Free Republic

As President of the United States, Donald Trump has an army of five personal chefs, ready and waiting to slave away in the kitchen to cater to his every dietary need. Instead, the POTUS’ favourite foods have been revealed – and it hasn’t left experts impressed. According to the Chicago Tribune, Trump eats “like a teenage boy”, indulging in fast food – he celebrated with a Big Mac and fries after he won the Republican presidential nomination - and knocking back cans of Diet Coke. By all accounts, he’s not a huge fan of breakfast, but if he does eat...

Sen. Charles Schumer says the Food and Drug Administration should launch a formal investigation into the health consequences of chemicals used in fast food packaging. The New York Democrat on Sunday released a letter he sent to the head of the agency asking for the investigation into phthalates, which are used in plastics to make them more flexible. Some phthalates have been linked to health issues, both developmental and reproductive. People can be exposed to phthalates if they eat or drink food that's come into contact with containers made with the chemicals. Schumer pointed out that some types of phthalates...

Pizza Hut plans to hire 14,000 full- and part-time delivery drivers by the end of the year, the Texas-based chain announced Tuesday. That amounts to nearly 3,000 hires a month. The chain also announced a new delivery algorithm that “will account for variable factors such as weather, construction, traffic and other irregularities in the delivery pattern to enable safe, accurate deliveries,” according to a news release. Pizza Hut has more than 6,300 U.S. restaurants.

Panda Express has reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve an investigation into whether the restaurant discriminated against non-U.S. citizens when reverifying their permission to work. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the investigation concluded that Pandra Express required lawful permanent resident workers to re-establish their work authorization when their green cards expired yet made no such requests to U.S. workers when their work verification documents expired. Under the agreement, Panda Express will pay a civil penalty of $400,000 and establish a $200,000 back pay fund to compensate workers who lost employment due to the company’s...

The CEO of Whataburger Preston Atkinson announced earlier this month that they will be closing the doors at all their restaurants as of February 2018. The fast food chain has been going down hill do to competition and not being able to get other states to allow them to build restaurants there.

Cowen says McDonald's will upgrade 2,500 restaurants to its "Experience of the Future" technology by year-end, which includes digital ordering kiosks. The firm raises its rating on McDonald's to outperform from market perform and price target for the shares to $180 from $142. Same store sales estimate for 2018 raised to 3 percent from 2 percent. McDonald's shares hit an all-time high on Tuesday as Wall Street expects sales to increase from new digital ordering kiosks that will replace cashiers in 2,500 restaurants. Cowen raised its rating on McDonald's shares to outperform from market perform because of the technology upgrades,...

With everyone running off to various parts of the world for exciting spring or summer plans, it seems only natural to address an issue regarding the lack of international franchise success within the U.S. Aside from all the McDonalds’, Starbucks’, and KFC’s lining most street corners of metropolitan locations worldwide, other countries have a few delicacies they’ve been covertly keeping to themselves all this time. It’s okay, we’re here to reveal these mouthwatering fast food restaurants from all over the world in efforts to finally bring them to the United States. I don’t know about you, but I could go...

People love Chick-fil-A, the poultry-centric fast-food chain whose corporate purpose is to “glorify God,” and whose strict Sunday closure means that every employee gets at least one day of rest. People love the carnival-like waffle fries, the neonatal ward-like hospitality, the cleanliness on par with a Silicon Valley chip manufacturer, the fresh-squeezed lemonade spiked with soft-serve ice cream, the aromatic peach shakes, the admirably bare-bones fried-chicken sandwich, the viral fan song set to the tune of the Beatles’s “Yesterday,” and the famous Polynesian sauce, an agrodolce condiment that looks like what would happen if a stop sign were melted down...

CHICAGO – On the heels of mass demonstrations against President Trump’s policies that have drawn hundreds of thousands of Americans into the streets, leaders of the Trump resistance movement will converge in Chicago May 23 with thousands of workers in the Fight for $15 for a “March on McDonald’s” that is expected to be the biggest-ever protest to hit the fast-food giant. On the eve of McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting, leaders of the Women’s March, Our Revolution, the Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn.org, Color of Change, NextGen and others will join forces with the Fight for $15 to demand that...

Taco Bell, the Yum Brands Inc. YUM, +0.36% fast-food Mexican chain, said Tuesday that it will fill 3,500 newly-created jobs in May, and seeks to fill 50,000 more jobs by the end of the summer. The hiring spree is part of a previously-announced plan to create about 100,000 U.S. jobs over the next five years through an additional 1,000 U.S. locations. Yum Brands shares are unchanged in premarket trading, and up 17.4% for the past year compared with a 16.6% rise in the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.22% [continued]

McDonald's has a traffic problem and its executives know it. Now they have a plan they think will turn it around. The company lost more than 500 million customers to close competitors since 2012, Chris Kempczinski, McDonald's USA President told investors gathered in Chicago Wednesday.

Hundreds of Winnipeggers braved -27 C temperatures for the early-morning opening of Canada’s first Jollibee restaurant in mid-December 2016. The Filipino food service franchise said 500 people were lined up by the time the restaurant opened at 7:30 a.m. Jollibee is the ninth-largest fast-food company in the world with more than 3,000 stores, and is considered the McDonald’s of the Phillipines. It is best known for its pineapple-topped hamburgers, Chickenjoy fried chicken and Jolly spaghetti. Winnipeg was chosen as the first Canada location because it has the largest population of Filipinos, per capita, in the country. “We are very encouraged...

Love that Chicken from... Ontario? Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE: QSR) will buy Atlanta-based Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc. (NASDAQ: PLKI) for $1.8 billion. Popeyes shareholders will get $79 in cash a share at closing -- a premium of 27 percent based on Popeyes’ 30-trading day Volume Weighted Average Price as of Feb. 10. The deal, expected to close by early April 2017, brings the New Orleans spicy chicken brand to the Ontario, Canada-based company that owns Burger King and Tim Hortons. Popeyes will continue to be managed independently in the United States. RBI plans to continue developing the brand at...

For Americans hitting the drive-thru at their local McDonald’s, a $15-an-hour minimum wage could hit them in their wallets. According to a January report released by James Sherk, a former research fellow in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, fast-food prices would rise by 38 percent under a $15-an-hour minimum wage and cause a 36 percent drop in employment. Sherk’s research comes after several cities and states across the country voted to raise their minimum wages, with increases typically phased in over the next five years. Additionally, several Democrats have advocated a $15-an-hour minimum wage at the federal level, as...

Pizza Hut is about to go on a hiring spree. The pizza chain said Thursday it will hire 11,000 new pizza makers, delivery drivers and store managers. "While we don't have a set deadline, we know we are headed into one of our more busy times of the year and our restaurants across the country are working hard to hire team members that will deliver a quick and reliable pizza experience for pizza lovers nationwide," Kelly McCulloch, Pizza Hut's senior director of human resources, told CNBC. The company said the hiring is part a plan to expand the number of...

As the labor union-backed Fight for $15 begins yet another nationwide strike on November 29, I have a simple message for the protest organizers and the reporters covering them: I told you so. It brings me no joy to write these words. The push for a $15 starter wage has negatively impacted the career prospects of employees who were just getting started in the workforce while extinguishing the businesses that employed them. I wish it were not so. But it’s important to document these consequences, lest policymakers elsewhere decide that the $15 movement is worth embracing.

A former McDonald's CEO is laying the blame on the "Fight for $15" movement as for why the company is embracing automation in its restaurants. McDonald's will install self-serve kiosks in its restaurants around the country to replace human cashiers. Let’s start with automation. In 2013, when the Fight for $15 was still in its growth stage, I and others warned that union demands for a much higher minimum wage would force businesses with small profit margins to replace full-service employees with costly investments in self-service alternatives. At the time, labor groups accused business owners of crying wolf. It turns...

THE inventor of the Big Mac has died at the age of 98. Michael “Jim” Delligatti came up with the iconic McDonald’s burger nearly 50 years ago. McDonald’s initially did not approve of deviating from its strict formula of simple hamburgers, cheeseburgers and milkshakes. But the creation of a two-patty burger with lettuce, cheese, gherkins, onions and “special sauce” proved an instant hit, and was rolled out to his other 47 outlets across the US. McDonald’s spokeswoman Kerry Ford confirmed that Delligatti died at his home in Fox Chapel, Pittsburgh, surrounded by his family on Monday night. He opened his...

The recent actions of a McDonald's employee in Kansas are leaving a bad taste in the mouths of police officers and their supporters. A Topeka employee at the fast food chain has been fired and is currently facing criminal charges after local law enforcement say the worker put mustard in an officer’s beverage. . . . Tom Dobski, the franchisee owner of the north Topeka McDonald's where the officer found mustard in his Dr. Pepper, says the company is "shocked by the isolated actions of a single employee."

Scores of demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday as U.S. workers from fast-food chains staged nationwide protests for higher pay, union rights and immigration reform in their first major action since Donald Trump was elected president.McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) restaurants in 340 cities were prime rally targets, while baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and sky caps at Chicago's O'Hare and Boston's Logan international airports planned to demonstrate in support of workers demanding starting pay of $15 per hour, organizers of the "Fight for $15" campaign said. More than 200 protesters gathered before dawn at Zuccotti Park in New York City's Financial District, the...