Yesterday My Table staffers were allowed a glimpse into some corners of the restaurant business that we food journalists are not always very familiar with. The Greater Houston Restaurant Association hosted its all-day annual Restaurant Industry Summit at UH’s Hilton College. It was a day of seminars, panels, conferences and networking hosted by some of the local industry’s best-known restaurateurs, chefs, bartenders and purveyors.

Panelists Mike Malloy (OpenTable), Jonathan Horowitz (Lasco Enterprises) and Constatino Pappas (formerly with Ignite Restaurant Group) headed up conversation and question/answer time revolving around Reputation Management. The session covered issues such as how to deal with negative responses from diners on Yelp to the appropriate reaction to Twitter and Facebook posts when it comes to the expectations and experiences of diners.

The Center of the Plate conversation with Neal Cox (The Houstonian), Jim Gossen (Louisiana Foods), Scott Langley (US Foods) and Russell Woodward (Texas Beef Council) touched on trends and sourcing of seafood, meat and even vegetables. The main take-away idea of the 90-minute talk was Gossen’s exhortation to support young entrepreneurs who are trying new ideas. “It takes people with authority to buy to encourage young entrepreneurs,” said Gossen.

At Financing & Growth, three powerhouses — Jerry Lasco (Lasco Enterprises), Orlando Saldana (UH Small Business Development Center) and Chris Tripoli (A La Carte Foodservice Consulting Group) — shared their years of experience gained in restaurant start-ups and expansion. Dreaming of starting a food-service business? This is the stuff you need to know.

Marketing/Social Media was another seminar attendees and Hilton College students found of interest. Natalie Carter (Jake’s Finer Foods), Kris Guthrie (Landry’s), Michelle LeBlanc (Blue Sky Marketing) and Carey Kirkpatrick (On The Mark Communications) each had a different take on the best ways to use social media when it came to engaging customers and potential customers. Whether you’re handling the many different Twitter accounts of a national chain or helping a start-up build a business plan, there are different levels of involvement for marketing specialists in small and big businesses. Tip: Guthrie shared that her team has done research when it comes to social media interaction, and they give their audiences what followers respond to best: photos of dinner — not cocktails — between 3 and 5 pm.

When it came to Profitability & Pricing, heads were spinning. Restaurant consultants Chris Tripoli (A La Carte) and Joe Erickson (restaurantowner.com) were giving tips and advice on how to make your restaurant run more efficiently and how to eliminate gaping holes in monthly P&L reports. Ray Freeman (Glazier Foods Company) and Walter Cervin (Grub Burger Bar) engaged seminar attendees by asking questions about their management and buying tactics. While a knowledge of basic economics made the ideas of prime cost and overportioning pretty easy to understand, menu profitability concepts like dogs, warriors and stars are fascinating to someone who has never had to develop a profitable menu, only ordered off of one.

Menu Trends, featuring Ojan Bagher (Sysco Houston), David Cordua (Cordua Restaurants), Randy Evans (Haven) and Jonathan Horowitz (Lasco Enterprises) was especially well attended, given the star power of the panelists. We won’t regurgitate the entire discussion here, but it did touch on 2014’s hot vegetable (goodbye, kale — hello, parsnips), pop-ups inside restaurants (e.g. barbecue at Killen’s Steakhouse, the bakery at Triniti) and the trend toward two-in-one restaurant concepts (e.g. Cove and Haven, The Pass and Provisions, Hay Merchant and Underbelly).

Other sessions included Labor Law, TABC Regulations, Government Affairs, Mixology, Catering and Health Care Solutions. We left at at 5 pm with our brains stuffed and feeling a little better informed about this huge industry we cover every day.