A few years ago, mango sticky rice had its social media moment. Videos showcasing the classic Thai dessert—made with ripe mango and coconut-infused sweet sticky rice—introduced many people to the dish for the first time, generating widespread curiosity and conversation online.

Now, it’s back in the spotlight, in interesting and unexpected new ways.

Over the past few months, mango sticky rice has been showing up across social media feeds, limited-time menus, and grocery store shelves, only this time, the format is different. Operators across categories are translating its signature flavors and textures into new formats that fit their audiences and concepts—from ice cream and doughnuts to matcha drinks and shaved ice.

Google Trends data reflects that renewed interest. Search volume for “mango sticky rice” has climbed steadily over the past five years, peaking this year.

The movement spans both national brands and independent operators. Van Leeuwen originally introduced its Mango Sticky Rice ice cream as a spring seasonal flavor in 2025. According to the brand, the flavor broke into its top 10 performing flavors—a feat no special flavor had achieved in years.

Since then, the concept has expanded well beyond a limited-time offering. Van Leeuwen has rolled out Mango Sticky Rice in retail, recently announced that the flavor is now available in scoop shops nationwide, and earlier this spring introduced it as one of four flavors in its new line of French ice cream Bon Bons. What began as a seasonal scoop has evolved into multiple product formats, signaling sustained consumer enthusiasm for the flavor profile.

At the same time, smaller operators are embracing the trend through creative menu applications of their own.

Ice cream may be one of the most natural extensions of mango sticky rice. The combination of creamy coconut, bright mango, and chewy rice lends itself particularly well to frozen formats.

Blacksmith Ice Cream Co. (Salt Lake City, UT) recently featured a mango sticky rice-inspired flavor made with a coconut ice cream base folded with homemade sticky rice and layered with mango sorbet for a vibrant swirl. Rather than simply borrowing the flavor profile, the concept recreated the dessert’s signature texture in scoopable form.

Caffè Panna‘s (New York, NY) Mango Sticky Rice Sundae became a viral sensation, generating lines out the door and widespread social buzz. The sundae combined mango ice cream with coconut caramel, mango coulis, toasted coconut, panna, and coconut sticky rice arancini sourced from Laab Bar. The response was so strong that the shop recently brought the sundae back due to popular demand.

Bakery applications show how operators are introducing globally inspired flavors through products consumers already know and love.

For AAPI Heritage Month, Lisbonata (New York, NY) launched a Mango Sticky Rice Pastel de Nata by infusing ripe mango into its signature custard filling before topping each pastry with sticky coconut rice and fresh mango. The result blended Portuguese tradition with Thai flavor inspiration in a format designed to spark curiosity.

Hani’s Bakery (New York, NY) took a similarly inventive approach with Mango Sticky Rice Doughnuts filled with mango jelly and sticky rice cream. By reinterpreting the dessert through a nostalgic bakery staple, the concept offered guests a low-barrier entry point to the flavor profile.

As matcha continues to evolve through seasonal flavors and limited-time offerings, mango sticky rice has begun finding a place within café menus as well.

Tu Dulce Matcha (Garland, TX) introduced a Mango Sticky Rice Matcha featuring mango syrup and coconut cold foam layered over matcha. The drink combined multiple trends already resonating with younger consumers: matcha, tropical fruit, and dessert-inspired beverages.

Los Coffeeholics (Santa Clarita, CA) also recently featured its own take on Mango Sticky Rice Matcha, layering matcha with mango purée and coconut-inspired elements reminiscent of the classic Thai dessert.

Bartenders are also drawing inspiration from mango sticky rice, adapting its defining elements into tropical, texture-driven cocktails.

At CookHouse (Baltimore, MD), the “Sticky Situation” cocktail captures the essence of the dessert through a combination of clarified rice, mango tequila, lime, coconut rice foam, and fresh mango.

White Noise (Toronto, Ontario), an intimate Asian-inspired speakeasy, introduced a mango sticky rice-inspired cocktail featuring rum, mango, pandan, coconut, and pineapple.

Others are expanding the boundaries of the dessert itself, using mango sticky rice as a foundation for other formats.

Na Ya Dessert Cafe (San Francisco, CA) drew lines out the door for its Mango Tango Bingsu, a layered dessert featuring sweet milk shaved ice, caramelized coconut sticky rice, and ripe mango. The concept demonstrates how familiar elements of mango sticky rice can translate seamlessly into other Asian dessert traditions.

Down to Earth (6 locations, HI) organic grocery recently introduced a Mango Sticky Rice Bowl layered with creamy tapioca pudding, toasted coconut, coconut sorbet, fresh mango, coconut cream, additional toasted coconut, and fresh mint. The offering reimagines mango sticky rice as a fresher, more customizable dessert experience while maintaining the flavor profile consumers recognize.

Mango sticky rice sits at the intersection of several consumer preferences that continue to shape innovation. Taken together, these examples point to something larger than a seasonal menu trend.Tropical flavors remain popular during the summer months. Texture-forward eating experiences—from chewy to creamy to crunchy—continue to drive excitement. And consumers are increasingly familiar with Asian-inspired desserts, creating more opportunities for operators to build upon flavors that once felt niche.

Every day brings a new contradiction.

Look at this incredible new tool!
Wait — the AI hallucinated again.
Agencies are dead.
Creative has never mattered more!

The truth, of course, lives somewhere in the middle.

There’s no question this is an exciting moment. Creative and marketing teams have access to more tools, more data, and more production capabilities than ever before. Timelines that once stretched for months can now happen in days, or even hours. Ideas move from spark to execution at remarkable speed.

At the same time, the pressure has intensified. Expectations are higher. Content volumes are exploding. “AI slop” is everywhere. And because so much mediocre work can now be generated instantly, the value of truly differentiated creative has actually increased.

It’s reminiscent of the early promises of email. Remember when email was supposed to make work dramatically more efficient and save everyone time? Now think about how many conversations you’ve had this week about overflowing inboxes and communication overload. Entire generations still reminisce about when coming back to the office with five voicemails felt stressful.

Technology rarely removes work entirely. More often, it changes how the work happens — and raises expectations in the process.

That’s especially true for marketers today.

AI-powered tools are now embedded across nearly every platform: Adobe, Canva, Sprout, Shopify, Google Workspace, social scheduling tools, presentation software, research platforms, and countless startups racing to automate creative execution. Tasks that once automatically required an agency partner can now often be handled internally.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In many ways, this shift empowers internal teams. It allows marketers to move faster, test more ideas, and execute routine creative work without waiting on outside support. But it’s also happening in an environment where expectations continue to rise while budgets often do not. Marketing leaders are still being asked to do more — much more — with less.

So the question becomes less about whether to use AI and more about how to use it strategically.

Where does AI genuinely create efficiency?

Where does outside expertise still matter?

And perhaps most importantly: where does DIY actually create more risk than value?

We spoke with marketing leaders across hospitality, retail, food & beverage, and consumer brands to better understand how they’re navigating this new landscape. Here’s what we learned.

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The Corner Store is one of the toughest reservations in NYC — widely known for its celebrity clientele and near-impossible tables. But for a limited time last spring, anyone could order its signature French Dip through DoorDash. And now, if you’re lucky (or a Dashpass member!) you may be able to book a table on the platform too.

DoorDash, the largest delivery platform in the U.S., is rapidly expanding into restaurant reservations. The move began with its $1.2 billion acquisition of reservation and guest experience platform SevenRooms in June 2025. By October, DoorDash launched reservations in Miami, partnering with sceney hotspot Casadonna, before expanding to New York in November where they signed launch partner The Corner Store and numerous other high-profile establishments.

Las Vegas followed, then Chicago in March 2026. In May, the platform expanded to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, signaling an aggressive rollout strategy.

The irony is hard to ignore: DoorDash, the company built on bringing food to everyone, is now becoming a gatekeeper to some of the country’s hardest-to-get reservations. But the equally valid counterpoint is that they are extending the ways consumers can experience these restaurants.

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Back in March, the Carbonate team presented our eighteenth annual Hospitality Trends Report at the New York Restaurant Show, and had the chance to sit in on a number of fascinating talks and panels. One discussion about “Elevating the Dining Experience” brought together the likes of Marcus Samuelsson (Marcus Samuelsson Group), Ayesha Nurdjaja (Shuka and Shukette), Eugene Remm (Catch Hospitality Group), and Simon Kim (Gracious Hospitality Management) who spoke about strategies for engaging today’s diners. One comment in particular caught our attention…

It came from Simon Kim, the Founder & CEO of Gracious Hospitality Management, whose concepts include the buzzy Michelin-starred Korean steakhouse COTE, with locations in New York, Miami, Singapore, and Vegas; Coqodaq, a glitzy temple of Champagne and Korean fried chicken (including their infamous caviar-topped nuggets); and the splashly new Bar Chimera, a Midtown Manhattan brasserie with a dedicated martini bar, whiskey bar, and wine bar.

Upon first glance, “value” isn’t a word one would associate with any of his concepts. They’re high-design, the menus are laden with luxury ingredients, and they’re perpetual celebrity hot-spots. Yet during this panel discussion, Kim commented that almost everyone orders COTE’s $82/pp “Butcher’s Feast” or “The Bucket List” at Coqodaq for $52/pp. Both are a prix-fixe meal that include a variety of small dishes, banchan, sides, the main event (a selection of grilled meats at COTE or two types of Korean fried chicken at Coqodaq), plus a paper cup of their house soft serve served with a nostalgic wooden paddle spoon.

The Psychology of the Prix-Fixe

What makes these prix-fixe formats so smart is that they solve a tension many restaurants are currently facing: how do you offer value in a market obsessed with affordability without eroding the sense of aspiration that made people want to dine with you in the first place?

This is a key question we’ve been exploring for the past year. We first noted the rising importance of value perception last November in our 2026 Hospitality Trends Report, and recently dove into the topic of designing value in our article “The New Value Equation.” The most successful restaurants are using curation over discounting; The Butcher’s Feast and The Bucket List are perfect examples of this.

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Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective ways for restaurants to build awareness and stay relevant online. It’s not just about chasing viral moments or paying someone to post a pretty plate of pasta. The right creator partnership can put your restaurant in front of thousands of potential guests in your community and drive traffic through your doors. When done correctly, influencer marketing feels less like advertising and more like a trusted recommendation from a friend.

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In-room record players had their first hotel moment roughly 20 years ago, when turntables became shorthand for an edgy, youth-focused boutique hotel at the height of the hipster era. Today, they’ve returned with a very different meaning: part nostalgia, part sensory escape, and part response to an increasingly digital, always-on world.

As hotels look for ways to create more emotionally resonant guest experiences, analog touches are finding renewed relevance. Record players offer something tactile and physical at a time when nearly every song ever recorded already lives inside a smartphone. Rather than simply providing music, vinyl creates a sense of ritual and discovery: flipping through albums, placing the needle, changing the record. It encourages guests to move beyond algorithm-driven playlists and engage with music in a more intentional way.

For hotels, the appeal extends beyond nostalgia. In-room record players have become a subtle expression of brand identity and atmosphere. Many properties now pair them with curated vinyl libraries in the lobby, allowing guests to browse albums that reflect the personality and culture of the hotel itself. The result is an amenity that is memorable and distinctly human in an era increasingly dominated by screens and automation.

Liora Estate Hotel (Healdsburg, CA) the newly debuted rebrand of what was the Hotel Les Mars, sits just a block from Healdsburg’s charming central plaza. It is an intimate boutique hotel experience. With just a small collection of guest rooms, the property emphasizes warmth, comfort, and a more residential sense of luxury, pairing traditional upscale touches like in-room fireplaces and four-poster beds, with hydrotherapy soaking tubs and softer design details. That atmosphere extends into the hotel’s communal spaces, where records play quietly in the library and guests can browse a curated vinyl collection in the lobby before bringing albums back to their rooms. Each room is outfitted with a vinyl record player, turning music into part of the overall experience rather than simply another piece of in-room technology.

Andaz Mexico City Condessa (Mexico City, Mexico) Set in the heart of La Condesa, one of Mexico City’s most fashionable and culturally vibrant neighborhoods, Andaz Mexico City Condesa reflects the district’s distinctly creative energy. Known for its tree-lined streets, Art Deco architecture, café culture, independent boutiques, and thriving food and nightlife scene, La Condesa has become synonymous with the design-driven, cosmopolitan side of Mexico City that attracts both international travelers and local creatives. The guest rooms’ modern design and curated amenities create a strong sense of place and personality. In-room record players fit seamlessly into the hotel’s creative, lifestyle-oriented atmosphere — offering guests a tactile, analog counterpoint to the fast-moving energy of the city outside.

Experimental Marais (Paris, France) Opened in March 2025, Experimental Marais marks the latest — and most ambitious — Paris project from the Experimental Group, the hospitality collective credited with helping redefine Paris’ modern cocktail and boutique hotel scene. The group first made its name with the opening of the Experimental Cocktail Club in 2007, building a reputation around intimate, design-forward spaces that blend nightlife, hospitality, music, and culture into a distinctly social form of luxury.

Experimental Marais is now the group’s third hotel in Paris and serves as its new flagship property. Set in the Haut Marais, the 43-room hotel reflects the brand’s signature mix of theatrical design, nightlife energy, and residential intimacy. The property features neo-Gothic details, dramatic arches, stained glass accents, and richly atmospheric interiors that feel more like the stylish home of a well-traveled collector than a traditional luxury hotel. Music has long been central to the brand’s atmosphere, from its cocktail bars to its hotels, and the in-room turntables reinforce this, culturally driven sensibility. Rather than functioning as a gimmick, the record players become part of the hotel’s broader mood — encouraging guests to slow down, linger, and engage with the space in a way that feels tactile, analog, and intentionally removed from the hyper-digital pace of modern travel.

Gunter Hotel San Antonio Riverwalk (San Antonio, TX) Following a $57 million renovation, Gunter Hotel San Antonio Riverwalk reopened in fall 2025 as part of Tribute Portfolio, bringing new life to one of San Antonio’s most historic hotels. Located just steps from the River Walk, the property blends its early 20th-century heritage with a more contemporary boutique hotel sensibility, balancing historic architectural details with layered, design-forward interiors that feel rooted in both Texas history and modern lifestyle hospitality. The redesign leans heavily into atmosphere and storytelling, with guest rooms that pair vintage influences and rich textures with updated luxury amenities. Rooms include in-room record players alongside features like curated minibars, elevated bath products, and thoughtfully-styled lounge spaces.

The Cottages at Little Saint (Healdsburg, CA) Record players may seem like an unexpected fit for the team behind Little Saint, a brand perhaps better known for its organic farm and plant-based restaurant. But the inclusion of vinyl at The Cottages at Little Saint also reflects another major part of the Little Saint identity: music. The brand’s popular live music venue and cultural programming have become central to its community presence in Healdsburg, making vinyl feel like a natural extension of the broader creative world the company has built around food, art, sustainability, and entertainment.

Designed by renowned San Francisco designer Ken Fulk — whose portfolio includes projects like Carbone and Casadonna in Miami, the cottages embrace an intentionally maximalist aesthetic. Vintage wallpaper in bold, high-contrast colors, patterned textiles, eclectic furnishings, and richly saturated details create an atmosphere somewhere between whimsical guest house and theatrical private residence. Every cottage includes both a turntable and a curated collection of vintage vinyl, reinforcing the property’s emphasis on creativity, individuality, and immersive sensory experiences.

Wellness has moved from niche to necessity. For many travelers, it’s a lifestyle that shapes how and where they book. According to Hilton, “rest and recharge” is the #1 reason people plan to travel in 2026, surpassing both adventure and cultural ex…

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We live in an attention economy where every platform, app, brand, email, text, notification, streaming service and algorithm is competing for our focus. Google Trends data shows searches for “feel overwhelmed” and “feel stressed” are higher than ever this year, while “stress relief”, “burnout at work”, and even “burnout from life” are also at record levels in 2026.

In this hyper-stimulating environment, the ability to choose where we direct our attention — or to turn it off entirely — is becoming a luxury. People are now actively seeking it out. Where being “busy” was once a sign of importance, being unreachable is now the ultimate flex.

Hotels & Travel: Checking-In to Check-Out

The biggest buzzwords in travel right now are rest, recharge, and reset. The goal: disconnect (from devices) and connect (with ourselves and others.)

Research from Hilton’s 2026 Trends Report found that the number one motivation for travel this year is “to rest and recharge,” followed closely by improving mental health, and spending time in nature.

“Digital detox” is driving headlines as well with countless articles like:

• “11 Global Luxury Resorts For A True Digital Detox” (Forbes)

• “Is Being Offline the Latest Luxury? Here Are 11 Stunning Resorts Where You Can Digital Detox” (Vogue)

• “Want a Real Vacation? Leave Your Phone at Home.” (T: The New York Times Style Magazine).

Hotels and travel operators are rising to the occasion with experiences designed to meet this need.

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A few years ago, it felt like umami was everywhere. Loosely translating to “deliciousness” the term was first coined in Japan in 1908, and has long been recognized in Japanese culinary lexicon as the elusive “fifth taste.” Over the past decades, the term broke into mainstream Western food writing and consumer vocabulary as shorthand for savory, depth, richness, and craveability. It provided a new way to talk about flavor; a new lens to understand why a dish resonates.

Now we’re seeing a similar obsession take hold, but this time it’s not about taste. It’s about texture.

Chefs, of course, have always known this. Texture has long been one of the quiet levers of great cooking—something that adds intrigue and contrast to a dish. Pastry chefs, in particular, are adept at utilizing texture: crisp against creamy, airy against dense, molten against crunchy. The kind of interplay that turns something good into something memorable.

What’s changed is that consumers are now actively seeking multi-sensory eating experiences. They’re more open to textures that once felt unfamiliar, even polarizing. Chewy, gelatinous, bouncy, foamy—textures that used to live on the margins are moving into the mainstream. And they’re not just noticing texture on the plate; they’re looking for it everywhere, from beverages, to snacks, to fast casual formats.

If umami expanded how we think about flavor, texture is broadening how we experience food altogether—adding a new dimension that’s just as critical to what’s considered craveable, memorable, and increasingly, shareable today. In a feed-driven world, that stretch, crackle, and pull resonates.

From Flavor to Feeling

What’s driving excitement—and attention—today is how food feels. The contrast of crispy and creamy. The pull of melted cheese. The bounce of a chewy bite. The crack, the stretch, the crunch. It’s not just about what something tastes like; it’s about what happens when you bite into it. It’s visual, it’s visceral, and it gives people something to react to.

According to Purato’s 2026 Global Taste Tomorrow Report—built on insights from over 23,000 consumers in 56 countries—71% of consumers say texture drives enjoyment, while 67% are actively seeking “novelty through new formats or unexpected mouthfeels.” The report also cites “texture mash-ups” as the second-fastest-growing trend in the bakery category today.

This shift is showing up everywhere—from menus, to marketing language, to the way people engage with food online.

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A Food Festival That Was All The Rave

The most Gen Z–coded food festival just returned for its third year. It’s bigger than ever and it’s continuing to grow each time—offering a clear blueprint for what younger consumers actually want.

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Private dining has always been one of the most attractive revenue streams in the hospitality business—higher price points, predictable spend, and a space that, when booked, works harder than the rest of the floor. The challenge is that too often it’s positioned like inventory: a room to fill, a minimum to hit, a line item to sell. In a landscape where every operator is competing for the same birthday celebrations and team dinners that approach starts to flatten fast.

The operators pulling ahead are reframing the pitch entirely. They’re packaging private dining into complete experiences: themed environments, immersive formats, chef-led moments, and interactive elements that give the event shape and story. In some cases, these are turnkey experiences or add-ons groups can reserve at any time; in others, they’re one-off or ticketed activations designed to turn slower nights into something with urgency and demand.

For operators working with a straightforward—or even underwhelming—PDR space, this approach is how you fill the room.

This approach mirrors a broader change across hospitality: people aren’t chasing exclusivity for its own sake—they’re chasing moments that feel curated, personal, and worth talking about. Private dining is one of the most flexible canvases to deliver that.

Read on for a selection of creative formats, activations, and packages from operators around the country who are evolving their private dining rooms from a space that can be sold into demand-driving experiences.

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Part 2 of the series:

We also took a look at the latest food & hospitality topics trending on the internet.

and how butter can become a must-order menu item.

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On paper, the all-day restaurant is one of the most compelling ideas in hospitality. More hours open means more chances to generate revenue, capture different dining occasions, and make better use of expensive real estate. But as we explored last week, the reality is more complicated. Extended hours bring operational complexity, staffing challenges, and the constant risk of brand confusion if the concept isn’t carefully designed to flex across the day.

In other words, simply staying open longer isn’t the strategy. What are some of their secrets to success? Read our article: All-Day Dining Concepts: Monetize Time, Not Just Tables.

The operators who succeed with all-day dining don’t improvise their way through different dayparts—they build concepts specifically designed to thrive across them. Over time, a handful of models have emerged that consistently solve the challenge.

Here are some of the formats working hardest right now—plus a few of our favorite examples and why they’re so effective.

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On paper, the all-day restaurant is one of the most compelling models in hospitality. The math is seductive: more hours open = more opportunities to generate revenue and fewer dead zones where rent, utilities, and fixed costs quietly drain profitability. When it works, an all-day concept turns real estate …

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This week: McDonald’s handed their competitors a gift — and Wendy’s gave a masterclass in how to win the internet without even starting the fight. Plus, a local restaurant that blew up online thanks to a creative frozen drink, and the gym bro eating trend that’s quietly making its way into the mainstream.

CEO Shenanigans

When McDonalds decided to have their CEO do a video trying their new Big Arch burger, they were likely inspired by the success of young, charismatic CEOs that have become social media darlings, like Damola Adamolekun of Red Lobster. The McDonalds video did go viral, but for all the wrong reasons…

Unfortunately the delivery fell flat and received a lot of criticism online with many finding the video forced and stiff. The internet took major issue with the tiny bite he took and the fact that he called the burger “the product.” The video has gone mega-viral with even late night comedians including it in their monologues.

Of course, competitors were quick to clapback with their own executives chowing down on their own food in a more “real” and “authentic” way. Hint: if you’re going to make a clapback, make sure it hits.

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Bread and butter used to be an automatic, quiet gesture — complimentary, expected, and largely forgotten. Then chefs began elevating the bread itself. Out went anonymous dinner rolls; in came house-milled heirloom grains, crackling levain, laminated brioche, airy shokupan, and regional vari…

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