In what could be a breakthrough in foodservice technology or one of the most ill-advised ideas ever, a restaurant in London has begun using a miniature helicopter to bring food to customers’ tables. [More]
restaurants
NYC Restaurant Tells Customers That Tipping Is Not Allowed
By 6.7.13
As we’ve discussed here many, many times, restaurant wait staff often rely on tips because their base pay is generally far below the minimum wage level. Since tipping is an anomaly overseas, waiters in most other countries are paid a living wage. Thus, one sushi restaurant in Manhattan, which claims it has always paid its employees well, has recently started telling customers that tips will not be accepted. [More]
Mommy, This Orange Juice Tastes Funny––Because It’s A Mimosa
By 6.5.13 — Updated: 6.6.13
It seemed that the nation’s restauranteurs tightened up their standards and found ways to not serve spiked drinks to children. 2011-2012 was a landmark period of Booze 4 Kids, but we haven’t heard any reports of the phenomenon in exactly one year. Until a restaurant in Rochester, N.Y. decided to serve up mimosas instead of orange juice. [More]
Today’s Amazing And Revolting Foods: Ravioli Pizza And Deep Fried Doritos Locos Taco
By 6.4.13
One thing that we love here at Consumerist is bringing you the latest in disgusting/amazing food news, and we include fast food in that statement. Two new and exciting food products caught our attention today, one served in a restaurant and the other is a do-it-yourself project from an adventurous blogger. Both will make your arteries clench when you read about them, so that’s good. These items are the ravioli-topped pizza and the deep-fried beer-and-bacon-battered Doritos Loco Taco. [More]
This Burger Has Deep-Fried Lasagna Slices For Buns
By 5.30.13
Americans have turned a number of things into glorious, glorious buns for our burgers and sandwiches, like grilled cheese sandwiches and pieces of fried chicken. This week, the restaurant PYT in Philadelphia has deep-fried slices of lasagna to use as hamburger buns in their aptly named “Lasagna-Bun Burger.” [More]
Reporters Kicked Out Of Amy’s Baking Company After Complaining About Flies In Their Martinis
By 5.28.13
After a couple weeks of intense media scrutiny and claims that Yelpers were endangering their lives, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, AZ, re-opened last week with virtually no drama. But one group of diners say they had an experience similar to what TV viewers saw when the eatery was featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. [More]
Owners Of Amy’s Baking Company Say Yelpers Are Endangering Their Lives
By 5.20.13
After their appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares catapulted them from being the cranky owners of a Scottsdale, AZ, restaurant to worldwide infamy, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company haven’t really been talking to the media, except to occasionally shout at the cameras that they can’t talk to the media. Then this morning Amy and husband Samy sat down for a local radio interview with another person who has Gordon to thank for her few minutes of fame. [More]
Customer Repays Chef 15 Years Later For Valentine’s Dinner He Couldn’t Afford
By 5.17.13
For every case of restaurant owners going ballistic on customers, there are other stories of restaurant staff who actually want to be kind to their patrons. Such was the case in 1997 when a teenager had to borrow $40 from the chef at a French eatery so he could afford to impress his Valentine’s Day date. He’s since returned, 15 years later, to repay that debt — with interest. [More]
Steak ‘n Shake Waitress Scores $446 Tip On $6 Check
By 5.16.13
It’s nice to ride toward the end of the week with a happy tipping-related story for a change. A waitress at a Steak ‘n Shake eatery in Indianapolis got the biggest bonus of her life when a diner left a 7,433% tip. [More]
Amy’s Baking Company To Re-Open May 21, Hires Damage-Control Publicist
By 5.16.13 — Updated: 5.17.13
The saga of previously anonymous Amy’s Baking Company of Scottsdale, AZ, continues, with the eatery — which came out of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares looking like a heretofore undocumented circle of Hell — scheduling a “Grand Re-Opening” next Tuesday night and hiring a publicist known more for damage control than for shilling restaurants. [More]
Waitress Fired By Amy’s Baking Company Tells All
By 5.16.13
In less than a week, Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, AZ, has gone from a local eatery with a reputation for a touchy owner to an Internet sensation (of the worst kind) after appearing on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and then apparently going a bit bonkers online in response to all the negative feedback. Now one of the waitresses fired during the making of that Kitchen Nightmares episode is telling all. [More]
How Not To React To Internet Criticism: The Epic Facebook Meltdown Of Amy’s Baking Company
By 5.14.13 — Updated: 5.16.13
It appears that the owners of Amy’s Baking Company in Arizona expected an appearance on celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” program to vindicate them. They believed that they serve quality food, that they have been unfairly slandered by the entire Internet. Maybe they had never seen the reality program, which features last-ditch efforts to save failing restaurants run by people who are delusional or incompetent…and frequently both. [More]
Restaurant With Ridiculous List Of Line Cook Requirements Says It Was All A Joke
By 5.8.13
Last week we, and line cooks everywhere, were shocked, just shocked that a restaurant would advertise on Craigslist for a position by listing 44 insane requirements for the job. Things like “you always show up for work, even if sick as a dog. Let the chef see that you’re really sick and send you home” had the Internets in an uproar — but according to the restaurant’s manager, it was all just a silly joke. [More]
Restaurant Has 44 Requirements For Wannabe Line Cooks And Making Fun Of The List Isn’t One
By 5.2.13
As someone who has never worked professionally in a kitchen but who has watched plenty of restaurant reality TV, let me be the first to say that being a cook/chef seems like an incredibly tough and demanding job. Customers want to be fed tasty things and restaurants want them to be happy. But there’s demanding, and then there are lists of 44 requirements for a line cook job posted on Craigslist. [More]
Restaurant Learns Instagram Isn’t Intended For Hurling Racial Slurs At Bad Tippers
By 4.25.13
Someone at a restaurant in Delaware missed the class where they explain that the usual place to vent racially biased frustration at a customer is on the receipt, as the eatery is now having to do a lot of apologizing for things that showed up on its Instagram page. [More]
Tired Of Food Photography? Try Meta-Food Photography
By 4.15.13
Tired of seeing pictures online that people have snapped of their food? Maybe there’s a better way. The blog Pictures of Hipsters Taking Pictures of Food offers a much deeper socioeconomic and culinary context for meal snaps. Also, it makes fun of people. [Tumblr] [More]
Cheese Grater+Bar Soap+Rubber Band = DIY Soap Dispenser
April 5, 2013
A Houston restaurant asked engineering students at Rice University to come up with a soap dispenser for its bathrooms that incorporate some sort of kitchen utensil. This is the result, and we kinda want one for Consumerist HQ. [Via Chron.com] [More]
Waiters Sue Employer For Taking Wages To Cover Walk-Outs
By 4.5.13
Earlier this week, we wrote about the legality (or lack thereof) of employers docking tipped workers’ wages to cover walk-outs and bad orders. Little did we know that the same day, dozens of current and former servers at a Milwaukee restaurant were filing a class-action suit, alleging these sorts of violations. [More]
