few more team members or have shifts with the bare minimum amount of people working, now is the time to put the word out and hire. Lots of people are looking for seasonal work and will be happy to help out, preparing you for the rush the holidays inevitably bring! Hiring early also means you will have first pick of the available talent in your area, eliminating the stress of playing catch-up once you realize you need holiday help and can’t find any. 

 

      2. Get your facility in tip-top shape! 

 

While the holiday rush is inevitable, it’s also conditional! Patrons will leave your business (and spend less money) if they’re not comfortable in the environment. Fixing broken or damaged equipment, cleaning EVERYWHERE that can be cleaned, and improving other areas guests interact with can make all the difference in retaining your customers once they’re in the door. Dirty seating areas, visibly disheveled kitchens, and non-functioning equipment can all cause guests to leave your business earlier than you’d like. 

 

      3. Keep wait times short! 

 

Shortening wait times is a fantastic way to lead to more profit. It seems simple, but the less time customers spend waiting (on food, entertainment, etc), the more time they can spend buying! One of the easiest ways to cut wait times at your family entertainment center is in the kitchen, starting by replacing conventional ovens with air fryers! Air fryers are faster, fry food without fry oil, and provide the same great taste as deep frying! When it comes to industrial-grade air frying, we have you covered with our lineup of Quik n’ Crispy greaseless Air Fryers

We hope you have a productive and profitable holiday season! Remember to keep lines short, attractions working, and customers happy as you navigate the stress and fun the year-end brings! 

Hosting the Perfect Holiday Get-Together

As the holiday season creeps closer, it’s never too early to start planning for those large family events that have the potential to cause more stress than joy! With that in mind, here are a few holiday planning tips to help keep the chaos to a minimum.

Keep the menu small!

 

Often, the pressure of feeding a lot of people can culminate in disaster if dishes aren’t done when the family is ready to eat. Rushing causes plates to crash to the ground, food is forgotten about in the oven and overcooked, and hurried plating can result in more food on the ground than in hungry mouths! Keeping the selection of dishes small can alleviate some of this pressure and keep hungry cousins out of your kitchen! One entree and two sides, made in larger quantities, can feed everyone without the hours-long wait for ten different dishes (all cooked in different ways and at different temperatures) that often accompanies such events.

 

Manage boredom with activities and games!

 

The old saying “too many cooks in the kitchen” had to come from somewhere, right? Keep unhelpful bodies from invading your space by planning activities or games the family can do together, like a scavenger hunt in the yard or holiday movie marathon. Activities that keep the majority of the family entertained and in one place work best for ensuring you have time to get the important things done. 

 

Accept the unexpected

 

We’ve all heard the phrase “expect the unexpected”, but truthfully there’s no such thing as a family event without hiccups! Knowing this beforehand and “rolling with the punches” can really help manage unusual levels of stress, especially when events happen that are out of your control. If something happens that would require you to step away from the task at hand, assign a family member as the “problem-czar” and delegate so that the issue doesn’t derail your plans. This keeps everyone happy and you on schedule! 

Following these tips will produce a family holiday get-together that will be talked about for years to come. The best part? You can use them year after year! The team at Quik n’ Crispy hopes you have a relaxing, stress-free holiday season! 

Save Time and Increase Efficiency With the QNC System!

When it comes to your small business, there’s nothing that matters more than efficiency. No matter the facet of your business, completing tasks as efficiently as possible will create more desirable outcomes and result in more profit. One of the places where efficiency often hits roadblocks is in the kitchen, as small spaces, long cook times, and confusing equipment can create problems there are no quick fixes to. 

It’s common to see small kitchens in family entertainment centers and other businesses where food is not the primary source of income or attraction, but that does not mean food should be considered an afterthought. If you’d like to continue using food as a revenue source, it has to be priced well, quick to serve, and tasty! This is a tough balance to strike, but innovations in 21st Century cooking technology have birthed the Air Fryer, a way to quickly cook fried food without the oil and grease. Quik n’ Crispy has worked hard to perfect our own commercial version of the air fryer designed with the small business owner in mind. Our machines are smaller than an oven or traditional deep-fryer, allowing you and your team more space to move about in your kitchen. 

 

If you plan on serving food typical of a quick-service situation, it probably makes the most sense to make sure your offerings are cooked quickly and properly. Deep-frying has been around for many years to fill this need, but now air-frying is able to complete the same task without unhealthy oils and cook food for the same period of time every time. This means predictability and happier customers as their food arrives in a timely manner! Having consistent cook times for different dishes means your employees can plan out which items to cook first, and with multiple QNC machines they can cook orders at the same time to further increase efficiency in the kitchen. 

 

Products designed for the commercial kitchen are often poorly labeled and created with the assumption that the people operating them will have experience with industrial cookware and already know how to use them. This design style can lead to mass confusion in the kitchen, overcooked or undercooked food, and in the most extreme scenarios can even cause workplace accidents that shut down cooking for the day. Quik n’ Crispy machines are designed with the casual user in mind, so that anyone can use our machines and feel confident in their ability quickly. This cuts down on training time, machine downtime, and delays for setup, all leading to faster service and happier customers. 

If your small business has any of these issues in the kitchen, Quik n’ Crispy machines may be able to solve them! Keep your business running smoothly and foodservice profitable with our selection of fast-acting greaseless air fryers! 

Keep Your Kitchen Clean!

Maintaining any kitchen is difficult, but keeping a commercial kitchen clean can be near impossible! Rushing to complete orders and serve your customers can leave your kitchen in rough shape, so pay attention to these tips to make sure your kitchen is as clean as possible! 

Step One: Create a System! 

 

Labeling your food and ingredients is the easiest way to eliminate a dirty kitchen before it happens! Using supplies like painter’s tape and tupperware containers that stack can be a fantastic way to keep your kitchen organized AND improve efficiency. Labels may seem unnecessary, but there are so many foods that look similar it can be easy to lose track of what’s what! 

 

Step Two: Cleanliness is King!

 

Greasy cooktops and crowded refrigerators are a common source of clutter and germs in any kitchen, and the more appliances you have the more likely your kitchen is to be dirty! Popular cleaners like Bar Keeper’s Friend and Magic Erasers are excellent for removing tough stains, but the key is to clean surfaces as you go to prevent built-up grime that becomes hard to remove. Looking for a more natural solution? Baking Soda and lime juice are excellent natural cleansers without the harsh chemicals that many industrial cleaners use. Have a stain that won’t come out instantly? Leave your cleaner of choice to sit on it for five to ten minutes, then wipe away! 

 

Step Three: Simplify Your Appliances! 

 

The easiest way to keep your kitchen clean is by preventing stains in the first place! With Quik n’ Crispy’s All-In-One, oil-free machines, there’s none of the typical mess associated with deep frying! No drips, drops, or accidental oil burns here! QNC’s patented air fryers cook food quickly and evenly, achieving the fry you want without the hassle and extra calories. For more information, visit our website and open your small kitchen up to a world of possibility! 

Quik n’ Crispy’s Paul Artt Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award

Every year, Roller Skating Association International honors members who represent the spirit of RSA. This year, founder of Quik n’ Crispy Paul Artt was honored along with others with a dinner and ceremony at the annual RSA convention in recognition of all he has accomplished as a member. 

QNC was founded in May, 1990 by Paul Artt, President of QNC, for the purpose of acquiring the Quik n’ Crispy product line from Tidel Systems, Inc. (“Tidel”) and to manufacture and aggressively market the Quik n’ Crispy product line. Mr. Artt was formerly the Vice President of Food Equipment at Tidel. He had exclusive management responsibility for the Quik n’ Crispy product line from its market introduction up until the time of its sale to QNC. For over thirty years Mr. Artt has dedicated his life to producing the best air fryers possible and formed many relationships with family fun centers, roller rinks, and arcades along the way. 

Mr. Artt’s years of experience have not been stagnant, as he has continued to innovate and help shape the very industry he sells in. In October 2020, QNC launched its newest model, the RAF (pictured right). This unit has twice the cooking capacity of the Model GF II, cooks faster (20% TO 25% FASTER), producing a crispier product, and it includes a heated catalyst system (ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR A VENTED HOOD SYSTEM). Also, because the heat distribution and air flow in this model has been changed from previous models, which allows operators to cook at higher temperatures up to 525 Degrees Farenheit, raw dough products such as self-rising pizzas can now be prepared in a Quik n’ Crispy.

We’re incredibly proud of Paul and all he has accomplished with Quik n’ Crispy! We can’t wait to see what he does next and congratulate him on this distinguished honor. 

Meet the Team Behind Air-Fried Magic!

 

You know the Quik ‘n Crispy products well, but do you know the people behind their success? With this series, we’d like to introduce you to some of the faces behind our products and tell you a bit more about our team! 

Meet David Turner, QNC’s National Director of Sales & Business Development.He joined Quik n’ Crispy in 2021. David hails from the UK, a fact that you will quickly appreciate the first time you hear him speak! He crossed the pond 20 years ago and resides near Dallas, TX, where he met and married his wife, Susan.

 

David has been in the restaurant equipment and supplies industry for his entire career. He likes to say he has handled “everything from teaspoons to installing entire kitchens” over the years.

 

While working for Edward Don & Company as their National Accounts Manager, he was responsible for managing a portfolio of major chain accounts that included Starwood Hotels and Resorts.  David worked on major projects at the prestigious Conrad New York Downtown, Westin Houston, Memorial City and Westin Birmingham.

 

As soon as David arrived on the scene at QNC, Inc., he quickly identified and established relationships with 11 Manufacturer Representative Groups throughout the entire US. He conducted product training for all these Representative Partners. This nationwide network has been successful in providing sales and training support to David’s sales team.

 

David and Susan have a 17-year-old son, John. In his spare time, David enjoys making miniature models of military aircraft and cycling. We hope you enjoyed getting to meet David, stay tuned for more team features soon! 

Commercial air fryers starting as low as $4,995!Click here to view our products.
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