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Former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi appeared on Fox Business Network and warned progressive groups against $15 per hour minimum-wage hikes. “I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry — it’s cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who’s inefficient [while] making $15 an hour bagging French fries,” Rensi said Tuesday. “It’s nonsense and it’s very destructive and it’s inflationary and it’s going to cause a job loss across this country like you’re not going to believe,” Rensi added....

Back in September, a small number of Taco Bell customers were introduced to a new concept: a taco shell made of fried chicken, used to make what was then dubbed the “Naked Crispy Chicken Taco.” It was the Tex-Mex chain’s response to KFC’s Double Down, a sandwich that uses fried chicken fillets for buns. This creation was offered only as a small test in Bakersfield, California. It later made its way to restaurants in Kansas City in mid-April. And it’s not over yet. Taco Bell told BuzzFeed News that the product — renamed the “Naked Chicken Chalupa” following the successful...

Investor’s Business Daily reported Wednesday that fast food chain Wendy’s will be expanding the use of self-service kiosks in response to the rising minimum wage: Wendy’s said that self-service ordering kiosks will be made available across its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year as minimum wage hikes and a tight labor market push up wages. It will be up to franchisees whether to deploy the labor-saving technology, but Wendy’s President Todd Penegor did note that some franchise locations have been raising prices to offset wage hikes Other fast food chains are also experimenting with self-service kiosks. McDonalds...

Subway Revenue Drops as It Closes Hundreds of U.S. Restaurants Subway Restaurants revenue fell in 2015 for the second straight year, a sign one of the fast-food industry’s stalwarts is losing ground to newer chains. Revenue dropped 4.3 percent to $1.11 billion last year, according to the company’s Franchise Disclosure Document, which was filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce last week. Subway owner Doctor’s Associates Inc. also is slowing its pace of new restaurant openings and shuttering hundreds of underperforming locations. Fast-casual chains such as Panera Bread Co. have been taking share from Subway restaurants in the U.S., bringing...

A McDonald’s customer has been charged with robbery after he emptied a cup of water and filled it up with soda from a machine in a restaurant in Arkansas. Cody Morris, 18, and two pals went to a drive-thru in Springdale and and asked for large cups of water. But they then parked their car and dumped their cups before filling them up with soda. [snip] But Morris reversed his car and drove off, allegedly hitting the manager as he made his getaway. Police arrested Morris at a nearby bowling alley. It is unclear if he will face any charges...

A little while back we told you about how the CEO of Hardees/Carl’s Jr. was thinking about replacing employees with machines thanks to the ridiculous minimum wage hike to $15.Well, it appears he has done it.It was only a matter of time before this started to happen and you can expect to see more of this in the future.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Pushing pause on that mission to simplify, McDonald's has moved in the other direction and unleashed a whole family of different-size Big Macs. Yesterday, the original size was joined by smaller and larger extremes in two test markets, Dallas and central Ohio. Columbus Business First reports the trio will remain on store menus until June 6, at which point the chain will see how customers reacted. At the more petite end is the new Mac Jr., a single-layer sandwich supposedly designed to be easier to eat, although the menu has six plain, smaller-size burgers already. The largest size has been...

‘This is something that’s become a bumper sticker,” Jamie Richardson tells me. “But it hasn’t really been thought through. There is a better way to get people out of poverty than hiking the minimum wage.” Richardson is a vice president at White Castle, the chain of famously white-painted and turreted burger joints specializing in slider-style hamburgers in the Midwest and Mid Atlantic. (Let me pause for a moment: If you’ve somehow made it through life without visiting this family-owned American treasure, stop reading this article, make like Harold and Kumar, and get yourself to the Castle . . . I’ll...

Here’s an unusual story out of Texas which seems to defy all the conventional wisdom about employment trends and wages. The local press has noticed that nursing homes are having trouble filling the health care jobs at their facilities these days. That’s particularly curious when you consider that healthcare has consistently been one of the fastest growing job markets in the country for several years now. So where are all of the trained healthcare workers who would normally fill those jobs? It seems that an increasing number of them have packed it in and left for jobs flipping burgers. (KXAN...

NEW YORK – A CEO of a fast-food company is causing a stir on social media after claiming that he wants to create a fully automated restaurant. “We could have a restaurant that’s focused on all-natural products and is much like an Eatsa, where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person,” Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder told Business Insider. Puzder says the automated restaurant would be cheaper since he wouldn’t have to worry about rising minimum wage. “If you’re making labor more expensive, and...

Hey, Domino's, sweet ride! Behold the Domino's DXP (Delivery eXPert), a modified Chevrolet Spark tricked out with a warming oven and space for 80 pizzas, sides, two-liter bottles of soda and dipping sauces. (The driver's seat is the only seat, because, like cowboys, pizza delivery dude/-ettes ride alone.) There's even a puddle light that projects the Domino's logo onto the ground. (Please, no jokes about the gutter being the perfect place to see this particular brand's emblem.) Alas, the DXP isn't shaped like a slice of pizza, but we can't have everything in this life....

McDonald's sales were better than expected in the fourth quarter, helped by the launch of all-day breakfasts in the US. Global same-restaurant sales at the fast food giant grew 5%. McDonald's extended US breakfasts beyond 10:30am in October, saying it was customers' number one request. The company, working to turnaround its business under chief executive Steve Easterbrook, said the breakfast change helped US sales grow 5.7%. Fourth-quarter revenue fell 4% to $6.4bn (£4.5bn) due to the strong dollar, but profits rose 10% to $1.2bn, McDonald's said.

How McDonald's gets to Tehran American titans like McDonald's or Apple are left in a very awkward place by the deal. There's clear demand for their products (at least from some Iranians), and it's a "new" market of 80 million people, about 60% of which are under age 30. The problem is, U.S. companies still can't open a store or restaurant in Iran. However, a European subsidiary could. "If a company like Apple or HP wants to get involved with Iran, it would have to do it with their foreign subsidiaries," explains Patrick Clawson, research director at the Washington Institute...

With over 1,000 restaurants in the continent, KFC is the leading fast food chain in Africa. But its dominance is limited to South Africa, home to about 80 percent of them. Despite its success, the company faces many challenges as they try to establish the brand in other regions, for example by making sure its food is relevant and recognizable to Africans. Serving jollof rice, a spicy dish native to West Africa, is one way in which KFC is improvising to win over palates in Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria.

A Queens woman died after allegedly getting trapped in a local Burger King restroom, and now, her family has sued the fast food chain. As CBS2’s Ilana Gold reported, Shirley McCarthy’s family has also detailed what happened during her final moments at the Burger King on 82nd Street in Jackson Heights. The incident happened on Sept. 27. McCarthy’s boyfriend, Ricardo Knox, still struggles to cope. “I wake up every morning and it feels like I’m in a dream,” Knox said. “Shirley didn’t deserve to die in that bathroom. She wanted to live like everybody else. God bless her soul.” Knox...

It's the Dollar Menu, take two. McDonald's hopes it has a catchy, new deal that will be as hugely popular as its Dollar Menu. Starting Jan. 4, the fast-food chain will launch the "McPick 2" menu, which will let customers pick two of the following items for $2: a McDouble, a McChicken, small fries and mozzarella sticks. The offering has gained the necessary votes from franchisees to make it onto the national menu, and will be available in U.S. restaurants for a five-week run starting Jan. 4. After that, McDonald's said it may change the details of the offering, but...

Today, U.S. fast-food workers will strike across 270 cities in a protest for higher wages and union rights that they hope will catch the attention of candidates in 2016 elections, organizers said. The walkouts will be followed by protests in 500 cities by low-wage workers in such sectors as fast food and home and child care, a statement by organizers of the Fight for $15 campaign said on Monday. The protests and strikes are aimed at gaining candidates’ support heading into the 2016 election for a minimum wage of $15 an hour and union rights, it said. The strikes...

The fast-food breakfast wars are upon us. With McDonald's starting all-day breakfast, Burger King responding in kind, Wendy's flailing in the breakfast arena, and Taco Bell revamping its morning menu, the competition is more intense than ever. But in the midst of the battle, some weaknesses are rising. We tested three main breakfast items from the major fast-food chains. We tried breakfast from McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Wendy's — here's who does it best Marina Nazario and Hollis Johnson Oct. 28, 2015, 9:02 AM 1,083,325 35  facebook  linkedin  twitter  email  print fast food...

I saw a sad but not totally unexpected news item from John Hawkins this morning regarding one of America’s premiere dining outlets… McDonald’s. The House That Ronald Built has fallen on hard times, with some estimates indicating that a significant portion of the franchises are currently insolvent or seriously in the red. The dire warnings from franchise owners are including phrases such as, “these are the final days.” (Yahoo News) McDonald’s franchisees believe the brand is in a “deep depression” and could be facing its “final days,” according to a new survey.“We are in the throes of a deep depression,...