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Let’s finish out the weekend with a story about Californians being Californians, because… California. Terces and Matthew Engelhart have made quite the life for themselves out on the left coast over the past decade, having established a small chain of “organic, plant-based” restaurants which specialize in completely vegan food. They apparently attract Hollywood celebrities who are impressed not only by the business ethic of their eateries, but the “Love Farm” where they raise much of their produce, presumably in a Gaia approved fashion. They’ve published a book which explains the tenets of their “sacred enterprise” which is a must read...

On Tuesday, Dallas lost a hamburger legend. Jack Keller, who spent over half a century selling burgers at Keller's Hamburgers, died at the age of 88. "My dad was the smartest, coolest man I ever met," Jack Keller, Jr. told NewsFix. "He was my hero. Dad always wanted to give a consistently very good product, at a very good price. He loved being a hamburger man." "He was good to me," said Vicky Cobb, who's worked at Keller's for the last 35 years. "I have nothing bad to say about him. It's a sad day for all of us." Keller's...

A deal that would raise California's minimum wage to $15 an hour was met with a mixture of joy and anxiety across the state Sunday. Some workers and labor officials hailed it as a breakthrough in providing higher-wage jobs in fields where it's a struggle to make ends meet. But some business owners feared the shift would hurt their bottom lines -- and perhaps even put them out of business. The debate is likely a preview for the weeks ahead as the minimum wage proposal works its way through Sacramento. Selwyn Yosslowitz said that minimum wage hikes add increased pressure...

Looks like the city is spoiling for a new fight with restaurateurs: A bill being introduced today by Brooklyn city council member Inez Barron would force them to warn customers that foods with too much sugar and carbs are dangerous to people with diabetes. If it’s passed, restaurants would be required to hang a poster created by the Department of Health that spells out the “risks of excessive sugar and other carbohydrate intake for diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals.” Barron says the city has “an obligation” to provide consumers with this information just like it has with calorie counts. …

Technology is killing off independent pizzerias in the United States at the rate of roughly 2,549 locations per year (in 2015 alone). The pizza category is being reshaped by both big new tech deployed by chains and fresh threats from sophisticated emerging brands that are taking slices of the pie from tens of thousands of ill-equipped and low-tech independent pizzerias.

In America, chain restaurants get a bad rap. We blame them for the spike in obesity and the death of the family dinner. We demonize them as “the core of what is wrong with our food system.” No wonder our bougie, West Coast friends shun Bloomin’ Onions and Big Macs in favor of meals from farm-to-table gastropubs and “undiscovered” ethnic food joints. And it’s not just them. Food — obscure, locally sourced, painstakingly chef-crafted — has become a defining obsession, a “measuring stick of cool,” as New York magazine put it. Today, a quarter of Americans eat organic products on...

There are no Michelin stars on the door, but you will not find a better breakfast in New York City than at the Bel Aire Diner in Astoria, Queens. The coffee, a lighter roast than Starbucks' and brewed three gallons at a time, is always fresh because just about every customer gets a refill or three. The Greek Breakfast entrée is a masterpiece of the line cook's art, a combination of eggs (any style), feta cheese, soft black olives and grilled fresh tomatoes whose juice seasons the toasted pita. The Bel Aire is run under the glare of Argyris "Archie"...

This intervention is not aimed at those with life-threatening food allergies or similarly grave medical conditions. I would never question people whose faces will balloon if they ingest trace amounts of shellfish. Or people who risk going into anaphylactic shock with a whiff of peanut dust. Those problems are very real, and everyone who is afflicted with them has my sympathy. I’m talking about the rest of you. Those of you who don’t eat garlic because you detest its smell or avoid cauliflower because it makes you fart or have gone gluten-free because you heard it worked wonders for Jennifer...

A coupon is a menu New federal guidance meant to help businesses comply with the Obamacare calorie posting regulation has not made the rule any less “complex and burdensome,” a group critical of the regulation says. The 53-page document released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week says a coupon can be a menu and offers a 109-word definition of “restaurant-type food.” “FDA’s recent disclosure of guidelines regarding the menu labeling rule does not change the fact that the regulation remains expensive, ineffective, and unworkable,” the American Pizza Community, which represents Domino’s, Papa John’s, and Little Caesars, said...

Restaurant owners, customers and staff have long railed against the tyranny of tipping, but like a love affair gone bad, it has proved difficult to quit.Now, prompted by a spurt of new minimum wage proposals in major cities, an expanding number of restaurateurs are experimenting with no-tipping policies as a way to manage rising labor costs.Here in Seattle, where the first stage of a $15-an-hour minimum wage law took effect in April, Ivar’s seafood restaurants switched to an all-inclusive menu. By raising prices 21 percent and ending tipping, Bob C. Donegan, the president and co-owner, calculated he could increase everyone’s...

According to a report released Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the $15 minimum wage has caused Seattle restaurants to lose 1,000 jobs — the worst decline since the 2009 Great Recession. “The loss of 1,000 restaurant jobs in May following the minimum wage increase in April was the largest one month job decline since a 1,300 drop in January 2009, again during the Great Recession,” AEI Scholar Mark J. Perry noted in the report.

According to a report released Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the $15 minimum wage has caused Seattle restaurants to lose 1,000 jobs — the worst decline since the 2009 Great Recession. “The loss of 1,000 restaurant jobs in May following the minimum wage increase in April was the largest one month job decline since a 1,300 drop in January 2009, again during the Great Recession,” AEI Scholar Mark J. Perry noted in the report.

Do you want water or milk with that? Servers at Davis city restaurants will soon be asking that question to customers ordering kids’ meals with beverages, under a new ordinance designed to discourage sugary soda consumption. The ordinance, passed on a unanimous 5-0 vote Tuesday night, will require any Davis restaurant that offers a meal-with-drink kids’ menu to make water or milk, not soda, the primary option. Parents can still request soda at no extra charge, but must specifically ask for it. By Sept. 1, Davis restaurants must prove compliance with the city ordinance by submitting a copy of their...

Get ready to live out your Magic Mike fantasies with a side of fries. For decades, customers have had the chance to ogle scantily clad women at Hooters as they chug some beer and chow down on some wings. For everyone that has wondered why there isn't a male version of Hooters — yeah, why isn't there a male version of Hooters? — today is your lucky day.

Vietnamese foodie guide: Critic Brad A. Johnson dishes about the 25 best things to eat in Little Saigon The scent of Little Saigon hits me in the face. An intoxicating perfume of jackfruit and bananas and the vanilla-y scent of pandanus leaves wraps itself around me in a warm, tight embrace. It’s a sunny Friday afternoon, and the line to purchase something cold and sweet at Thach Che Hien Khanh in Garden Grove stretches out the front door and down the sidewalk, past a vendor of exotic fruits and knickknacks — chopsticks, paper lanterns, plastic Buddhas, various figurines of the...

For instance, earlier in April the company announced it is testing out a larger, pricier, third-of-a-pound burger for $5, two years after dropping the similar Angus burger line because they were too pricey for McDonald’s diners. Despite that earlier failure, new CEO Steve Easterbrook expressed confidence his customers would go for premium burgers. “I often describe McDonald’s as possibly the most democratic -- with a small ‘d’ -- brand in the world,” he said. “And what customers love the world over, and none more so than here in the U.S., is how they can buy into aspirational quality products, but...

Celebrate with me the recent lesson learned by the city council of Los Angeles after a 7-years-long experiment in nanny statism that ended in utter failure. A public health report released in early 2007 showed that South Los Angeles residents were significantly more obese than those in the remainder of the city, including adults and children, and the data showed a dramatic increase from a similar report from a decade earlier. Furthermore, occurrence of obesity-related illness, such as diabetes, was more present in the area and also showed an increase. The city council decided that something needed to be done....

"Why Are So Many Seattle Restaurants Closing Lately?” asks a recent Seattle magazine headline. The Scrapbook is no restaurateur, let alone knowledgeable about the local economy, but we’ll guess it has something to do with the fact that Seattle’s new $15 minimum wage starts phasing in on April 1. However, the first rule of liberals confronting the laws of basic economics is deny, deny, deny. A feature in the Seattle Times called the “Truth Needle” (we’re guessing the Times didn’t want to pony up to license PolitiFact’s logo) declares the claim that minimum wage has anything to do with the...

A much-hailed law that restricted the opening of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants in one of the poorest sections of Los Angeles did not curb obesity or improve diets, a new study found. City lawmakers passed the zoning ordinance in 2008 that limited the opening or expansion of fast-food outlets in a 32-square-mile area south of Interstate 10 that struggles with high obesity rates and other health problems. The law, believed to be the first effort of its kind by a major city to improve public health, did not ban new eateries in strip malls. The research by the Rand Corp....

Last summer we talked about the rather faint hopes that some Seattle businesses were clinging to as the city moved toward jacking up their minimum wage (for some jobs) to $15.00 per hour. Employers – particularly in the restaurant industry – were asking the city council to reconsider as they evaluated their options in the face of labor costs which were about to rise to between 42 and 47 percent of their operating expenses. It all fell on deaf ears, unfortunately, and the plan is moving forward. And rather than waiting for the roof to come crashing down, some...