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Restaurant diners are footing the bill for rising minimum wages. In lieu of steep menu price increases, many independent and regional chain restaurants in states including Arizona, California, Colorado and New York are adding surcharges of 3% to 4% to help offset rising labor costs. Industry analysts expect the practice to become widespread as more cities and states increase minimum wages.

Numerous restaurants across the country have joined a Sanctuary Restaurants Movement to offer safe and tolerant spaces to restaurant workers, employers, and consumers that face hate and harassment in the restaurant industry. As a collaborative project between the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC United) and Presente.org, the Sanctuary Restaurant Movement seeks to not only create solidarity, but also to provide support and resources like job training and legal advice to individuals and their families impacted by hostile policies.

I first saw Pour Vida’s "Anaheim-style burger taco" in my Instagram feed. Despite sounding like something Taco Bell might have dreamed up, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to have it. Pour Vida is chef Jimmy Martinez’ gourmet taco stand in Anaheim. And the picture he posted on Instagram showed a handmade flour tortilla completely glazed with melted yellow cheese, which was then topped with a pan-fried clump of hamburger meat, a flurry of shredded lettuce, some more cheese, a slice of tomato and Thousand Island dressing. It was a work of art. So I went...

The chief executive of a popular fast-casual burger chain may have stumbled upon a highly effective, yet slightly painful, way to motivate employees. Last summer, Denny Marie Post, the CEO of Red Robin, encouraged location managers to improve overall restaurant scores on customer surveys given to diners at the end of their meal. If those numbers (diners graded their experience on a scale from 1 to 10) were improved before the end of 2017, Post promised employees she'd get a tattoo of a Red Robin burger.

DENVER (CBS4) – Denver restaurants are facing an employment crisis with the crackdown on immigrants from south of the border. It has estimated that at least 20 percent of those who work behind the scenes in restaurants are illegal immigrants.

For 25 years, China Fun was renowned for its peerless soup dumplings and piquant General Tso’s chicken. What left a bad taste in the mouths of its owners and loyal patrons was the restaurant’s sudden Jan. 3 closing, blamed by management on suffocating government demands. “The climate for small businesses like ours in New York have become such that it’s difficult to justify taking risks and running — nevermind starting — a legitimate mom-and-pop business,” read a letter posted by the owners in the restaurant’s front door. “The state and municipal governments, with their punishing rules and regulations, seems to...

Chicago's Honey Butter Fried Chicken is among a couple of dozen restaurants across the country to sign onto a new "sanctuary restaurant" movement meant to offer safe workplaces for immigrants, Muslims and other communities they feel are under threat in the current political climate. The movement is a joint project of ROC United, a national group that advocates for higher wages for restaurant workers, and Presente.org, whose mission is to "advance Latinx power" (Latinx is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina). According to a news release Wednesday, sanctuary restaurants do not allow harassment of individuals based on immigrant or...

•CBRL reported a decent Q1. •Comps were positive but only because of strong pricing; traffic and the retail stores were weak. •Margin growth continued but at nearly 21 times this year's earnings, the stock is way too expensive. Cracker Barrel (NASDAQ:CBRL) has long been an example for others in the restaurant sector. The company has bucked weak trends in casual dining and its retail stores have helped shoulder the burden as well. CBRL's unique model has worked extremely well over the past few years and it pays a sizable dividend to boot. After a nice Q1 report, the stock is...

HOUSTON, TX - Many restaurants are having fun this election season with Trump and Clinton-themed foods but one Texas eatery is being anything but subtle about its choice for president. On Thursday, Bellville Café—located in Bellville, Texas about 60 miles from Houston—officially changed its name to Trump Café in honor of the businessman-turned-GOP presidential hopeful. “He loves America and we hope he will be president,” the café’s co-owner Su Hawa told The Houston Chronicle. “People like the name, they’re supporting him.” Before the name change, Belvillle Café served modern takes on casual French fare but the new menu features only...

Kyle Bailey is Andrew Crush's pro-bono pig broker.Sgt. Major is a big player. The enormous pig with proportionally enormous balls is the male hog responsible for fathering the majority of the pigs at Spring House Farm in Lovettsville, Virginia. The property, run by farmer Andrew “Boss Hog” Crush, spans 400 acres in Loudoun County’s wine country. Goats, rabbits, chickens, cattle, and honeybees are also integral to the operation, but Spring House Farm is a true pig paradise. Pigs there are raised on pasture land feeding on grubs, grass, and supplemental feed until they reach 100 pounds. “When they’re big enough...

On October 3, Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp., which owns Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, filed for bankruptcy. The company, owned by private-equity firm Sun Capital Partners, said it will close 20 to 30 of its 124 locations and put itself up for sale. On September 30, Restaurants Acquisitions, the operator of Black-eyed Pea and Dixie House restaurant chains, converted its Chapter 11 filing to Chapter 7 liquidation. The bankruptcy court order noted the company had shuttered its restaurants and management had resigned. On September 29, Cosi Inc., a fast-casual chain with 1,100 employees filed for bankruptcy. It closed 29 of its...

They dot the landscape in this working-class New Jersey city, popping up every few blocks with names like US Fried Chicken, Royal Fried Chicken and New York Fried Chicken and Burger and giving immigrants a foothold in a new country. One of these fried chicken restaurants, First American Fried Chicken, was thrust into the international spotlight on Monday when authorities arrested the owner’s son, Ahmad Rahami, after a shootout with police. Rahami is suspected of planting several explosives in New York City and New Jersey, including one that blew up on Saturday night in Manhattan and injured 29 people and...

Logan's Roadhouse restaurant chain has filed for bankruptcy. The filing was made Monday with U.S. bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware. The plan, according to the company is "designed to restructure the company's balance sheet" while providing it with the "capital needed to turnaround operations." The Nashville, Tennessee-based steakhouse chain best known for its western flair and peanuts on the floor will close 18 restaurants as part of its restructuring. The chain operates 250 locations nationwide, including 23 in Alabama....

Ruby Tuesday plans to close 95 restaurants throughout the country, the company announced. The locations of the restaurants to be closed have not been released, but the restaurants will be shutting down quickly. According to the company's press release, the under-performing locations will stop operations by September. Ruby Tuesday's had 724 restaurants as of May 31, and 646 of those were company-operated.

A fresh food lawsuit has emerged in Massachusetts following an incident at Panera. Boston Magazine reports that back in January, a New England family placed an online order for a meal from the chain's location in Natick. They ordered a grilled cheese sandwich for their six-year-old daughter, noting that it was for a child with a peanut allergy. The parents claim that after taking a bite, the young girl suffered a reaction that sent her to the hospital, and they discovered a dollop of peanut butter inside the sandwich. Luckily an epi pen saved the girl's life, but the family...

Chick-fil-A is rolling out a new app that will let customers avoid waiting in line at the register. The app, called Chick-fil-A One, will allow customers to order and pay for their food in advance, then pick it up at a counter designated for online orders. That's big news for fans of Chick-fil-A, which is typically slammed with customers during regular meal times, making long lines inevitable. The app will also allow users to customize and save their favorite orders. Michael Lage, a veteran of Facebook and Google who helped develop the app, says it will change how customers, particularly...

The restaurant world in Los Angeles is rapidly changing, and it seems that no matter how old the eatery there’s always something new to try. Case in point: Philippe The Original’s plan, as of today, to start offering delivery. The plan, says popular delivery app Caviar, is to bring Philippe’s in as a full-time partner, which means customers will be able to enjoy their own French dip sandwiches without leaving the office. The new delivery option kicks off today , with Philippe’s also turning out soups. sides, salads, and desserts to help complement the iconic sandwich. It’s just the latest...

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...