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With sales slipping, Olive Garden is trying to win back customers who have fallen out of love with the nation's largest Italian chain. It is a major challenge for Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other brands.

The recent release of Ken Burns’ “Prohibition” documentary has raised many good questions about the subject of alcohol control. For Michigan, the questions are timely. Gov. Rick Snyder’s 21-member Liquor Control Advisory Rules Committee will soon present its ideas for alcohol control reform, and would be wise to think and reform boldly. Michigan’s laws and rules governing alcohol control have been treated like the play things of politicians and powerful special interests for decades. They are not as protective of public safety as neo-prohibitionists want people to believe, and are actually protectionist in many ways, treating different businesses and people...

RALEIGH – Emergency room visits by North Carolinians experiencing heart attacks have declined by 21 percent since the January 2010 start of the state’s Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law. State Health Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel reported the results to the Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force this morning. “We pushed for passage of this law because we knew it would save lives,” said Governor Bev Perdue, who signed the law into effect. “Our goal was to protect workers and patrons from breathing secondhand smoke and we are seeing positive results.” The N.C. Division of Public Health report cites...

Del Posto and Babbo have the same celebrity chef as an owner, reputations for impossible-to-get reservations, and customers who can afford, say, Del Posto’s seven-course “menu tradizionale” at $145 a person. It is not unreasonable to imagine that a good number of those customers make a living on Wall Street. So their reaction after word spread on Wednesday that Mario Batali had mentioned them in the same breath as Stalin and Hitler was to let their hefty wallets do the talking and threaten to cancel their hard-won reservations. Some complained on Twitter, some on the Bloomberg terminals they use to...

In an interview with The Daily Caller, former National Restaurant Association board chairman Joseph Fassler offered a firm defense of GOP presidential front-runner Herman Cain, along with an explanation for how Washington’s best kept secret — the identities of Cain’s sexual-harassment accusers — was also kept from the association’s board. “The accusations? It’s a hatchet job, in my opinion,” Fassler told TheDC from his Phoenix, Ariz. office. “My gut tells me it’s a hatchet job. He gets a lead, he gets some traction, and the next thing you know, here come these allegations. It’s sad.”

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign is accusing Politico of “unsubstantiated personal attacks” after the news outlet published a story Sunday night claiming two unnamed women made sexual harassment allegations against the candidate more than a decade ago. “Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” J.D. Gordon, Cain’s spokesman, said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller. Gordon continued: “Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant...

A chef at a restaurant in Wales admitted he shoved a kitchen worker down the stairs after a critic called the food they had served "disgusting." Charlie McCubbin, 51, is the owner-chef of The River Cafe in Glasbury-on-Wye, which was visited by Sunday Times critic AA Gill. Bruce Gray, defending, told the court that at the end of his meal Gill was asked whether he enjoyed it. "Iin his rather flippant manner, his response was: 'Disgusting'," the BBC quoted Gray as saying. "I say this to give you some idea of the stress of working in an environment where reputation...

It is possible to create jobs, have healthier diets and improve the local economy by re-birthing local agriculture on small plots of land. Each pound of lettuce or eggs or beef shipped from California, Latin America or Mexico raises our dependency on foreign oil. And buying food from far away costs us jobs locally. Some communities have figured out a new path forward that fixes all that. North Carolina’s Rutherford County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Yet some 6,000 families own between 5 and 20 acres of land, and chefs in nearby Charlotte are in...

We live in a backwards world where great things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and where Sarah Palin is considered a legitimate presidential candidate. The greatest example of the inverse nature of our universe is the success, or lack of success found by restaurants around the world, particularly the United States. We live in a world where Noah’s Bagels nears bankruptcy while McDonalds thrives on our fatty flesh (and charging for sauce packets? GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.). In a list published by The Street, twenty restaurant chains are at risk of going under....

Following bankruptcy filings by Sbarro, Perkins and Marie Callender’s this year, new data suggests that other popular restaurant chains are in danger of following suit. TheStreet.com recently looked at restaurants based on their Altman Z-Score. The website says the score is based on “several aspects of a company's financial health -- including working capital, total assets, total liabilities, market capitalization, sales, retained earnings and earnings before interest & taxes (EBIT) -- to forecast the probability of it going bankrupt within two years.” Since it began the scoring system in 1968, TheStreet says the formula has been 72 percent accurate in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio legislature is on the verge of approving one of the country's most wide-reaching bills allowing concealed firearms in places that serve alcohol, including bars and stadiums. Lawmakers who support the measure argue that Ohio is merely catching up to 42 other states that already allow concealed carry permit holders to tote their firearms in booze-pouring establishments. But that's not the whole story. No two state laws are the same. Some allow it in restaurants but not bars. Others prohibit guns in stadiums. Some block firearms in nightclubs. Some states have no law addressing the issue...

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved. Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver...

A big desert lizard wreaked havoc inside a restaurant in Saudi Arabia when it sneaked into the place before it was auctioned for around $8, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Customers inside the restaurant in the central province of Ras ran out in panic when the lizard, weighing more than three kg, walked into the place, 'Al Riyadh' Arabic language daily said. The lizard had managed to flee municipality cleaners who seized it at a nearby cemetery and headed for the restaurant, apparently attracted by the smell of food, the paper said. “Customers fled the restaurant in panic before a...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It could get harder to indulge in a double cheeseburger and fries without feeling guilty. Menu labeling requirements proposed Friday by the Food and Drug Administration will require chain restaurants with 20 or more locations, along with bakeries, grocery stores, convenience stores and coffee chains, to clearly post the calorie count for each item on their menus. "We've got a huge obesity problem in this country and it's due in part to excess calorie consumption outside the home," says Mike Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods. "Consumers generally when you ask them say they would prefer to...

FDA Sets Rules for Vending Machine Calorie Info By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today Published: April 01, 2011 Click here to provide feedback WASHINGTON -- Chain restaurants, vending machines, and convenience stores would all have to prominently display the calorie counts of their foods under two proposed rules released by the FDA Friday. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated that vending machines and food establishments with 20 or more locations -- which includes fast-food restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and certain grocery and convenience stores -- display the calorie counts of their food items. The new rules would implement...

COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WECT) - The second amendment to the US constitution is the right to keep and bear arms. If a new weapon bill passes the state senate, people with concealed weapon permits would be able to carry handguns in state parks, and restaurants unless the restaurant owner posts a sign stating guns are not allowed. For Jonathan Stevens, the timing of the bill couldn't be better. He recently completed a concealed weapons permit class. "In the class you learn law, watch videos, and I had to have a mental evaluation, and background check done," said Stevens. Some people...

Wonder if the First Lady monitored portions at the Super Bowl Sunday Bratwurst Fest, because the woman who put double-stuffed potatoes on the menu is about to dictate what is sanctioned on restaurant menus across America. After filling school vending machines with substances no self-respecting kid would ever eat and after bossing around food makers, rewriting nutrition labels, and attempting to worm her way into cupboards, refrigerators and grocery carts, Michelle is one forkful away from dictating the foods restaurants are allowed to put on your plate. According to White House and industry officials: "A team of advisers to the...

Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? How the witch of the woods lured them into her edible candy hut and gave them piles and piles of free food—just so she could fatten them up and turn them into stew? Well, think about that old fairy tale the next time a waiter drops a plate of “free” food on your table...

So many of our New Year’s resolutions may have something to do with food: eating less, eating better; eating differently or even eating something we’ve grown. With that in mind, we asked some of Utah’s culinary all-stars to share their food resolutions for 2011.

Welcome to my search for the perfect burger. My mission is to search and inform one burger at a time.

When we published our first edition of Eat This, Not That: Worst Foods in America back in 2007, we made a lot of restaurant chains very unhappy. But we also made a lot of their attorneys really, really happy, as they soon began earning massive legal fees sending us saber-rattling correspondences on behalf of the food marketers they represented. As 2010 draws to a close, it's time for another walk down the Hall of Restaurant Shame...

Recently, in our review of Otto Pizzeria, a commenter noted that pizza was a sacred beast, and that “acting like we [knew] better” was unacceptable. It’s a refrain you sometimes hear repeated among local chefs and the owners of local food-oriented businesses (even though such comments alienate what I would think to be a fairly important demographic for their business); that food bloggers are self-important idiots, with no training or education, spouting off on the Internet about food, without the needed qualifications and background, be it in the food service industry, a professional career in print media food reviewing, or...

Late this summer, when I was out of New York, a young man who knew I lived there told me he would be going for the weekend and asked what should he do. I discovered first where he would be staying (Staten Island), and with that information in hand, I rattled off a list of necessary activities. After he returned, I asked what he had done. The usual tourist things: Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street to fondle the bull’s attributes, the Met, Union Square, Times Square, and so forth. “Ah, very good. But where did you do to eat?” Can...

There’s an arms race going on, and it could mean disaster for your waistline...

With consumers and businesses keeping a lid on expenses, more and more small and mid-size restaurants are throwing in their dish towels and closing up shop. Southern California lost nearly a thousand more restaurants than it gained during the 12 months that ended in March, representing a net 2% drop that was twice the national average, according to the New York research firm NPD Group. Nearly all the closings were among independently owned restaurants: small, family businesses that just couldn't hold on as customers held back. Earlier in the year restaurants reported modest increases in business, but the jumps in...

BOSTON, June 7 (UPI) -- Some Boston officials say they want to convert two former public toilet facilities into upscale outdoor eating establishments. The idea of converting the aging gothic-style "Pink Palace" at Boston Commons and a grungy closed-up restroom called the Duck House in the Back Bay Fens neighborhood will be presented to lawmakers at a Statehouse meeting Tuesday by the city's Parks and Recreation Commission staff, the Boston Herald reports.

(edit) Details of the techniques that restaurateurs use to make customers part with their senses and money have been revealed by monthly food magazine, Olive.  Here are the top ten tricks and some advice from the experts who compiled the list to help avoid overspending:  1 MENU MANIPULATION: Techniques include putting items the restaurant is keen to promote in the right-hand corner where the eye is drawn or putting costly dishes next to even more expensive ones, making them appear comparatively good value.  ADVICE: Don't fall for the cleverly laid- out menu. And be wary of French terms, often used to make...

Gloria DiCenco was chatting amiably with a few Italian speakers at Beyond Bread on North Campbell Avenue on April 20 when armed men began coming in. First there were two, then more. Finally, maybe 20 people carrying holstered guns and, in some cases, ammunition, arrived and ordered food, DiCenco said. A hush fell over the restaurant, she said, and her group's happy mood turned tense. It happened that her Italian conversation club crossed paths with a group of local advocates of "open carry" - unconcealed carrying of firearms. And the open-carry advocates saw their Beyond Bread dinner quite differently -...

The Garland City Planning Commission has approved zoning for an In-N-Out drive-through restaurant in Firewheel Town Center.

Restaurants Targeted in New Audits; 'I Will Fight That Until My Last Breath' State sales-tax officials are turning up the heat on restaurateurs, auditing 60% more of the city's eateries in the fiscal year that just ended than the year before and leaving the industry with a case of agita. The cash-strapped state conducted 1,077 sales-tax audits of New York City restaurants in fiscal year 2010, which ended March 31, compared with 646 the previous year. Those reviews found the restaurants owed the state $71.9 million in sales tax, compared with $40.6 million the year before, a 77% increase. About...

It turns out the Democrats tucked away a little gift for one of their biggest constituencies, the trial lawyers, in Section 2304 of the new health care law. It alters the section of the U.S. code that defines what “medical assistance” means for state government health care programs, including Medicaid. That leaves states open to far more liability. Here is the current definition, with the new language in bold: The term “medical assistance” means payment of part or all of the cost of the following care and services or the care and services themselves. According to the Daily Caller, this...

Video Clip: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2436.htm "Title of Video: Yousuf Al-Sharrafi, Palestinian Legislative Council Member from Hamas, Calls for Suicide Operations in Israeli Buses and Restaurants" Clip #2436 Broadcast: March 17, 2010 # Transcript: http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2436.htm March 17, 2010 Clip No. 2436 "Yousuf Al-Sharrafi, Palestinian Legislative Council Member from Hamas, Calls for Suicide Operations in Israeli Buses and Restaurants" SNIPPET: "The following are excerpts from an interview with PLC member Dr. Yousef Al-Sharrafi, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 17, 2010." SNIPPET: "If the enemy knew that it would pay the price – especially through martyrdom operations in its buses and its restaurants...

A requirement tucked into the nation's massive health care bill will make calorie counts impossible for thousands of restaurants to hide and difficult for consumers to ignore. More than 200,000 fast food and other chain restaurants will have to include calorie counts on menus, menu boards and even drive-throughs. The new law, which applies to any restaurant with 20 or more locations, directs the Food and Drug Administration to create a new national standard for menu labeling, superseding a growing number of state and city laws. President Barack Obama was expected to sign the health care legislation Tuesday. The idea...

Don't have the time or money to join protest marches or send political contributions to protest ObamaCare? Try this: Go out to eat. Anywhere will do. When the server asks you what you will have, choose whatever you typically want (preferably not a salad or tofu) and YELL this phrase right after it: "BEFORE THE DEMOCRAT COMMUNIST HEALTH COMMISSAR TELLS ME I CAN'T HAVE ANY."

Nothing succeeds in the travel industry like a bad idea. The latest hidden mandatory add-on is a "health" charge added to restaurant bills. As far as I know, this scam cropped up first in San Francisco, but you can count on it to spread. The rationale for this one is to cover the employers' mandatory contribution to the City's "Healthy San Francisco" health-coverage system. The charge actually is levied on employers, but at least some restaurants are adding a few dollars or percentage points to each customer's bill to cover this charge. The restaurants' excuse for assessing this charge separately...

Kitchen worker Carlos Garcia envies the waiters who make more money and suffer fewer aches than those like him in the "back of the house." The very term, common in restaurants, speaks to a divide that is conspicuous yet often overlooked by diners. The division of labor plays out in Loop steakhouses and Wrigleyville sports pubs: Taking the order or seating the clients is the girl next door, most likely white, while a cadre of young Mexican men construct the meal behind the scenes. In a first-of-its-kind survey released this month, a Chicago labor advocacy group detailed the segregation of...

examiner.com — So “what is the law” now on gun carry in alcohol serving restaurants in Tennessee? Tennessee Attorney General Robert E. Cooper Jr.’s Office declined the Examiner.com’s repeated requests to say whether the Chancery Court’s ruling makes it (1) illegal to carry guns in alcohol serving restaurants, or rather, (2) just more difficult to prosecute a person who carries in a restaurant that does not serve enough meals in a given week to qualify for the exception in TCA § 39-17-1305(c)(30(B).

Italy's agriculture minister defended his sponsorship of McDonald's new all-Italian burger Monday amid criticism that he is selling out to a multinational corporation and sacrificing Italy's culinary reputation in the process. Minister Luca Zaia has argued that McDonald's new McItaly burger — using all Italian beef, Asiago cheese and artichoke spread — will pump €3.5 million ($4.8 million) more a month into the pockets of Italian farmers grappling with tough economic times. But for a country that gave birth to the Slow Food movement a quarter-century ago and prides itself on its varied, delicious and healthy cuisine, Zaia's enthusiastic support...

Good News For Restaurants: Consumer Dining Spending On An Upswing by: Paul Carton January 14, 2010 ChangeWave's latest December Consumer Spending Report shows an uptick in U.S. consumer spending, as well as improving conditions for Restaurants. In a separate survey we took a close-up look at consumer dining habits, including which restaurant chains consumers say they’ll be visiting more and less often over the next 90 days. Further Improvement in December For the fourth consecutive survey, we’re seeing an improvement in Restaurant spending. One-in-seven respondents (14%) now say they’ll spend more money at restaurants going forward – unchanged from November....

USA Today reported the results of a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, published in the American Journal of Public Health. The Yale University study divided diners into three groups. • One was given menus with the calories listed for the dinner entrees. • Another group was given menus that cited the calories plus a reference number that showed the recommended daily caloric intake for the average adult: about 2,000. • A third group had menus with no calories listed.

What would two dozen servers from across the country tell you if they could get away with it? Well, for starters, when to go out, what not to order, what really happens behind the kitchen’s swinging doors, and what they think of you and your tips. Here, from a group that clears a median $8.01 an hour in wages and tips, a few revelations that aren’t on any menu.

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

The drive-through is where one American obsession—mobility—meets another: consumption. Lately, though, this societal combo platter has come under fire, as people question the drive-through's environmental impact, its place in the evolving landscape of obesity (a 1,420-calorie Hardee's Monster Thickburger without having to leave your seat!), and even who has the right to step up to its crackly intercom. There has always been something odd in the encounter between automobility and architecture; the driver momentarily breaks her sense of hermetic enclosure, while the fast-food employee briefly thrusts himself out of the window, the two meeting amid the sickly sweet commingling of...

"LAMBERTVILLE: Restaurant owner jailed on attempted homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and other charges" 14 May 2009 | Uncategorized LAMBERTVILLE — SNIPPET: "Khalid Altawarh, 36, who also goes by the name David Shookby, took the woman’s Jeep Wrangler and fled the scene when she escaped into the arms of a friend who had stopped by to see if she was all right. She had failed to show up for work that morning, May 8, police said. Plumstead Township, Pa., police Chief Duane E. Hasenauer said Mr. Altawarh has been charged with attempted homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and other related...

You have spoken. The nominations are in for our Best Restaurant Contest! We have your picks and now it's time for you to crown the winners in each category.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Opponents of the so-called guns in bars and restaurant law won their battle in court Friday. Nine local restaurant owners filed a petition in August asking for a hearing on an injunction to challenge the law. In court on Friday, a judge found the new state law to be unconstitutional due to vagueness. The law, which allows gun carry permit holders to take their weapons into bars and restaurants where alcohol is served, went into effect in July. The law will be put on hold until lawmakers return to session in January. Some lawmakers said they would...

TOKYO — The Epicurean king who oversees the Michelin Guide fears he may be banished from France. His shocking crime? Awarding Tokyo more three-star restaurant ratings than Paris, thereby crowning the Japanese metropolis the new gastronomic capital of the world. “Trust me, they’ll wait for me at customs there,” Jean-Luc Naret, director general of the famed guide to exceptional eateries, joked Thursday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “Because they’ll say how dare could you have more three-stars in Tokyo than in Paris?” Michelin’s latest Tokyo edition goes on sale in Japan on Friday, and Naret has been in...

A popular Boca Raton chef is in jail and faces aggravated assault chargesYou have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but one chef decided he would crack a few skulls if he had to make one more dish of mozzarella Caprese. Chef Mark DeCraepeo was arrested Wednesday night after he pulled a gun on two waitresses at his restaurant because he was tired of seeing orders for the appetizer, according to the Sun-Sentinel. "If you hang one more f---- ticket for mozzarella Caprese, I swear to God I'll shoot you in the forehead," witnesses at Pizza Time...

CHICAGO — Burger King Corp. plans to swap its generic fast-food feel and bland tiles and tabletops for a vibe that's more sit-down than drive-through. As part of a plan to be revealed Wednesday in Amsterdam, the company will announce a massive effort to overhaul its 12,000 locations worldwide. The sleek interior will include rotating red flame chandeliers, brilliant TV-screen menus and industrial-inspired corrugated metal and brick walls. "I'd call it more contemporary, edgy, futuristic," Chairman and CEO John Chidsey told The Associated Press. "It feels so much more like an upscale restaurant." But that comes with an upscale price:...

As Montana bars dealt with their first smoke-free weekend since the state’s indoor smoking ban went into effect, ingenuity ruled. In Missoula, according to a great piece by Michael Moore in the Missoulian, the Rhino Bar gave smokers their very own place to light up: a Butt Hutt, created by Dave Golden of Well Done Welding and Jim Bell, a general contractor. Moore describes the hut as a 4-by-8-foot “metal smoking dugout” in the alley behind the Rhino in Missoula. The no-smoking laws spark the type of debate that never seems to get extinguished. Pro-smokers argue that the bans hurt...