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Taco Bell takes direct aim at McDonald’s Corp. in a new advertisement. California-based Taco Bell first fired a shot at the burger chain in October when David Novak, CEO of Taco Bell’s parent company Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), announced that Taco Bell would roll out a breakfast menu nationwide in 2014, Business First reported. The menu, which includes a waffle taco and A.M. Crunchwrap, debuted in Taco Bell locations across the United States today. McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) has long dominated fast-food breakfast with its Egg McMuffins and hash browns. To drive home the point that its foray into breakfast is...

Quiznos has filed for bankruptcy protection, five days after the Sbarro pizza chain did the same. Executives at the restaurant chain, known for its toasted sandwiches, agreed to a restructuring plan that will reduce its debt by more than $400 million, the company said in a statement Friday. All but seven of Quizno's 2,100 restaurants in the United States and 30 other countries are independently owned franchises, and will remain open and operating as usual. Quiznos once had more than 5,000 stores and could have threatened rival Subway's hold on the sub market. But now, Subway has nearly 20 times...

Restaurant chains are dropping like flies this week. On Monday pizza franchise Sbarro dipped into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Following in its footsteps on Friday, sub shop Quiznos announced that it too would sink into bankruptcy as part of a “pre-packaged” deal to cut its debt by more than $400 million, or two-thirds.

CINCINNATI -- Fans of Chipotle may soon have to say goodbye to their beloved guacamole, the company said in its latest annual report. The Mexican fast food chain announced in recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings it could temporarily suspend sales of guacamole and some salsas due to an increase in food costs. Those increases are being caused by global warming, the Denver-based chain said.

Sandwich chain Quiznos is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection within weeks as it contends with declining sales and a lofty debt load, people familiar with the matter said. The company, which has about $570 million in debt, has been negotiating with creditors for weeks on a restructuring plan that would streamline its trip through bankruptcy court, these people said. A final deal on a so-called prepackaged restructuring plan hasn't yet been reached, they said.

Carlsbad-based chain Hot Dog on a Stick filed a Chapter 11 petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles on Monday. The company, known widely for staff in brightly-colored, striped uniforms and impaled corn dogs, said in a statement that it is seeking relief in order to reorganize and restructure its business. Hot Dog on a Stick, which currently operates 93 locations, said that it plans to continue business as usual throughout the bankruptcy proceedings. The company also said that, in addition to working to save money in the supply chain and in stores, it has made significant reductions to...

Subway said today it is removing a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe soles from the bread of it its popular sandwiches after a food blogger got more than 50,000 signatures in a petition drive. "The complete conversion to have this product out of the bread will be done soon," Subway said in a statement. The company said the move had nothing to do with the protest and that it was "already in the process of removing azodicarbonamide as part of our bread improvement efforts." But Vani Hari, the activist blogger who takes credit for the removal of yellow...

Health organizations and U.S. nutrition experts say they are calling on fast-food restaurant chains to take sugary drinks off their children's menus. Margo G. Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said McDonald's agreed to drop soda and sugary drinks from Happy Meal menus last year, and 100 U.S. and local health organizations along with nutritional experts said in a letter to Wendy's, Burger King and 21 other restaurant chains that they too should remove the items from their children's menus. Subway, Chipotle, Arby's and Panera already exclude sugary drinks from kids' meals. "With...

<p>Governments could slow or even reverse the growing obesity epidemic if they introduced more regulation into the global market for fast foods such as burgers, chips and fizzy drinks, researchers said on Monday.</p> <p>A study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that if governments took firmer action, they could start to prevent people becoming overweight and obese - conditions with serious long-term consequences such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancer.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) -- McDonald's reported disappointing sales for its fourth quarter Thursday, as the world's largest hamburger chain saw fewer customers visit its restaurants. The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company says global sales slipped 0.1 percent at established locations. In the U.S., where it recently revamped its Dollar Menu to include items that cost a little more, the figure fell 1.4 percent.

Michelle Obama is getting a new ally in her campaign to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. The first lady was expected to announce Thursday that the Subway sandwich chain will spend $41 million over three years to encourage finicky young eaters to eat more food that comes out of the ground or grows on trees. The announcement was being made at a Subway shop near the White House. Subway will only offer a kids' menu that mirrors federal standards for school lunches. That includes offering apples on the side and low-fat or nonfat plain milk or water...

They probably won’t promote their 6-inch big hot pastrami sandwich, but the Subway chain of restaurants is partnering with first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to persuade kids to eat healthier meals. Subway and the first lady’s office announced a three-year commitment Thursday in support of Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. The sandwich shops will promote efforts aimed at getting children to eat more fruits and vegetables. Subway offers a variety of low-fat sandwiches on its menu, along with choices that probably wouldn’t get the first lady’s approval, such as the six-inch chicken and bacon ranch melt with cheese, which contains...

(Colo, IA) A teacher in Colo, Iowa, decided to eat only at McDonald’s for 90 days to see what it would do to his health. The result turned out to be a good lesson for him and his students. “I can eat any food at McDonald’s I want as long as I’m smart for the rest of the day with what I balance it out with,” said science teacher John Cisna said That was the theory Cisna laid out for three of his students at Colo-Nesco high school this past fall. Ninety days of Mickey D’s for breakfast, lunch and...

Pizza Patrón executives intend to roll out multiple new strategies designed to bring the brand closer to its core Mexican-born customers in 2014. The company plans to execute an array of updated branding programs that include new product development, unique promotions, traditional advertising, digital, social media and public relations, according to a company press release. This marks a significant narrowing of focus for the brand that started franchising in 2003, with the objective of becoming the nation's premier Latino pizza brand. The company gained notoriety from its unconventional programs like "Pizza Por Pesos," where customers could use pesos as a...

Easier to open in Siberia than California "Under the current U.S. business climate, regulatory and tax restrictions tend to curb otherwise dynamic entrepreneurial energy," Puzder said. "We'd love to see more growth in domestic markets. Unfortunately, it's easier for our franchisees to open a restaurant in Siberia than in California." In the U.S., the company's Hardee's division is expanding in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and South Florida. Meanwhile, the Carl's Jr. division is growing in Texas and the Seattle area. Challenges to U.S. expansion Puzder named ethanol regulation, which has resulted in higher beef costs, a rising minimum wage...

<p>McDonald’s has some healthy advice for its workers – don’t eat at McDonald’s.</p> <p>The fast-food behemoth recently posted the jaw-dropping tip on its Web site for employees, warning that the very same burgers and fries they sling for their legions of customers are hazardous to their health.</p>

Since he wrote "Fast Food Nation" more than a decade ago, muckraking author Eric Schlosser has noticed a sympathy gap in the food movement that he helped foster. Some foodies seem to care more about the treatment of the animals they eat than the workers who prepare and serve them. "It's not all foodies by any means," Schlosser said. "But the food movement can get sidetracked into wealthy, upper-middle-class people caring about food as status, caring about food as pleasure. I'm a huge supporter of animal welfare, but the compassion for the abuse of animals is so much more excessive,...

Momentum Machines robot enables a restaurant can offer gourmet quality burgers at fast food prices. It does everything employees can do except better: * it slices toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible. * their next revision will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer. Want a patty with 1/3 pork and 2/3 bison ground to order? No problem. * Also, our next revision will use gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant, giving the patty the perfect char but keeping in...

We are often told that individuals are “stuck” in fast food jobs, as if there is no hope for advancement or development. But these aren’t dead end jobs for people willing to learn, grow, and work really, really hard. At Domino’s Pizza, over 90 percent of franchise owners started out as hourly employees, and the chain’s 5,000 locations are largely owned and operated by franchisees. Rob Cookston is one such owner who worked his way up. Cookston started delivering pizzas out of his cherry red Volkswagen Beetle 25 years ago. But, eyeing the store owner’s yellow Ferrari, Cookston knew that...

Believing that fast food companies pay their unskilled labor low wages primarily because they are greedy capitalist pigs, protestors flocked to McDonalds and Wendy’s last Thursday. Well… “Flocked” might be a strong descriptive term. The pro-union activists, nonetheless, demanded from the purveyors of low quality food-like products that employees get a bump in pay. Currently, minimum wage is set at $7.25 per hour. The economically challenged protestors of market driven wages are asking the profit-driven businesses to increase that wage to $15 per hour. Heck. Why stop there? Let’s kick it up to 25, or 40 dollars per hour....