Tag: restaurant and food service industry

Not just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic | CNN

[ad_1]

Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get the latest news in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.

Macao, China
CNN
—

Like many of his peers, Dan McAulay was furloughed from his job as a pilot during the pandemic.

Being based in Macao, a city that had one of the world’s strictest approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands.

McAulay and his wife, Rebeca Fellini, started learning how to distill alcohol as a lockdown hobby. And by the end of the nearly three years that Macao was a relative fortress, they had grown their pastime into a bona fide business – a gin brand called Owl Man, a play on the Chinese pronunciation of the city’s name “Ah Mahn.”

Now, McAulay is back in the skies with Air Macau and Fellini manages the distillery’s day-to-day business.

Even though their business was born during lockdown, they – like so many other businesses around the city – are pinning their hopes on the return of tourism.

Macao, an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong, is the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Often called the “Vegas of Asia,” in pre-pandemic times it wasn’t unusual to see a high-spending “whale” helicopter in and out of the city for a single afternoon at the craps table.

As a result, the city’s primary economy is the casinos and the businesses supporting them, from hotels to spas to high-end shops.

Macao only has about 600,000 residents – compared to seven million in Hong Kong – but brings in six times as much revenue as Las Vegas in a typical year.

Before the pandemic, 80% of Macao’s government revenue came from the gaming industry. Big players like Wynn, Venetian and MGM all have a significant presence in the city.

Covid threw that all into a tailspin. Nearly three years of intermittent lockdowns and blocked travel from the mainland and Hong Kong had a devastating effect on the city’s primary source of income.

But it also provided time for innovation.

“The government realized they can’t focus all their efforts on gaming and (tourists from) the mainland. Gastronomy is one of their big pushes,” explains McAulay.

“Being the only distillery in Macao, it’s working out amazing for us. The hotels and casinos are encouraged to support local food and beverage companies. It has given us quite a strong start.”

He isn’t the only entrepreneur who used the tourism slowdown to rethink his business model.

Asai, who uses only his first name professionally, owns several Portuguese restaurants and cafes around the territory. As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is known for food traditions like egg tarts, African chicken and bacalao (codfish fritters).

But Asai wants visitors to know there’s still an active, thriving Portuguese community in Macao – and they’re offering more than the usual favorites.

Egg custard tarts, or pasteis de natas in Portuguese, are one of the most popular souvenirs from Macao, with long lines at establishments like Lord Stow’s and Margaret’s.

Pasteis de Chaves is a small, trendy-looking cafe that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn. Though it does sell egg tarts, its name comes from the signature offering – beef stuffed pastries that offer a savory complement to the sweet eggy ones.

Across the road, Three Sardines is a romantic, dimly lit spot specializing in petiscos, a Portuguese equivalent of tapas with small plates like fried octopus and grilled peppers.

“Competition is high for Portuguese restaurants, but many are localized twisted versions of Portuguese food,” says Asai, who has been in Macao for 18 years and stayed through the pandemic. “We try to offer more traditional and unique experiences. This is a niche and helped us survive the pandemic.”

Now, he is one of many local business owners looking outward for the first time in several years as tourists slowly trickle back to Macao.

Like Owl Man, Asai’s restaurant group has received government support as Macao diversifies its food and drink scene.

For instance, he and head chef Pedro Almeida worked with the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) on a video to explain the origin of egg tarts and how they’re different in Macao and Portugal.

As the first international tourists began returning to Macao in February 2023, it was clear that a lot had changed.

Many small neighborhood restaurants closed during lockdown, and those that have reopened have had trouble staffing up after so many workers left the city permanently.

But new attractions have opened as well, with casinos trying to diversify their offerings and become more family-friendly.

The city’s first-ever outdoor zip line, ZipCity, opened at Taipa’s Lisboeta casino complex in January 2023. The timing worked out well, as mainland Chinese tourists flooded the city during Lunar New Year – a representative for the company says that ZipCity operated “at 90% capacity” during that holiday week.

Despite the pandemic, ongoing construction projects were still completed – if not necessarily on schedule.

Popular Japanese immersive art experience TeamLab opened an outpost at the Venetian in June 2020, and a new British-themed resort, The Londoner, opened in 2021 complete with penthouse suites designed by David Beckham.

Arguably the city’s most well-known landmark, the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, has been reinvigorated by a new on-site VR experience that enables visitors to see what the church looked like during different historical periods.

The city is rolling out incentives to bring back those tourists, as well.

People coming over via ferry from Hong Kong qualify for a buy-one-get-one free boat ticket if they’re staying at least one night in a hotel – an incentive to stay longer and not just make it a day trip.

Most businesses and vendors in Macao, including taxi drivers, will accept Hong Kong dollars – while very few of their counterparts in Hong Kong will accept the Macanese pataca.

Macao’s tourism authority also announced programs aimed at international travelers, including deals on package trips.

On the ground, things look lively.

Weekend ferries from Hong Kong have been selling out, and popular areas like Senado Square and the Guia Fortress – which is part of the city’s UNESCO-listed historical center – are thronged with visitors.

That includes casinos as well. On a recent mid-week visit, tables at the MGM and Venetian casinos were full of both gamblers and gawkers.

Macao dropped its mask mandate on February 26, with Hong Kong following suit a week later. However, many casino-goers still sported masks indoors once it became voluntary, perhaps due to the close quarters at blackjack tables.

For now, though, tourism is mostly regional.

According to data from Macao’s tourism authority, the majority of visitors arriving in January 2023 were from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

In January 2019, 3.4 million tourists came to Macao, with most from mainland China. In January 2023, 1.4 million visited, most during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Hometown airline Air Macau has been steadily ratcheting up capacity to add more flights from Singapore and Taipei, two of Macao’s biggest markets. More mainland China routes will return by March 26.

Low-cost Asian carriers like Cambodia Airways and Thai Vietjet also brought back their pre-pandemic air links.

“I think everyone expected (tourism) to bounce back, but talking to all our friends in the hotels and casinos, they’re saying their fourth quarter predictions have bounced back faster than they anticipated,” says McAulay, the Owl Man co-founder.

“I think it’s re-energizing.”

[ad_2]

Source link

March 14, 2023
Covid shrunk the restaurant industry. That’s not changing anytime soon | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN
—

It’s never been easy to operate a restaurant, and in recent years it’s been even harder.

In 2020, Covid restrictions ground the nation’s bustling restaurant industry to a halt. Since then, there have been significant signs of a rebound: Dining rooms have reopened and customers have returned to cafes, fine-dining establishments and fast food joints.

But there are fewer US restaurants today than in 2019. It’s not clear when —if ever — they’re coming back.

Last year, there were about 631,000 restaurants in the United States, according to data from Technomic, a restaurant research firm. That’s roughly 72,000 fewer than in 2019, when there were 703,000 restaurants in the country.

That number could fall even further this year, to about 630,000 locations, according to Technomic, which doesn’t foresee the number of restaurants in the US returning to pre-Covid levels even by 2026.

Sit-down restaurants, especially, are at a disadvantage as delivery and takeout remain popular. And with inflation still high, some potential customers are avoiding restaurants to save money. Meanwhile, restaurant operators are seeing their own costs, like rent and ingredients, rise, and say it’s hard to hire staff.

With conditions so tough, some restaurant owners are advising newcomers to steer clear of the industry altogether.

If someone were to ask David Nayfeld, chef and co-owner of the San Francisco restaurants Che Fico and Che Fico Alimentari, whether to open a new restaurant right now, his answer would be no.

“I would say it is not a good time to go open a restaurant if you are not a seasoned and incredibly durable operator,” he said. Especially now, when restaurant operators need experience and deep pockets in order to succeed, he added.

Even Nayfeld, himself an industry veteran who has worked at the famed Eleven Madison Park, is struggling. The pandemic led to “a really devastating few years that we’re still working our way out of,” he said.

Some have argued that the contraction is a painful but necessary correction.

“The narrative back pre-pandemic was that we were over-saturated … too many restaurants chasing too few consumer dollars,” said David Henkes, senior principal at Technomic.

Indeed, before the pandemic, the number of restaurants was growing between half a percent and one percent each year, he said, adding that the recent decline served to “reset” the size of the market. Without those hurdles, however, that decrease would likely have happened more slowly, he noted.

Daniel Jacobs, a chef and restaurant owner, has seen his own network of restaurants shrink over the past few years.

Prior to the pandemic, he and his business partner Dan Van Rite operated three restaurants and a bakery, plus a catering operation and restaurant consulting business. Today, they are left with two Milwaukee restaurants, DanDan and EsterEv.

“Closing a restaurant is an incredibly difficult decision to make,” Jacobs said. “We did our best during the pandemic to try and keep our teams together … at some point, you just gotta call it.”

The rise of takeout and delivery during the pandemic helped multiple restaurants survive the pandemic.

DanDan, a Chinese American restaurant, had offered takeout for years. The restaurant “had that customer confidence that we were going to deliver quality products,” he said.

EsterEv is a tasting-menu-only restaurant within a restaurant (functionally, a dining room located inside DanDan) open only on weekends, and “definitely wouldn’t have [made it] if we had to pay rent on a space,” Jacobs said.

The trend toward delivery and takeout has stuck, with restaurants reporting higher levels of off-premise orders. According to Revenue Management Solutions, a restaurant consultancy, delivery was up 11.4% in fast food and fast casual restaurants in January compared to last year.

“We increasingly like to get our food on the go,” said David Portalatin, food service industry advisor for the NPD Group, a market research firm. “We’re still a more home-centric society.”

Plus, sit-down restaurants tend to be more expensive, which could drive cash-strapped customers away, said Portalatin. Even with rising grocery prices, eating at home is generally less expensive than dining out, and restaurants last year saw their foot traffic dip.

Full-service restaurants are also more labor intensive. That’s a problem right now, as restaurant owners report having a hard time hiring staff.

Job openings in accommodation and food services rose by 409,000 in December, the largest increase by sector for the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in February.

Demand for workers marks a turnaround from early in the pandemic, when restaurants let go of millions of staffers. Some employees also left of their own volition during the pandemic, afraid of getting sick with Covid-19 or tired of dealing with grueling conditions and rude customers.

Today, some of those workers haven’t returned, leaving operators struggling to restaff.

“Fundamentally, the labor situation is one where … there’s just not enough supply of qualified workers,” Henkes said. “And restaurants are particularly vulnerable, because it’s never been the industry of choice for a lot of people.”

Some restaurants, Henkes said, “are very cognizant that they need to improve the working experience and what they’re offering to employees,” he said. “But doing that at scale for an industry is very hard.”

And, of course, some major employers are not interested in higher wages for workers.

Chipotle, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s and KFC-owner Yum Brands, for example, have each donated $1 million to Save Local Restaurants, a coalition opposing a California law that could set minimum wage up to $22 an hour and codify working conditions for fast-food employees in the state.

[ad_2]

Source link

February 25, 2023
Why Pizza Hut’s red roofs and McDonald’s play places have disappeared | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN Business
—

For decades, bright, playful and oddly-shaped fast-food restaurants dotted the roadside along America’s highways.

You’d drive by Howard Johnson’s with its orange roofs and then pass Pizza Hut’s red-topped huts. A few more miles and there was the roadside White Castle with its turrets. Arby’s roof was shaped like a wagon and Denny’s resembled a boomerang. And then McDonald’s, with its neon golden arches towering above its restaurants.

These quirky designs were an early form of brand advertising, gimmicks meant to grab drivers’ attention and get them to stop in.

As fast-food chains spread across the US after World War II, new roadside restaurant brands needed to stand out. Television was new media not yet beamed into every single home, newspapers were still ascendant and social media unimaginable.

So restaurant chains turned to architecture as a key tool to promote their brand and help create their corporate identity.

But the fast-food architecture of today has lost its quirky charm and distinctive features. Shifts in the restaurant industry, advertising and technology have made fast-food exteriors bland and spiritless, critics say.

Goodbye bright colors and unusual shapes. Today, the design is minimal and sleek. Most fast-food restaurants are built to maximize efficiency, not catch motorists’ attention. Many are shaped like boxes, decorated with fake wooden paneling, imitation stone or brick exteriors, and flat roofs. One critic has called this trend “faux five-star restaurants” intended to make customers forget they are eating greasy fries and burgers.

The chains now sport nearly identical looks. Call it the gentrification of fast-food design.

“They’re soulless little boxes,” said Glen Coben, an architect who has designed boutique hotels, restaurants and stores. “They’re like Monopoly homes.”

Fast-food restaurants developed and expanded in the mid-twentieth century with the explosion of car culture and the development of interstate highways.

Large companies came to dominate highway restaurants through a strategy known as “place-product-packaging” – the coordination of building design, decor, menu, service and pricing, according to John Jakle, the author of “Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age.”

Fast-food chains’ buildings were designed to catch the eye of potential customers driving by at high speeds and get them to slow down.

“The buildings had to be visually strong and bold,” said Alan Hess, an architecture critic and historian. “That included neon signs and the shape of the building.”

A leading example: McDonald’s design, with its two golden arches sloping over the roof of its restaurant, a style known as Googie.

Introduced in California in 1953, McDonald’s design was influenced by ultra-modern coffee shops and roadside stands of Southern California, then the heart of budding fast-food chains.

The two 25-foot bright yellow sheet-metal arches that rose through the McDonald’s buildings were tall enough to attract drivers amid the clutter of other roadside buildings, their neon trim gleaming day and night. McDonald’s design set off a wave of similar Googie-style architecture at fast-food chains nationwide.

Well into the 1970s, the designs were a prominent fixture of the American roadside, “imprinting the image of fast-food drive-in architecture in the popular consciousness,” Hess wrote in a journal article.

But there was a backlash to this aesthetic. As the environmental movement developed in the 1960s, opposition to the conspicuous Googie style grew. Critics called it “visual pollution.”

“Critics hated this populist, roadside commercial California architecture,” Hess said. Googie style fell out of fashion in the 1970s as fast-food style favored dark colors, brick and mansard roofs.

McDonald’s new prototype became a low-profile mansard roof and brick design with shingle texture. Its arches moved from atop the building to signposts and became McDonald’s corporate logo.

“McDonald’s and Jack in the Box unfurled their neon and Day Glo banners and architectural containers against the endless sky,” the New York Times said in 1978. They have been “toned down with the changing taste of the 60’s and 70’s.” And with the growth of mass communications advertising campaigns, brands no longer relied on architectural features to stand out –they could simply flood the television airwaves.

In the 1980s and 1990s, companies began introducing children’s play areas and party rooms to draw families – additions to existing “brown” structures, Hess said.

The rise of mobile ordering and cost concerns since then altered modern fast-food design.

With fewer people sitting down for full meals at fast-food restaurants, companies didn’t need elaborate dining areas. So today they’re expanding drive-thru lanes, increasing the number of pickup windows and adding digital kiosks in stores.

“We have a lot of red-roof restaurants” that “clearly need to go away,” a Pizza Hut executive said in 2018 of its classic design. The company’s new prototype, “Hut Lanes,” helps to speed up wait times at drive-thru locations.

The new fast-food box designs with their flat roofs are more efficient to heat and cool than older structures, said John Gordon, a restaurant consultant. Kitchens have been reconfigured to speed up food preparation. They’re also cheaper to build, maintain and staff a smaller store.

But in the effort to modernize, some say fast-food design has became homogenized and lost its creative purpose.

“I don’t know if you’d be able to identify what they were if they had a different name on the front,” said Addison Del Mastro, an urbanist writer who documents the history of commercial landscapes. “There’s nothing to engage the wandering imagination.”

[ad_2]

Source link

February 18, 2023
Beloved ‘Weinerman’ statue returned to West Virginia restaurant | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

A West Virginia restaurant is celebrating after its beloved “Weinerman” statue was returned.

The statue was stolen from Dairy Winkle, a restaurant in Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia, according to a January 19 news release from the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office.

The business suffered a fire on January 11. The restaurant owner reported that in the days after the fire, someone broke into the building and stole the statue.

The treasured statue depicts a smiling anthropomorphic hot dog licking its lips and squeezing bottles of ketchup and mustard. The sheriff’s office described the figurine as a “cherished novelty of the business” with a value of $1,000.

Sheriffs received a tip about the statue’s whereabouts and found it. The statue was safely returned, undamaged, to the Dairy Winkle, according to the news release.

On Facebook, the restaurant’s owner expressed gratitude for the officers who helped return the statue. “Weinerman had been found and had been safely returned to the DairyWinkle,” reads the post. “Thank you to the officers who returned him home.”

A suspect has not been identified and an active investigation is underway, according to the sheriffs’ news release.

[ad_2]

Source link

January 29, 2023
Denny’s says safety is top priority after fallen restaurant sign kills 72-year-old Kentucky woman | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

A 72-year-old woman died Thursday afternoon after a Denny’s sign fell and crushed a car in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, according to police.

A spokesperson for the restaurant chain said the company is working with authorities to assess the situation.

“Denny’s is aware of the incident that took place at our Elizabethtown location on Thursday. Safety is our top priority, and we are working with the authorities to better understand what led to this situation,” Denny’s said in a statement provided to CNN.

“Our thoughts are with all of those involved,” the statement said.

All three people inside the vehicle had to be extracted – two adult females and one adult male, said Elizabethtown Police Public Information Officer, Chris Denham. Elizabethtown is about 45 miles south of Louisville.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Denham told CNN affiliate WAVE. “It’s certainly very windy out here and I’m certain that did have a factor and was involved in this.”

There was a wind advisory in effect Thursday afternoon, with gusts peaking from 45 to 55 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

The woman killed was identified Friday as 72-year-old Lillian Curtis, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said in a media release obtained by CNN.

The cause of death was listed as “blunt force injuries” when the restaurant sign fell on the vehicle, according to the release.

In an update Friday afternoon, the Elizabethtown Police Department told CNN that Curtis was sitting in the backseat of the vehicle at the time. The vehicle was not Curtis’ and the other two passengers in the car were her daughter and husband, police said.

The 72-year-old woman was transported to the University of Louisville Hospital in critical condition and later died, according to police.

The two other adults were transported to Baptist Health Hardin with non-life-threatening injuries, Denham said.

The investigation is ongoing, Denham said.

[ad_2]

Source link

January 20, 2023
The best food marketing stunts of the year | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN
—

Comically oversized snack foods. A cocktail infused with processed cheese. And a fine dining establishment for feline lovers.

In 2022, there were plenty of restaurants, food manufacturers and at least one artist collective that tried to break through with their shenanigans.

These food stunts were often outrageous and sometimes regrettable. But only a few unleashed items that made us say, “wait, what? Why would you do that? Who would eat that?” And, occasionally: “that actually sounds pretty good.”

Here’s what caught our attention this year.

Over the summer, Kraft Heinz

(KHC) introduced a new cocktail: The Veltini, a martini made with Velveeta-infused vodka, olive brine and vermouth, garnished with Velveeta-stuffed olives and Velveeta-stuffed shells. The concoction was available for a limited time at BLT steakhouses in New York, Washington, D.C., Charlotte and elsewhere.

The drink was part of Kraft Heinz’s broader efforts to reinvigorate the Velveeta brand after it saw sales of the processed cheese jump during the pandemic. To help Velveeta stage a comeback, the brand launched a new ad campaign, made tweaks to its logo and sold a cheese-scented nail polish.

The Veltini made a splash, even though (or perhaps because) those brave enough to try it were unenthused.

One Washington Post writer said it looked “like a deranged cheese monster, with olives as beady eyes and a dripping Velveeta cheese rim as a lopsided mouth.” The Today Show’s Hoda Kotb tried it on air, reluctantly, and was not a fan. “Yuck,” she said, “No, girl, no.” Her co-host, Jenna Bush Hager, said it wasn’t bad.

To be clear, this isn’t orange juice cereal: It’s cereal designed to be eaten with orange juice instead of milk. OJ-maker Tropicana sold the honey almond cereal for a limited time in May in honor of National Orange Juice Day.

The brand acknowledged that people might not be into the combination. “Whether you hate it or love it, you won’t know until you try it,” Tropicana said. “It may not be for everyone.”

One reviewer who gave the franken-breakfast a shot described it as “not bad,” adding “I can’t imagine eating a bowl of this every day.”

Plus, she said, it didn’t taste like it was supposed to go with orange juice specifically. “There’s absolutely nothing different from other cereals.”

In August, Oscar Mayer, also owned by Kraft Heinz, introduced the “Cold Dog”: A hot-dog flavored popsicle. The item was sold for a limited time at Popbar locations in New York City, New Orleans and elsewhere.

The idea came from a June Instagram post by Oscar Mayer which asked followers whether the idea was “genius” or “stupid.” Comments on the post range from horrified to intrigued. Enough people were interested to give Oscar Mayer the green light.

“After the overwhelming fan excitement for our beloved Cold Dog, it was a no-brainer to make this hot dog-inspired frozen pop a reality,” Anne Field, an Oscar Mayer spokesperson, said in a press release at the time.

So how did it taste? In at least one reviewer’s opinion, pretty good.

“I was beyond skeptical of how they could make a hot dog popsicle taste good. And somehow, they managed to do it!” according to a writer at Delish, who noted that Popbar uses gelato as the base for its pops. “The gelato is extremely creamy and has a strong smokey flavor that balances out the popsicle’s delicate sweetness. The sweet ‘mustard’ drizzle makes it taste more like a proper ice cream.”

In late June, Taco Bell tested out an item called a “Big Cheez-It Tostada.” As the name implies, it’s a tostada which used a Big Cheez-It — specifically, a Cheez-It 16 times larger than a regular one — as its base. The chain also tested out a “Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme,” which included the giant Cheez-It within the wrap.

The items were available for a limited-time at one Taco Bell location. On July 3, within a week of the launch, Taco Bell reported that the items had already sold out. “The Big Cheez-It Tostada and Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap are in such Big demand that our limited offer is no longer available,” the chain said.

Reviewers who tried the item were mixed. “Very cheesy, mmm” said one. Another concluded that “it’s not bad, it’s just weird.” Some noted that the Cheez-It, big though it may be, was not strong enough to maintain the weight of the toppings.

A large Cheez-It was also utilized by Pizza Hut in 2019, when the pizza chain introduced its stuffed Cheez-It pizza. The limited-time item included “four baked jumbo squares” stuffed with cheese or pepperoni and cheese, and came with a side of marinara sauce for dipping.

Unlike the Big Cheez-It Tostada, the Big Froot Loop is an unauthorized creation, made by the artist collective MSCHF.

The loop weighs nearly half a pound, is 930 calories and recently went on sale for $19.99. MSCHF tried to make the big loop taste as much as possible like the real thing, according to MSCHF’s co-founder Daniel Greenberg.

“We look at things in culture and figure out how to make a twist on it,” Greenberg previously told CNN. The thinking behind the project was straightforward: “Let’s make a big f—ing fruit loop and that was it.” According to the MSCHF site, the item, which went on sale December 19, is already sold out.

Kellogg’s, which makes actual Froot Loops, was not into it.

“Kellogg Company does not have a relationship with MSCHF and we were not involved in the creation of the Big Fruit Loop,” Kellogg spokesperson Kris Bahner previously told CNN in a statement. “The campaign does not accurately depict the Kellogg’s brand.”

Bahner added that “given the trademark infringement and unauthorized use of our brand, we have reached out to the company seeking an amicable resolution.”

Over the summer, Fancy Feast invited people to answer the question: What does cat food taste like? Well, sort of.

The cat food maker briefly opened a restaurant called “Gatto Bianco by Fancy Feast” in New York City in August. Gatto Bianco was open for just two nights, with four seatings per night.

The restaurant dishes drew inspiration from Fancy Feast Medleys, cat food that is itself inspired by human food like salmon primavera and turkey florentine. The restaurant’s menu was created by Amanda Hassner, in-house chef for Fancy Feast, as well as restaurateur Cesare Casella, a Michelin star winner, according to a Fancy Feast press release.

“Food has the power to connect us to others in meaningful ways and take us to places we have never been,” Hassner said in a statement at the time. “The same is true for our cats.”

Hassner added that “the dishes at Gatto Bianco are prepared in ways that help cat owners understand how their cats experience food — from flavor, to texture, to form.” On the menu, according to OpenTable, were baked sea bass, spare ribs, salmon, braised beef and for dessert, panna cotta, almond cake and affogato.

A Mashable reporter dined at the exclusive restaurant and reported that “the food is tasty,” and the atmosphere feline. “The design of the restaurant itself is practically an Instagram installation for the cat-obsessed, complete with ornate cat wallpaper, gold-embellished Fancy Feast cloth napkins, and cat art (as in, artwork of cats, not art made by cats).”

As a permanent addition to the Papa Johns menu, the no-crust, toppings-only Papa Bowls are technically not a stunt.

But the menu offering was so polarizing when it launched in August that we had to give it a nod.

The bowls were devised to help combat pandemic-induced pizza fatigue by giving Papa Johns customers an option that was, let’s say, pizza adjacent. The company also hoped that the bowls would eliminate the “veto vote,” when a restaurant is ruled out because it doesn’t have enough options for everyone in the dining party.

The bowls come in three varieties: Chicken Alfredo; Italian Meats Trio with pepperoni, sausage and meatballs; and Garden Veggie. There’s also a build-your-own option.

The announcement made quite a splash. Comedian Jon Stewart, who has made repeated jabs at Arby’s, said he owed an apology to the chain upon seeing news of the Papa Bowl. At least one YouTube reviewer panned the bowls, saying it was gross and slimy. But some people thought it was a good idea.

And during a November analyst call, Papa Johns CEO Rob Lynch said the bowls are “performing well and in line with our expectations.”

— Zoe Sottile and CNN’s Jordan Valinsky contributed to this report.

[ad_2]

Source link

December 23, 2022
How much should you tip your barista? | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN
—

A new checkout trend is sweeping across America, making for an increasingly awkward experience: digital tip jars.

You order a coffee, an ice cream, a salad or a slice of pizza and pay with your credit card or phone. Then, an employee standing behind the counter spins around a touch screen and slides it in front of you. The screen has a few suggested tip amounts – usually 10%, 15% or 20%. There’s also often an option to leave a custom tip or no tip at all.

The worker is directly across from you. Other customers are standing behind, waiting impatiently and looking over your shoulder to see how much you tip. And you must make a decision in seconds. Oh lord, the stress.

Customers and workers today are confronted with a radically different tipping culture compared to just a few years ago — without any clear norms. Although consumers are accustomed to tipping waiters, bartenders and other service workers, tipping a barista or cashier may be a new phenomenon for many shoppers. It’s being driven in large part by changes in technology that have enabled business owners to more easily shift the costs of compensating workers directly to customers.

“I don’t know how much you’re supposed to tip and I study this,” said Michael Lynn, a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell University and one of the leading researchers on US tipping habits.

Adding to the changing dynamics, customers were encouraged to tip generously during the pandemic to help keep restaurants and stores afloat, raising expectations. Total tips for full-service restaurants were up 25% during the latest quarter compared to a year ago, while tips at quick-service restaurants were up 17%, according to data from Square.

The shift to digital payments also accelerated during the pandemic, leading stores to replace old-fashioned cash tip jars with tablet touch screens. But these screens and the procedures for digital tipping have proven more intrusive than a low-pressure cash tip jar with a few bucks in it.

Customers are overwhelmed by the number of places where they now have the option to tip and feel pressure about whether to add a gratuity and for how much. Some people deliberately walk away from the screen without doing anything to avoid making a decision, say etiquette experts who study tipping culture and consumer behavior.

Tipping can be an emotionally charged decision. Attitudes towards tipping in these new settings vary widely.

Some customers tip no matter what. Others feel guilty if they don’t tip or embarrassed if their tip is stingy. And others eschew tipping for a $5 iced coffee, saying the price is already high enough.

“The American public feels like tipping is out of control because they’re experiencing it in places they’re not used to,” said Lizzie Post, co-president of the Emily Post Institute and its namesake’s great-great-granddaughter. “Moments where tipping isn’t expected makes people less generous and uncomfortable.”

Starbucks has rolled out tipping this year as an option for customers paying with credit and debit cards. Some Starbucks baristas told CNN that the tips are adding extra money to their paychecks, but customers shouldn’t feel obligated to tip every time.

One barista in Washington State said that he understands if a customer doesn’t tip for a drip coffee order. But if he makes a customized drink after spending time talking to the customer about exactly how it should be made, “it does make me a little bit disappointed if I don’t receive a tip.”

“If someone can afford Starbucks every day, they can afford to tip on at least a few of those trips,” added the employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

The option to tip is seemingly everywhere today, but the practice has a troubled history in the United States.

Tipping spread after the Civil War as an exploitative measure to keep down wages of newly-freed slaves in service occupations. Pullman was the most notable for its tipping policies. The railroad company hired thousands of Black porters, but paid them low wages and forced them to rely on tips to make a living.

Critics of tipping argued that it created an imbalance between customers and workers, and several states passed laws in the early 1900s to ban the practice.

In “The Itching Palm,” a 1916 diatribe on tipping in America, writer William Scott said that tipping was “un-American” and argued that “the relation of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation of master and slave.”

But tipping service workers was essentially built into law by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the federal minimum wage that excluded restaurant and hospitality workers. This allowed the tipping system to proliferate in these industries.

In 1966, Congress created a “subminimum” wage for tipped workers. The federal minimum wage for tipped employees has stood at $2.13 per hour — lower than the $7.25 federal minimum — since 1991, although many states require higher base wages for tipped employees. If a server’s tips don’t add up to the federal minimum, the law says that the employer must make up the difference. But this doesn’t always happen. Wage theft and other wage violations are common in the service industry.

The Department of Labor considers any employee working in a job that “customarily and regularly” receives more than $30 a month in tips as eligible to be classified a tipped worker. Experts estimate there are more than five million tipped workers in the United States.

Just how much to tip is entirely subjective and varies across industries, and the link between the quality of service and the tip amount is surprisingly weak, Lynn from Cornell said.

He theorized that a 15% to 20% tip at restaurants became standard because of a cycle of competition among customers. Many people tip to gain social approval or with the expectation of better service. As tip levels increase, other customers start tipping more to avoid any losses in status or risk poorer service.

The gig economy has also changed tipping norms. An MIT study released in 2019 found that customers are less likely to tip when workers have autonomy over whether and when to work. Nearly 60% of Uber customers never tip, while only about 1% always tip, a 2019 University of Chicago study found.

What makes it confusing, Lynn said, is that “there’s no central authority that establishes tipping norms. They come from the bottom up. Ultimately, it’s what people do that helps establish what other people should do.”

You should almost always tip workers earning the subminimum wage such as restaurant servers and bartenders, say advocates and tipping experts.

When given the option to tip in places where workers make an hourly wage, such as Starbucks baristas, customers should use their discretion and remove any guilt from their decision, etiquette experts say. Tips help these workers supplement their income and are always encouraged, but it’s okay to say no.

Etiquette experts recommend that customers approach the touch screen option the same way they would a tip jar. If they would leave change or a small cash tip in the jar, do so when prompted on the screen.

“A 10% tip for takeaway food is a really common amount. We also see change or a single dollar per order,” said Lizzie Post. If you aren’t sure what to do, ask the worker if the store has a suggested tip amount.

Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, which advocates to end subminimum wage policies, encourages customers to tip. But tips should never count against service workers’ wages, and customers must demand that businesses pay workers a full wage, she said.

“We’ve got to tip, but it’s got to be combined with telling employers that tips have to be on top, not instead of, a full minimum wage,” she said.

[ad_2]

Source link

December 17, 2022
Mark, Albania’s last ‘restaurant bear,’ arrives at sanctuary after over 20 years of captivity | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

After over twenty years in captivity, Mark, the last of Albania’s “restaurant bears,” has safely arrived at his new home, an animal sanctuary in Austria, according to the animal rescue group Four Paws International.

So-called “restaurant bears” have historically been kept in tiny cages near restaurants or hotels, where they served as an attraction for tourists, according to Four Paws. In 2016, the nonprofit launched the “Saddest Bears” campaign in an effort to relocate the more than 30 bears being used as entertainment in the country.

Mark, a 24-year old brown bear, is the last known “restaurant bear” in Albania, according to a news release from Four Paws, although there are other bears in captivity in poor circumstances in the country. He was rescued on December 7 and arrived at his new home, “BEAR SANCTUARY Arbesbach” in Austria on Friday.

When Four Paws first encountered Mark, the animal was suffering from severe health problems. He was overweight, had broken teeth and displayed “abnormal” behaviors like pacing due to the lack of stimulation in his cramped cage, Four Paws said in a previous news release.

The bear embarked on a 44-hour journey to his new home, according to the organization. He traveled through North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary before finally reaching the sanctuary.

But he was “calm and relaxed” during the trek, according to Four Paws.

“We made regular stops for our accompanying vet to check on him and fed him with fruits and vegetables,” Magdalena Scherk-Trettin, who coordinates Four Paws’ wild animal rescue and advocacy projects, said in the release. “After receiving an inappropriate diet of restaurant leftovers and mainly bread for two decades, he was a little reluctant about the vegetables, but munched happily on the grapes we gave him.”

Mark was slow to explore his snowy new habitat, according to Four Paws. He hadn’t stepped outside a cage in over twenty years. He’ll stay in a smaller outdoor enclosure for the time being until he adjusts to his new environment and moves to a larger enclosure.

The sanctuary in Arbesbach has operated since 1988, according to its website. Mark will join three other rescued grizzly bears who live on 14,000 square meters of “natural surroundings.”

“With Mark’s rescue we ended the cruel practice of keeping him next to a restaurant to attract and entertain visitors,” Four Paws’ president Josef Pfabigan said in the release. “We are now one step closer to a world where people treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding.”

[ad_2]

Source link

December 10, 2022
Julius’ Bar, the site of an essential 1960s LGBT protest, is officially a historic landmark | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Julius’ Bar, one of New York City’s oldest LGBT bars and the location of a crucial 1960s protest, has been officially recognized as a city landmark.

The bar was officially recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 6th, according to a news release from the New York City government.

The city called the bar “one of the city’s most significant sites of LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) history” in the news release.

Julius’ was the site of the 1966 “Sip-in,” a protest against homophobic discrimination – although at the time, the bar wasn’t an explicitly LGBT space. Four men named Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and Randy Wicker staged the event to protest the persecution of gay men for drinking in public, according to the National Park Service. Bars and restaurants could be raided for “disorderly” conduct, which included men flirting and kissing, says the service. So bars often refused to serve clients who they knew were gay.

At Julius’, the men announced they were gay – and the bartender refused to serve them, saying it was illegal. The men successfully brought a court case challenging that interpretation of the law. And in 1967, “the courts ruled that indecent behavior had to be more than same-sex ‘cruising’” kissing or touching,” says the National Park Service. “Gays could legally drink in a bar.”

Julius’, located in New York City’s West Village, is a crucial piece of the city’s history: The bar has been open since the 1860s, according to the National Park Service. And today, it openly describes itself as a gay bar on its social media.

“The ‘Sip-In’ at Julius’ was a pivotal moment in our city and our nation’s LGBTQ+ history, and this designation today marks not only that moment but also Julius’ half-century as a home for New York City’s LGBTQ+ community,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams in the city news release. “Honoring a location where New Yorkers were once denied service solely on account of their sexuality reinforces something that should already be clear: LGBTQ+ New Yorkers are welcome anywhere in our city.”

Council member Erik Botcher thanked the activists who pushed for the landmark designation in the release.

“As a gay man who enjoys countless freedoms that were unimaginable in their time, I owe enormous debt to the activists who made Julius’ Bar the site of their protest.” Bottcher said in the release. “Landmarks should tell the history of all New Yorkers, including those from marginalized communities.”

And the landmark status will help ensure the historical site is preserved for decades.

“The Commission’s designation of the Julius’ Bar Building today recognizes and protects the site of the 1966 ‘Sip-In,’ an important early protest against the persecution of LGBTQ+ people that drew vital attention to unjust laws and practices and paved the way for future milestones in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” said Sarah Carroll, the landmarks preservation commission chair, in the release.

“This building represents that history and has remained an important place to commemorate it,” she went on.

[ad_2]

Source link

December 10, 2022
A bartender who found a place to shine. A non-profit worker with a ‘huge heart.’ These are the victims of the Colorado club shooting | CNN
[ad_1]
CNN
—

As Colorado Springs residents and leaders wrap their arms around the 17 people injured and others traumatized in the Club Q shooting, loved ones are remembering five patrons who did not survive the attack on the beloved LGBTQ nightclub.

The Colorado Springs Police Department identified the five victims as:
Raymond Green Vance (he/him)

Kelly Loving (she/her)

Daniel Aston (he/him)

Derrick Rump (he/him)

Ashley Paugh (she/ her)
Some of the victims worked at Club Q, while others were there to enjoy the evening festivities.

Here are their stories:

Derrick Rump’s sister, Julia Kissling, confirmed his name to CNN and one of its affiliates.

Rump – who was a bartender at Club Q – had “found a community of people that he loved really much, and he felt that he could shine there – and he did,” Kissling told CNN affiliate WFMZ. “He made a difference in so many people’s lives, and that’s where he wanted to be.”

Tiara Kelley, who performed at the club the night before the incident, told CNN Rump and his coworker Daniel Aston were polar opposites in many ways, but worked well together.

“They were just amazing, and every bar should have a Daniel and a Derrick,” Kelley said.

Aston’s parents confirmed his identity to The Denver Post. The 28-year-old was a bar supervisor at Club Q, said bartender Michael Anderson, who had known Aston for a few years and considered him a friend.

The night of the shooting, Anderson saw the gunman and ducked behind the bar where he and Aston worked as glass rained down around him, he told CNN on Monday. He thought he was going to die, said a prayer and as he moved to escape the scene, he saw two people who he didn’t know beating and kicking the gunman, he said.

Anderson was crushed to learn Aston hadn’t made it out of the bar, which Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ community considered a safe space.

“He was the best supervisor anybody could’ve asked for. He made me want to come into work, and he made me want to be a part of the positive culture we were trying to create there,” Anderson said.

He added that Aston was an “amazing person. He was a light in my life, and it’s surreal that we’re even talking about him in the past tense like this.”

Aston moved to Colorado Springs two years ago to be closer to his mother and father, parents Jeff and Sabrina Aston told The Denver Post. The club was a few minutes from their home, and after one of Daniel’s friends told them he’d been shot, they rushed to the emergency room – only to find he’d never arrived.

Daniel Aston was 4 when he told his mother he was a boy, and it was another decade before he came out as transgender, his mother told the newspaper. He thought himself bashful, but that wasn’t the case, she said. He never knew a stranger, even as a kid.

“He had so much more life to give to us, and to all his friends and to himself,” she told The Post.

“He always said, ‘I’m shy,’ but he wasn’t. He wrote poetry. He loved to dress up. He got into drama in high school. He’s an entertainer. That’s what he really loves.”

Ashley Paugh’s family released a statement on her behalf Monday saying they were “absolutely devastated.”

“She meant everything to this family, and we can’t even begin to understand what it will mean to not have her in our lives,” the statement read.

Paugh was a mother, and her daughter Ryleigh “was her whole world,” the statement read, adding that Paugh was big on family.

“She loved her dad, her sister, and her family; Ashley was a loving aunt, with many nieces and nephews who are devastated by her loss,” the statement read.

Paugh had “a huge heart,” which she was able to show through her work at Kids Crossing, a nonprofit that looks to help find homes for foster children, according to the statement.

“She would do anything for the kids – traveling all over southeastern Colorado, from Pueblo and Colorado Springs to Fremont County and the Colorado border, working to raise awareness and encourage individuals and families to become foster parents to children in our community,” the statement read, adding that Paugh worked with the LGBTQ community to find welcoming foster placements.

Paugh also loved the outdoors through activities like hunting, fishing and riding four-wheelers, the statement read.
[ad_2]

Source link
November 21, 2022
Fact check: Trump responds to special counsel news with debunked claim about Obama and the Bushes | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

In former President Donald Trump’s first extended response to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Friday announcement that he had appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of government documents after he left office, Trump defended himself with dishonesty – repeating his false and thoroughly debunked claims about how other ex-presidents handled official records.

Trump, speaking Friday night at a gala at his Mar-a-Lago resort and residence, asked why there is not an investigation into “all of the other presidents that preceded me,” including but not limited to Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. He claimed that these previous presidents “kept documents,” and he continued: “In one case, they had it in a Chinese restaurant with broken windows. And in another case they had a Chinese restaurant connected to a bowling alley. This is where the documents were kept. They took documents with them. President Obama took documents.”

Merrick Garland announces special counsel to oversee Trump investigations

Facts First: Trump’s claims are, again, false – and they have been debunked by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) itself. As NARA explained in an August statement, Barack Obama did not take the presidential documents Trump claimed Obama had taken. Rather, NARA itself moved documents from the Obama administration to a NARA-managed facility in the Chicago area, near where Obama’s presidential library is being built. NARA similarly explained in a statement in October, after Trump added other past presidents to the baseless narrative, that neither of the Bushes took the documents Trump claimed they had taken. Again, it was NARA that took the Bushes’ presidential documents to facilities that NARA managed near the future locations of their presidential libraries.

In other words, there is no equivalence between Trump’s situation – in which he allegedly took hundreds of classified documents, plus numerous other presidential records, to the Mar-a-Lago resort and residence – and the situations, or really non-situations, of his predecessors.

Trump used the Friday speech to deliver a variety of other criticism of Garland’s decision to appoint the special counsel, veteran prosecutor Jack Smith. Smith will also oversee a second criminal investigation that involves Trump, that one into whether anybody “unlawfully interfered” with the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election or with the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College “on or about” January 6, 2021. (Smith won’t oversee the investigations or prosecutions of people who physically breached the Capitol that day.)

Trump’s suggestion that past presidents’ documents were stored in an insecure manner is also false.

The facility where George H.W. Bush’s presidential documents were temporarily stored, in College Station, Texas, was indeed a former bowling alley connected to a former Chinese restaurant. But by the time Bush’s records arrived, the building had been turned by NARA into a professional archiving facility with extensive security measures and no more bowling lanes or equipment.

Though Trump has repeatedly claimed or suggested that the College Station facility was not secure – this time he said it had “broken windows” – this narrative is baseless, too. In its October statement, NARA said that all of the temporary facilities where it stored past presidents’ documents “met strict archival and security standards.” NARA said that “reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.”

You don’t have to take NARA’s recent word for it. The Associated Press reported in 1994: “Uniformed guards patrol the premises. There are closed-circuit television monitors and sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors. Some printed material is classified and will remain so for years; it is open only to those with top-secret clearances.”

Finally, it is not a revelation that the facility had a colorful past as a restaurant and alley; NARA officials publicly joked about this at the time. It’s normal for NARA to lease large buildings that formerly had some other purpose. The Washington Post reported in 1993: “There aren’t any lanes anymore. No gutters, no pins, no beer. Thanks to a rush remodeling job after last November’s election, there are a few simple offices, a massive, fire-resistant vault and row after row of steel shelves filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates.”

Trump has continued making these false claims about his predecessors not only despite the NARA statements debunking them but despite numerous fact-checks from major media outlets. He also made the claim about Obama supposedly taking documents in the Tuesday speech in which he announced his 2024 presidential candidacy; CNN fact-checked it then, too.

Legal experts in new report conclude there’s a ‘strong basis’ to charge Trump

[ad_2]

Source link

November 20, 2022
Corporate entertaining has come roaring back | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN Business
—

Samuel Roe, regional sales manager for Terlato Wines, had business associates visiting a few weeks ago and called a friend at one of the most expensive rooftop eateries in New York to ask if his group could get a table.

He got a reservation, he said, but also a request: “Make sure to spend money.”

Executives with corporate expense accounts who used to order $200 bottles of wine are “showing off” and ordering $1,000 ones these days, Roe explained. His friend didn’t want to get in trouble for bringing in a less-profitable party. The restaurant’s private room goes for $12,000 a night. Lately, it is always booked.

Boosted by a Covid-era tax break-window that closes at the end of the year — and under pressure to cement ties and reassure clients — companies are now spending big on wining and dining current and potential customers.

“The last two to three years have been incredibly difficult,” said Thomas Donohue, chief marketing officer for Culinary Solutions, a Sterling, Virginia food company whose partners and clients include Starbucks

(SBUX), Hilton

(HLT) and American Airlines

(AAL).

“We wanted to reconnect with these people, we needed splash, engagement,” he saId. The company, which has operations globally, needed something that would make clients “want to get on a plane from Singapore, from Japan” to attend.

On Jan. 26 Culinary Solutions is hosting elaborate events with celebrity chefs in Washington, DC, Reims, France and Bangkok to celebrate “sous vide” day, the French cooking technique the company specializes in.

Donohoe declined to disclose costs but noted that in France, “there may be a castle and Champagne caves.”

The wining and dining surge began last summer and accelerated when many Wall Street workers were ordered back to the office in the fall, said chef Eric Ripert of New York seafood eatery Le Bernardin, a three-star Michelin restaurant that is one of the city’s most expensive.

“It’s just like when kids go back to school and don’t want to, but then they get excited,” he said. “It’s just like that but with adults. And tequila.”

Corporations, hedge funds, and especially real estate companies “are realizing the recovery is another year or so away,” said New York event planner Lawrence Scott. “They figure the only way they are going to stay in the biz is entertaining.”

Events are smaller, say 60 guests instead of 200. “They’re inviting the [clients] who will keep their boats afloat.”

Le Bernardin’s private rooms have been largely booked for the holidays since late September, Ripert said. And in the restaurant, guests typically opt for the $298 chef’s tasting menu — $468 with wine pairings. Business has specifically been boosted, Ripert’s managers tell him, by the soon-to-expire tax break.

Dubbed the enhanced deduction, “for 2021 and 2022 only, businesses can generally deduct the full cost of business-related food and beverages purchased from a restaurant. Otherwise, the limit is usually 50% of the cost of the meal,” according to the IRS.

This kind of spending, of course, is in direct contrast to what most consumers are doing when they’re paying for meals themselves: cutting back sharply. Inflation and gas costs are historically high and recession worries are mounting.

Meanwhile, the restaurant industry is still struggling with “staffing, food costs and supply issues,” said Food-TV celebrity chef Maneet Chauhan, who owns Indian, Chinese and American restaurants in the Nashville area.

But companies feel they have to spend to compete and to keep their relationships upbeat, especially after years of lockdowns and Zoom meetings.

“Everything changed after Covid,” said R. Couri Hay, publicist in New York. “People don’t want to go out anymore, they got lazy. They started to edit events – and when they do go out, they say ‘Wonderful you’re still here, you’re still alive!’ ”

In particular, companies are scrambling to attract younger guests and the next generation of businesses, Hay said. “They think: You’ve got to do an extravaganza.”

During the pandemic, group dinners or parties were rare. At first charity events started returning, then weddings. After that, according to restaurateurs and event planners across the country, came bar and bat mitzvahs.

But now it is bankers, watch manufacturers, real estate investors and executives launching new projects, with manufacturers, retailers and “tech bros” also throwing the more expensive dinners and lavish parties.

Bill Laurie, an auto-technology supplier, has begun taking current and prospective clients out to dinner again at top Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan restaurants at costs of up to several hundred dollars per person. “It’s not extravagant if you do it right,” he said.

In this post-Covid era “people want to feel attended to,” Laurie said. And the hospitality goes beyond spending money on them to asking them what they think of the market, or about their family, he said.

Certainly, there may be some businesses taking a generous view of the IRS rules. The deduction, which was meant to help support restaurants during the pandemic, only applies to restaurant meals, and only if a member of the client company is present. And businesses can’t deduct expenses for meals that are “lavish or extravagant.”

But, according to the IRS, “an expense isn’t considered lavish or extravagant if it is reasonable based on the facts and circumstances.”

That definition leaves a lot of wiggle room.

“Meal expenses won’t be disallowed merely because they are more than a fixed dollar amount,” according to the IRS, “or because the meals take place at deluxe restaurants, hotels, or resorts.”

But even in this more accommodating environment, client expectations have to be managed, Laurie said. Because of inflation, he can no longer say, “order anything on the menu.”

Now he says, “even if caviar is on the menu, caviar is not on the menu.”

[ad_2]

Source link

November 8, 2022
James Corden breaks his silence about that restaurant ban | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

When it comes to all that drama surrounding being temporarily banned from a famous New York City restaurant, James Corden finds it all “so silly.”

In an interview with the New York Times to promote his forthcoming Amazon series “Mammals,” Corden commented on another patron at the restaurant where he was dining with the Times reporter having words with her server about not liking her eggs.

“Happens every day,” Corden said. “It’s happening in 55,000 restaurants as we speak. It’s always about eggs.”

“Can you imagine now, if we just blasted her on Twitter? Would that be fair?,” he added. “This is my point. It’s insane.”

Earlier this week, the late-night host was briefly “86’d” from Balthazar by its owner, Keith McNally, who posted on Instagram that Corden was “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.”

One of the incidents he cited was Corden allegedly throwing a fit after “a little bit of egg white” ended up in an egg yolk omelette with gruyere cheese that his wife had ordered.

Soon after McNally posted that, Corden had called him and “apologized profusely,” according to the restauranteur, and all was resolved.

“I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level,” Corden told the Times, adding that he wouldn’t have canceled the interview over the awkwardness of having to discuss it.

“I was there. I get it,” he added.

“I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly,” Corden said. “I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”

[ad_2]

Source link

October 21, 2022
How Spam became cool again | CNN Business

[ad_1]

New York
CNN Business
—

Spam is cool.

The 85-year-old canned block of meat has undergone a cultural reinvention.

Hormel

(HRL) has sold a record amount of Spam for seven straight years, and 2022 is on pace for another such milestone. The conglomerate behind Skippy and Jennie-O turkey says it can’t make Spam fast enough and is increasing production capacity.

Spam is a trending ingredient on TikTok and on the menu at fine-dining restaurants in coastal cities. In 2019, a limited-edition Spam pumpkin spice flavor sold out in minutes. (You can still buy it on Ebay, where it goes for up to $100 per can.)

What is behind this phenomenon? Why does this slab of cooked pork that has long been stigmatized as fake meat, linked to wartime rations and hilariously spoofed on Monty Python now have cachet with foodies?

Spam’s popularity in Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Island cuisine has influenced its growth in the United States. As more immigrants came to the United States and fusion dishes and ethnic cuisines entered the cultural mainstream, Spam has reached new, younger foodies, say Hormel, food analysts and researchers.

Edgy and clever advertising campaigns also have helped Spam attract a broader customer range than the Baby Boomers who grew up eating it, sometimes reluctantly.

“Spam has undergone a reputation makeover,” said Robert Ku, an associate professor of Asian and Asian American studies at Binghamton University and the author of “Dubious Gastronomy: Eating Asian in the USA.” “A lot of celebrity chefs have been Asian and Asian American, and reintroduced Spam to a new audience.”

More than 100,000 visitors stream into the Spam museum every year in Austin, Minnesota, with stories to tell about Spam and recipes to share, said Savile Lord, the manager of the museum in the brand’s hometown. Visitors most often ask her and other museum “Spambassadors” how Spam got its name and what the heck is in it.

Spam first hit shelves in 1937 as a 12-ounce, 25-cent, convenient and long-lasting protein in a tin can during the lean years of the Great Depression. Spam contained nothing but pork shoulder, chopped ham, water, sugar and sodium.

It was a concoction of George Hormel and his son, Jay, meatpackers in Austin. The Hormels had been working on the “problem of canning a nonperishable pork product for a good many years and at last we solved it,” Jay told The New Yorker in 1945.

They offered a $100 prize for the best name for the food. It needed to be short for display purposes and to fit on one-column newspaper advertisements. It also had to pronounceable in any language.

The brother of a corporate executive threw out “Spam,” a combination of “spice” and “ham,” at a party, and Hormel “knew then and there that the name was perfect.”

From the beginning, Spam was marketed as a time-saver and a food for any meal: Spam and eggs. Spam and pancakes. Spam and beans, spaghetti, macaroni and crackers. Spamwiches.

“Never have you imagined a meat could turn into so many interesting uses. Morning, noon or night – cold or hot – Spam hits the spot!” read one early advertisement. Spam was a “miracle meat,” the company told consumers in newspaper spots and radio ads.

And then came the United States’ entrance into World War II in 1941, the decisive moment in Spam’s growth.

At many Pacific outposts, which had little refrigeration or local sources of meat, American and Allied troops relied on the canned meat that could be stored away for months and eaten on the go.

Hormel says more than 100 million pounds of Spam were shipped overseas to help feed the troops during the war. Uncle Sam became known as Uncle Spam, much to the dismay of troops forced to eat it every single day.

“During World War II, of course, I ate my share of Spam along with millions of other soldiers,” Dwight D. Eisenhower later wrote to Hormel’s president. “I’ll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it – uttered during the strain of battle.”

For the citizens of conflict-wracked countries in the Pacific struggling with hunger and famine during the war and rebuilding years, however, Spam was a symbol of access to American goods and services. Sometimes, it was the only protein source available. After US troops left, Spam remained, becoming an ingredient in local dishes.

“Spam became part of Asian culture,” said Ayalla Ruvio, a consumer behavior researcher at Michigan State University who studies identity and consumption habits. “It represented a piece of America. It’s like Coca-Cola or McDonald’s.”

American troops also introduced Spam in Korea during the Korean War in the early 1950s, and Budae Jjigae (Army Stew) became a popular Korean dish. Spam also remains a common ingredient in dishes almost anywhere US soldiers were stationed, such as Guam, the Philippines and Okinawa, Japan.

In Hawaii, where the US military has long been a major presence, more Spam is consumed per person than any other state. It’s stacked on a block of rice and wrapped in seaweed to make Spam musubi and sold at fast-food chains like McDonald’s in Hawaii. There’s even an annual Waikiki Spam Jam festival.

Many US soldiers returning from World War II vowed never to eat Spam again, and the brand became linked to rationing and economic hardship. But Spam has appealed to new consumers in the United States in recent years.

“When I first started getting into the brand, we started to notice this transition to a stronger multicultural set of consumers,” said Brian Lillis, who has been product’s brand manager for six years. “They brought with them the traditions of utilizing the product in their home country or where maybe their ancestors came from.”

Hormel has worked with chefs at Korean, Taiwanese and Vietnamese restaurants to get Spam on menus. As more people have been introduced to these dishes, they go home and try to make their own versions, Lillis said.

Spam highlights its versatility in dishes on social media and TV advertisements. There are ads for Spam and eggs, as well as Spam fried rice, Spam musabi, yakitori, and poke.

Spam has made a comeback in the United States because Asian and Asian American chefs such as Chris Oh have tried to reinvent it in their own ways, said Ku, the Binghamton University professor. “They brought some of the culinary influences of Asia and the Pacific and upscaled it.”

[ad_2]

Source link

October 1, 2022