Times used to be, if you wanted to let a friend living thousands of miles away know you were thinking about them, you’d have to write a letter, give it to a guy on a pony who’d race away with it into the sunset and then wait for days or weeks for the mailman to bring their response. At least I think that’s how mail used to work. But now, you can just order up a coffee for your buddy and let them know they’ve got a free pick-me-up waiting for them to pick it up. [More]
Food & Personal Care
We Should All Be So Lucky To Have A Friend Who’ll Buy You A Coffee From Thousands Of Miles Away
By 9.25.15
Salmonella-Contaminated Cucumbers Have Killed 3 People, Hospitalized 112
By 9.24.15
Salad is supposed to be beneficial to your health, but hundreds of people across the country have become sick due to their taste for fresh cucumbers. While the veggies’ supplier and one distributor have recalled affected batches of vegetables, and reports of new infections have slowed down, the outbreak has still made 558 people sick, sent 112 to the hospital, and now three people have died. [More]
Walgreens Pharmacists Manually Filling Prescriptions During Ongoing Computer System Outage
By 9.24.15
If you’re planning on heading over to Walgreens to refill a prescription, it might take a bit longer than usual: amid an ongoing outage of the drugstore chain’s pharmacy computer database that’s been going on since Tuesday morning, pharmacists have been forced to fill prescriptions by hand. Just like in ye olde days of yore. [More]
Starbucks Faces Another Lawsuit Over Drinks Tainted With Chemicals
By 9.24.15
For the second time in three months, Starbucks has been accused in a lawsuit of serving up a drink with some unwanted extra ingredients. This time, a customer says she suffered months of medical problems after Starbucks sold her a hot chocolate containing industrial-strength cleaner — and that the coffee giant offered her a free drink as an apology. [More]
Starbucks Debuts Toasted Graham Latte, The Chain’s First New Fall Flavor In Four Years
By 9.23.15
Because there are only so many pumpkin spice lattes a person can handle, Starbucks has decided to mix up its autumnal menu a bit with its first new fall flavor in four years: the Toasted Graham Latte is available at the chain’s locations in the U.S. and Canada as of today. [More]
California Governor Urged To Sign Bill Limiting Antibiotics In Farm Animals
By 9.22.15
Some 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. go into animal feed, primarily for the purpose of growth-promotion (or under the vague, confusing umbrella of “disease prevention”), a practice that researchers believe is contributing to the development of drug-resistant bacteria that sicken millions, and kill thousands, of Americans each year. California legislators recently passed a bill aimed at limiting the overuse of antibiotics on livestock and it’s now up to Governor Jerry Brown to decide whether or not to sign it. [More]
Starbucks Mobile Ordering App Is Now Available To All Coffee Lovers
By 9.22.15
Just weeks after Starbucks said it would roll out its mobile ordering feature to all U.S. stores by the end of the month, the coffee chain made good on its promise, extending the feature – on both iOS and Android devices – nationwide on Tuesday. The coffee chain had previously anticipated mobile ordering would be ready by the end of the year. Executives for the company said that the service was so popular – allowing coffee drinkers to skip long lines as they order and pay for their beverages with their mobile devices – that the company sped up implementation. [The Seattle Times] [More]
Starbucks Introduces Pumpkin Spice Bottled Frappuccinos As Costco Exclusive
By 9.21.15
I live in a rather deprived part of the Northeast: I can only reach a Costco store by driving more than two hours in any direction. (Except north. That’s Canada.) Today, we learned about a Costco-exclusive product that leaves me wondering whether I’m extra-deprived or better off. Starbucks is selling bulk packs of its bottled Frappuccinos in pumpkin spice flavor, but they’ll only be available at Costco. [More]
Former Peanut Co. Exec Gets 28 Year Prison Sentence For Salmonella Outbreak Tied To 9 Deaths
By 9.21.15
A year after being found guilty of knowingly shipping contaminated foods that sickened thousands and is tied to the deaths of at least nine people, Stewart Parnell, the former owner of Peanut Corporation of America, has been sentenced to 28 years behind bars, while two of his colleagues received lighter — but still substantial — sentences. [More]
Police: Robbery Suspect Told Pizza Restaurant Worker He Was “Having A Bad Day”
By 9.21.15
We get it — you’re cranky because nothing is going right, everything is turning out wrong and your day just keeps getting worse and worse. But just because you’re having an off moment doesn’t mean you should take it out on others, like a man accused of robbing a pizza joint at gunpoint who told a cashier his day was a dud. [More]
Domino’s Gives Customer Who Returned $1,300 He Found In Wings Box Free Pizza For A Year
By 9.21.15
Stumbling upon a pile of cash might be an easy way to get rich quick for some, but being the kind of person who turns in lost money has its own rewards, too. There’s the satisfied feeling one might get from being a good human… and also there could be the gift of food, like the guy who scored free Domino’s pizza for a year after returning a wad of cash he found stashed in his box of wings. [More]
Taco Bell Abruptly Closes Its Upscale ‘American-Inspired’ Taco Restaurant
By 9.18.15
Last year, Taco Bell opened a new restaurant in southern California called U.S. Taco. It promised “American-inspired” tacos, whatever that means, and alcoholic milkshakes, which are definitely American. The first test restaurant opened in Huntington Beach, California, last summer, but was never able to secure an alcohol permit or very many customers. It abruptly closed yesterday. [More]
CVS Employee Charged With Assault For Dragging Suspected Shoplifter Back Into Store
By 9.18.15
A CVS customer tried to return some batteries without a receipt, and was told that she wouldn’t be allowed to. Oh, well: she went to leave the store with her merchandise, and an unidentified man dragged her back inside the store. He was a CVS loss prevention officer, it turns out, but she claims he didn’t identify himself. [More]
Recent Salmonella Outbreak In Minnesota Linked To Tomatoes Served At 22 Chipotle Locations
By 9.17.15
A recent salmonella outbreak in Minnesota that’s sickened 64 people and hospitalized nine has now been traced back to tomatoes that were served at 22 Chipotle restaurants in the state, prompting the chain to switch tomato suppliers. [More]
Burger King Teams With Denny’s, Krystal & Others To Create Peace Day Hybrid Burger
By 9.17.15
Two weeks after McDonald’s rejected Burger King’s cross-marketing olive branch offer to put aside their metaphorical beef in the name of peace and create a burger marrying the two fast food chains, the King has decided to officially move forward with offers of collaboration from Denny’s, Wayback Burger, Krystal and Giraffas, unveiling a mismashed sandwich that includes bacon, ham, a square patty, egg, cheese and other ingredients. [More]
Toasted Coconut Oreos Appear, Contain Some Actual Coconut
By 9.16.15
Fruit-flavored exotic Oreos don’t generally contain the fruit whose flavor they’re trying to imitate, but that’s all different for the newest flavor, toasted coconut. There are flakes of actual coconut in its coconut-flavored creme. It will be nothing at all like dunking a bottle of suntan lotion in milk. [More]
Farmers Say They’re Making Too Much Money Off Beef To Go Drug-Free
By 9.15.15
We already know that 4-in-5 popular restaurant chains have put little to no thought into dealing with the overuse of antibiotics in the farm animals that provide the beef, chicken, and pork for their foods. And though chicken titans like Perdue and Tyson are nudging the poultry industry toward fewer antibiotics, cattle farmers are apparently more reluctant to head the drug-free route because they are making big profits on drugged-up cows. [More]
Taco Bell’s New Cantina Restaurants Will Serve Up Booze, Tapas
By 9.15.15
As we reported many months ago, Taco Bell has been prepping a booze-serving location in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. That store opens this week, and the company says it’s just the start of a plan to serve up more adult fare through a new “Cantina” version of the fast food mainstay. [More]
