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Greenville, Pitt County-Fast-food workers in Greenville held a strike on Thursday demanding a raise in pay. Strikers want a $15 an hour minimum wage. The fast-food employees from McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King also want to form a union without retaliation.

The fast-food worker strikes are expanding to more U.S. cities and going global. Workers in up to 150 cities across the country are planning to strike on May 15, according to labor organizers. The movement is also headed overseas, with plans for workers to join protests in 33 countries. On Wednesday, the workers announced the protests outside a McDonald's in New York City, and delivered a letter that called on the fast food giant to raise wages and respect workers' rights worldwide. However, security guards didn't allow the workers to bring the letter inside the restaurant. So, they posted the...

Jack in the Box, a popular fast-food restaurant chain, has followed Starbucks' unfortunate lead in limiting its customers' Second Amendment rights. Friday, the company announced it would start enforcing its no-firearms-in-stores policy. Jack in the Box’s Vice President of Corporate Communications Brian Luscomb released this statement: “The presence of guns inside a restaurant could create an uncomfortable situation for our guests and employees and lead to unintended consequences.” The company's decision comes a day after gun control group Moms Demand Action launched a petition to pressure the restaurant to enforce the policy. They started the campaign in response to...

Chick-fil-A is the best fast food chain in America. The chicken joint won the "best overall" category in Business Insider's Fast Food Reader's Choice awards. Chick-fil-A, which is planning a massive national expansion, beat out competitors like Chipotle and McDonald's. The chicken chain, which now outsells KFC despite having a fraction of the locations, is popular for many reasons. 1. Chicken sandwich This chicken sandwich is amazing. According to Chick-fil-A, it's "a boneless breast of chicken seasoned to perfection, hand-breaded, pressure cooked in 100% refined peanut oil and served on a toasted, buttered bun with dill pickle chips." While no...

Americans are consuming less fast food and causing chains like McDonald's, Burger King and KFC to ramp up their international expansion. Restaurants have had to come up with some pretty creative menu offerings to cater to local tastes. We reviewed the menus overseas for a handful of the world's top fast food chains, and compiled some of our favorites. Too bad you can't find them on menus in the U.S. Pizza Hut's Crown Crust Pizzas Where: Middle East What it is: Pizza Hut sells a variety of Crown Crust pizzas with various meats cooked inside the crust, including mini cheeseburgers,...

Chick-fil-A is finally crossing the road. The iconic chicken chain, as well-known for its conservative heritage as its savory eats, is recalibrating its moral and culinary compass. It wants to go from old school to almost cool. It wants to evolve from a place where gays once picketed to a place where they'll feel comfortable going to eat. It wants to broaden the brand as it expands nationally and plows into the Millennial-driven urban arena. Above all: it wants to be a serious player on fast-food's biggest stage. USA TODAY was exclusively invited inside to visit the company's sprawling, wooded...

Chick-fil-A has surpassed KFC as the top chicken fast food chain.  Chick-fil-A's sales in 2013 passed $5 billion, compared with KFC's $4.2 billion, reports Venessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek. Chick-fil-A has 1,775 U.S. stores, while KFC has 4,491. Despite a smaller footprint, Chick-fil-A's average sales are more than triple those of its larger competitor, Wong writes. And Chick-fil-A achieves these results despite being closed on Sundays for religious reasons. Wong illustrates a couple of reasons for Chick-fil-A's success. 

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...