January2008

Not too long ago I was writing about the new legislation that had just passed in New York that would make restaurants show all of the nutritional information about their food on the menu.

Just as I had thought, the New York Restaurant Association filed a lawsuit for an injunction to block the cities attempt to force restaurants to display their calorie information.

Based on what happened in 2006 I think that the NYRA will probably win their lawsuit and block the legislation. Personally, I think this is a loss for the people of New York. Having the nutritional info on the menu would definitely be a nice thing and if they can manage to get it passed in New York you can bet that this will spread to other metropolitan areas.

It’s happened before. Maybe some of you can remember the McWar which happened about ten years ago during another U.S. Recession. McDonalds…tired of watching the Whopper come in to it’s own glory at the expense of the Big Mac tried to convince all of it’s U.S. franchised restaurants to sell the Big Mac at a loss-leading 55 cents.

It was a glorious time for the fast-food cost-conscious eater.

I’m only bringing this up because McDonalds has posted flat same-store sales numbers for December and with the current economy we may see them post flat numbers for January as well. Top Mickey D’s execs said that although McDonalds is not recession proof they are recession resistant and they are not worried about the current situation even though analysts are projecting them to only increase their same-store sales by a miniscule 1.5%.

McDonald�s share … Read More »

It looks like more and more places are deciding to oust smokers (or at-least the smoke) from their midst. The Owners of The Corner Bar in Rockford, Michigan announced that they were going to go smoke free without any pressure from the local government.

Then while The Corner Bar was preparing for the change…another place Sam’s Joint decided to ban smoking as well —five days before The Corner Bar. The GM said plainly that “they didn’t want to lose customers” to The Corner Bar.

Soon afterwards another business the Peppermill Grill got rid of smokers.

The results for all of these businesses was steady sales and more customers.

The amazing part of all of this is that the business owners did this all of their own accord instead of bowing to local governmental bans. This is the way that this shouldhappen. We don’t need … Read More »

Just something funny that I found online

Hooters will be celebrating its 25th anniversary by giving away $25,000 on the 25th of every month this year.

Customers who visit the restaurants that day can win an instant $25,000 prize or be one of 25 guaranteed $1,000 winners around the country.

Hooters of America Inc. is the operator or franchiser of more than 435 restaurants in 42 states

It looks like the Coffee giant is definitely feeling some heat after hearing that McDonalds is about to start encroaching on their business. Starbucks is preparing a $1 menu to combat the other chains and undercut their prices. Starbucks will offer smaller coffee drinks for a $1 and offer free refills.

Starbucks also announced that they will be slowing U.S. expansion and shutting down underperforming stores so that they can focus in on customer experience.

According to the New York Sun the board of health in New York is about to vote on whether or not they are going to require restaurants to include calorie information on their menus. Now, this mandate would only include restaurants that have 15 or more restaurants nationally so as to not put an economic burden on small restaurants (since they would have to find out the calorie info on their food and reprint their menus). But would include restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, etc.

Imagine yourself ordering a Big Mac or a grande mocha and discovering that you’ve just used up half or more than half of your calories for the day

A similar proposal was nixed last year by a federal judge…so even if the board of health approves this then the restaurants may sue the city to … Read More »

The healthiest cities in the U.S. According to the MHRC (Mercer Human Resources Consulting) quality of living survey.

Honolulu
San Francisco
Boston
Washington DC
Chicago
Portland
New York
Seattle

It looks like Ruby Tuesdays may be trying to take on a more elegant theme in its restaurants instead of having their walls decorated in memorabilia. This new design may be meant to bring in a more mature clientele.

More than 600 of the Ruby Tuesdays were made-over in the Atlanta Area, which was a $75 million investment.

I’m not sure if this is something that the restaurant chain is planning for all of its locations, but it looks like they’re atleast testing it in Atlanta.

Bessy and Bessy’s Clone

So, the food and drug administration is due to announce its oppinion on whether or not it thinks that food derived from cloned animals is safe or not. A year ago the FDA said that there was absolutely no difference between food that was prepared from a naturally born animal or from a cloned animal. But, that statement created a stir of such magnitude that the FDA decided to reconsider what it had said and investigate the matter further.

Now, a year later the FDA is prepared to issue another statement about cloned food. The UK just announed the other day that there was absolutely no difference between the two…so I’m assuming that the US will follow suit and say the same thing.

Right now there are only three companies that offer food created from cloned animals, but with … Read More »