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A chef at a restaurant in Wales admitted he shoved a kitchen worker down the stairs after a critic called the food they had served "disgusting." Charlie McCubbin, 51, is the owner-chef of The River Cafe in Glasbury-on-Wye, which was visited by Sunday Times critic AA Gill. Bruce Gray, defending, told the court that at the end of his meal Gill was asked whether he enjoyed it. "Iin his rather flippant manner, his response was: 'Disgusting'," the BBC quoted Gray as saying. "I say this to give you some idea of the stress of working in an environment where reputation...

It is possible to create jobs, have healthier diets and improve the local economy by re-birthing local agriculture on small plots of land. Each pound of lettuce or eggs or beef shipped from California, Latin America or Mexico raises our dependency on foreign oil. And buying food from far away costs us jobs locally. Some communities have figured out a new path forward that fixes all that. North Carolina’s Rutherford County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Yet some 6,000 families own between 5 and 20 acres of land, and chefs in nearby Charlotte are in...

We live in a backwards world where great things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and where Sarah Palin is considered a legitimate presidential candidate. The greatest example of the inverse nature of our universe is the success, or lack of success found by restaurants around the world, particularly the United States. We live in a world where Noah’s Bagels nears bankruptcy while McDonalds thrives on our fatty flesh (and charging for sauce packets? GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.). In a list published by The Street, twenty restaurant chains are at risk of going under....

Following bankruptcy filings by Sbarro, Perkins and Marie Callender’s this year, new data suggests that other popular restaurant chains are in danger of following suit. TheStreet.com recently looked at restaurants based on their Altman Z-Score. The website says the score is based on “several aspects of a company's financial health -- including working capital, total assets, total liabilities, market capitalization, sales, retained earnings and earnings before interest & taxes (EBIT) -- to forecast the probability of it going bankrupt within two years.” Since it began the scoring system in 1968, TheStreet says the formula has been 72 percent accurate in...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio legislature is on the verge of approving one of the country's most wide-reaching bills allowing concealed firearms in places that serve alcohol, including bars and stadiums. Lawmakers who support the measure argue that Ohio is merely catching up to 42 other states that already allow concealed carry permit holders to tote their firearms in booze-pouring establishments. But that's not the whole story. No two state laws are the same. Some allow it in restaurants but not bars. Others prohibit guns in stadiums. Some block firearms in nightclubs. Some states have no law addressing the issue...

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved. Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver...

A big desert lizard wreaked havoc inside a restaurant in Saudi Arabia when it sneaked into the place before it was auctioned for around $8, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Customers inside the restaurant in the central province of Ras ran out in panic when the lizard, weighing more than three kg, walked into the place, 'Al Riyadh' Arabic language daily said. The lizard had managed to flee municipality cleaners who seized it at a nearby cemetery and headed for the restaurant, apparently attracted by the smell of food, the paper said. “Customers fled the restaurant in panic before a...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It could get harder to indulge in a double cheeseburger and fries without feeling guilty. Menu labeling requirements proposed Friday by the Food and Drug Administration will require chain restaurants with 20 or more locations, along with bakeries, grocery stores, convenience stores and coffee chains, to clearly post the calorie count for each item on their menus. "We've got a huge obesity problem in this country and it's due in part to excess calorie consumption outside the home," says Mike Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods. "Consumers generally when you ask them say they would prefer to...

FDA Sets Rules for Vending Machine Calorie Info By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today Published: April 01, 2011 Click here to provide feedback WASHINGTON -- Chain restaurants, vending machines, and convenience stores would all have to prominently display the calorie counts of their foods under two proposed rules released by the FDA Friday. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated that vending machines and food establishments with 20 or more locations -- which includes fast-food restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and certain grocery and convenience stores -- display the calorie counts of their food items. The new rules would implement...

COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WECT) - The second amendment to the US constitution is the right to keep and bear arms. If a new weapon bill passes the state senate, people with concealed weapon permits would be able to carry handguns in state parks, and restaurants unless the restaurant owner posts a sign stating guns are not allowed. For Jonathan Stevens, the timing of the bill couldn't be better. He recently completed a concealed weapons permit class. "In the class you learn law, watch videos, and I had to have a mental evaluation, and background check done," said Stevens. Some people...

Wonder if the First Lady monitored portions at the Super Bowl Sunday Bratwurst Fest, because the woman who put double-stuffed potatoes on the menu is about to dictate what is sanctioned on restaurant menus across America. After filling school vending machines with substances no self-respecting kid would ever eat and after bossing around food makers, rewriting nutrition labels, and attempting to worm her way into cupboards, refrigerators and grocery carts, Michelle is one forkful away from dictating the foods restaurants are allowed to put on your plate. According to White House and industry officials: "A team of advisers to the...

Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? How the witch of the woods lured them into her edible candy hut and gave them piles and piles of free food—just so she could fatten them up and turn them into stew? Well, think about that old fairy tale the next time a waiter drops a plate of “free” food on your table...

So many of our New Year’s resolutions may have something to do with food: eating less, eating better; eating differently or even eating something we’ve grown. With that in mind, we asked some of Utah’s culinary all-stars to share their food resolutions for 2011.

Welcome to my search for the perfect burger. My mission is to search and inform one burger at a time.

When we published our first edition of Eat This, Not That: Worst Foods in America back in 2007, we made a lot of restaurant chains very unhappy. But we also made a lot of their attorneys really, really happy, as they soon began earning massive legal fees sending us saber-rattling correspondences on behalf of the food marketers they represented. As 2010 draws to a close, it's time for another walk down the Hall of Restaurant Shame...

Recently, in our review of Otto Pizzeria, a commenter noted that pizza was a sacred beast, and that “acting like we [knew] better” was unacceptable. It’s a refrain you sometimes hear repeated among local chefs and the owners of local food-oriented businesses (even though such comments alienate what I would think to be a fairly important demographic for their business); that food bloggers are self-important idiots, with no training or education, spouting off on the Internet about food, without the needed qualifications and background, be it in the food service industry, a professional career in print media food reviewing, or...

Late this summer, when I was out of New York, a young man who knew I lived there told me he would be going for the weekend and asked what should he do. I discovered first where he would be staying (Staten Island), and with that information in hand, I rattled off a list of necessary activities. After he returned, I asked what he had done. The usual tourist things: Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street to fondle the bull’s attributes, the Met, Union Square, Times Square, and so forth. “Ah, very good. But where did you do to eat?” Can...

There’s an arms race going on, and it could mean disaster for your waistline...

With consumers and businesses keeping a lid on expenses, more and more small and mid-size restaurants are throwing in their dish towels and closing up shop. Southern California lost nearly a thousand more restaurants than it gained during the 12 months that ended in March, representing a net 2% drop that was twice the national average, according to the New York research firm NPD Group. Nearly all the closings were among independently owned restaurants: small, family businesses that just couldn't hold on as customers held back. Earlier in the year restaurants reported modest increases in business, but the jumps in...

BOSTON, June 7 (UPI) -- Some Boston officials say they want to convert two former public toilet facilities into upscale outdoor eating establishments. The idea of converting the aging gothic-style "Pink Palace" at Boston Commons and a grungy closed-up restroom called the Duck House in the Back Bay Fens neighborhood will be presented to lawmakers at a Statehouse meeting Tuesday by the city's Parks and Recreation Commission staff, the Boston Herald reports.