Joe’s Crab Shack and its sibling restaurant chain, Brick House Tavern, will soon have a new owner pending approval by the bankruptcy court. Yet it’s celebrating in a surprising way: The chain is abruptly closing locations scattered across the country, sending employees home during their shifts. Update: Here’s a newer list of recently closed locations that employees and customers sent to Consumerist. [More]
restaurants
Here Are This Year’s 8 Most Ridiculously Calorie-Filled Chain Restaurant Meals
By 7.31.17
Fast food chains may, deservedly, get flack from public health advocates for their menus filled with salty, breaded, greasy grub, but most fast food meals have nothing on their sit-down restaurant cousins across the parking lot. A bacon cheeseburger may look like a healthy snack compared to the winners of this year’s Xtreme Eating awards. [More]
Chipotle: Rodents Falling From Restaurant Ceiling Is “Isolated And Rare Incident”
By 7.20.17
If there’s one thing Chipotle doesn’t need as it continues to recover from its food-borne illness woes — including a new incident of norovirus at one restaurant — it’s reports of rodents raining down on customers from the ceiling. Uh, about that… [More]
Visa Will Give 50 Restaurants $10K Each To Upgrade Payment Tech If They Ban Cash
By 7.12.17
Credit card network Visa has an interesting proposal for small food businesses across the country. It will give as many as 50 of them $10,000 each to upgrade their systems, especially to accept contactless mobile payments. The catch is that they have to agree not to accept cash anymore. [More]
Burger King, Tim Hortons Vow To Cut Back On Antibiotics In Chicken
By 6.22.17
Amid growing concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals, Burger King has joined the list of fast food chains that will scale back on the use of drugs that are medically important to human beings.
[More]
Behold This Giant List Of Restaurants Offering Birthday Freebies & Discounts
By 6.22.17
It’s your birthday, and you’re hungry. You’d like to treat yourself to something delicious, something… free. Where should you go? We’ve got a huge list you can start with. [More]
Angry About Onions In Your Food? Please Keep Your Pants On
By 6.8.17
Is it upsetting to receive an ingredient in your food that you do not like? Sure. But please, the next time your meal isn’t satisfactory, just remember to keep your pants on: Police in Pittsburgh say a man who was angry about the onions in his food on Monday returned to express his displeasure on Tuesday — and showed employees a bit more than they wanted to see. [More]
Tuna Sold At Restaurants In Three States Recalled Over Potential Hepatitis A Contamination
By 6.6.17 — Updated: 6.9.17
Update: The Food and Drug Administration has updated the list of restaurants affected by the recall after determining that they were shipped the frozen tuna. The below list has been updated.
If you’re a fan of yellowfin tuna, you might want to skip ordering it the next time you’re dining out, at least if you live in Texas, Oklahoma, or California, as the product may be contaminated with hepatitis A and has been linked to two recalls. [More]
How Panera Sped Up Ordering And Dispersed Its ‘Mosh Pit’
By 6.2.17
It’s not a good sign when you’re a fast-casual restaurant, and your company’s own chairman wonders whether he should just have just stayed home and had leftovers for lunch instead of driving there. Panera Bread Co.’s Ron Shaich realized that other people would ask themselves the same question, and made changes to the ordering process that are finally paying off. [More]
New Restaurant Hit With $300K Water Bill Before Doors Even Opened
By 5.26.17
Unless you have a blue whale hanging out in a tank in your backyard, it’s pretty difficult to use $300,000 worth of water. So imagine the surprise of two brothers whose new restaurant was slammed with a bill for $308,000 before it even served a single customer. [More]
President Trump Says He’s Immune From Restaurant’s Unfair Competition Lawsuit
By 5.10.17
In response to an unfair competition lawsuit filed against President Trump by a D.C. restaurant claiming that it’s lost business to a Trump-operated building within walking distance to the White House, the President’s legal team says that not only are the claims without merit, but that Trump is immune from this sort of legal action. [More]
Report: Owner Of Joe’s Crab Shack Prepping For Bankruptcy
By 5.4.17 — Updated: 5.5.17
Sure, the first part of the year has been littered with a number of retail bankruptcies, but it wasn’t long ago that several restaurant chains were dealing with similar financial issues. Now, it appears we’re revisiting that trend: A year after its failed no-tipping policy experiment at Joe’s Crab Shack, Ignite Restaurant Group is reportedly prepping for bankruptcy. [More]
Pizza Hut Is Betting $130M It Can Bring Customers Back
By 5.3.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
While rival Domino’s has managed to pull off a major comeback, Pizza Hut has been struggling for years to turn around slumping sales. In an effort to keep up with the competition, it seems the company figures it might as well throw a bunch of money at the problem. [More]
Some Restaurant Chains Putting Calorie Counts On Menus, Even Though They Don’t Have To
By 5.3.17
Even though the Food and Drug Administration has once again decided to delay enforcement of a new rule requiring restaurant chains and others to include calorie information on their menus, some companies have decided to just go ahead with displaying this information. [More]
Taco Bell Will Offer Free Dinner Reservations At Its Test Kitchen
By 4.27.17
It’s no Wonka Chocolate Factory, but if you’re into trying stunt food before anyone else, Taco Bell will be inviting a limited number of people behind the scenes for a free meal in its test kitchen. [More]
Court Says Eatery Was Wrong To Fire Server Who Called Boss A “Mother$%*!^r” On Facebook
By 4.24.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
If you go on Facebook today to call out your boss, using 12-letter profanities that imply your supervisor has carnal knowledge of their mother, and you also insult your boss’s spouse and kids, you probably won’t have a job to go to tomorrow. Yet a federal appeals court has ruled that a catering service at a well-known Manhattan landmark was in the wrong when it fired a server for this sort of Facebook rant, because that rant was ultimately about a bigger-picture labor dispute. [More]
Crack In The Subway Bubble? Number Of Locations Shrinks For First Time Ever
By 4.21.17
After years of growth, Subway is beginning to shrink. Sure, the chain remains the most popular eatery in the world (at least in terms of stores), with more locations than McDonald’s. However, the 100% franchised chain reported a net decrease in its number of stores in the United States this year for the first time ever. [More]
Report: Shoney’s Affected By Chain-Wide Payment Card Breach
By 4.14.17 — Updated: 4.17.17
If you’ve dined at Shoney’s anytime since Dec. 2016, you probably want to take a good hard look at your credit and debit card statements, as reports from financial institutions indicate that some cards used to pay for meals there have recently been used to make fraudulent purchases elsewhere. [More]
