“Visits to fast-casual restaurants, long the bright spot of the industry, declined last month for the first time since 2004.” Fuck. The Applebee’s indicator is flashing WARNING. Dark days are coming.
Diners Are Too Expensive
Diners: not a fast food restaurant, but also not a “real” restaurant. Something in between. Seems like it should be in between the price of fast food and a real restaurant. But is it?
Rats In Restaurants Are Not a Big Deal
So there were rats in the restaurant. Okay. You’ll be fine!!!
The Best Restaurant in New York Is: The Tenement Museum
Caity: Someone at a New Year's Eve party told me they felt we had hit a melancholy streak in our Best Restaurants lately.
Foie Gras Is For Assholes
Yesterday, a federal judge overturned the state of California's ban on foie gras. Great news, for assholes.
This Valentine's Day, Show Your Love By Ignoring Valentine's Day
With dull eyes and open mouths, they crowd the streets and fill the restaurants. Some are teenagers, some are straight, some are gay, and far too many are married adults who would usually be found at home watching the television at night. They are the zombies of St. Valentine's Day, and they're just as miserable as…
The Restaurant Put the Fork and Knife There In Hopes You Might Use Them
Of course you should use silverware when you're eating dinner at a restaurant that has provided silverware, right there next to your non-paper plate. Nobody believes otherwise. But here's our important new populist debate about whether New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is too fancy because he used a fork and knife to eat…
Restaurants Are Full of Old People Now
Hey, entitled "millennials," with your "organic" this and "artisanal" that and "farm to table" marijuana: you're not the bosses any more. Old folks have taken over American restaurants. Thank the lord.
World's Coolest 103-Year-Old Man Eats Fancy Dinner Every Night
When you hear about people eating at a nice restaurant every night, you might return to your half-frozen Hot Pocket in resentment and disgust. But if that person is 103-year-old Harry Rosen, it kinda just warms your heart.
Finally, a restaurant has figured out how to get Brooklyn foodies to shut the fuck up: anyone who talks during Eat's $40 prix fixe "silent" dinner is "forced to eat the rest of their meal on the bench outside."
Americans Are Consuming Breakfast at an Unsafe Speed
When "fast food" was invented back in the 1950s or whenever, we were cautiously optimistic. A ground hamburger patty and french-fried potatoes served in less time than it takes to raise and slaughter a cow, plant a field of potatoes, and build a fire? Sure, why not? But today it seems that Americans have forgotten how…
Daft Americans Pay More For the Privilege of Eating Less
The ongoing American obesity crisis has doubtless had a negative impact on our nation's health, appearance, and collective long-jump ability. And that's not all: it's also actually making us dumber. The latest evidence is irrefutable.
The Future of Food Is Williamsburg, Basically
There was a time, Ad Age tells us, when canned soup or cereal were considered "easy" foods to prepare and consume. Can you imagine? The package-opening, the pouring-out, the adding of milk or water—if that was "easy," people in the olden days must have had it rough! Kids these days know better. For America's Greatest…
The Choice of a Fast Food Restaurant Is a Very Meaningful Choice
Fast food restaurants: do you think they're "all the same?" Sure, and I guess human beings are "all the same" too, right? That's what Hitler thought, as well. For the rest of you, who know better, America's fast food establishments beseech you to take into considerations all the important factors relevant to your…
Dead Malls Will Soon Be Really Depressing Restaurants
The American mall is dying, and dying, and, let me check... yep, still dying. Not just big huge malls, but big-box stores, and strip malls, and everything else that consists of chain stores shaped like boxes, made out of plastic, selling crap. America, in other words. Now our national landscape is littered with the…
A Guide to America's Worst Restaurants for Workers
Since we're on the topic of basic fairness for the working people of America, here is a useful thing: a pro-worker group called Restaurant Opportunities Centers United has produced a handy pocket guide to many of America's most popular restaurants, to let you know exactly how badly their employees are treated. The…
Here Is a Picture of the New York Times' New Restaurant Critic
Congratulations to New York Times dining editor Pete Wells, who was just named as the paper's new restaurant critic. Here are some pictures of him, in case anyone is curious what he looks like. For some reason, the Times has been scrubbing images of him from the site.
What Does Your Choice of Casual Dining Chain Say About You?
Interchangeable pseudofood joint Chili's—intent on "spicing up its brand"—is spending millions on a new ad campaign, one part of which is summed up thusly by the company's ad genius: "How he behaves is bold, how she behaves is bold, and the food we're featuring in the spot is boldly flavored."
Mom Shouted 'Let Him Die' as Disabled Son Choked
On Thursday, Rolaine Foigelman of Tonawanda, N.Y. pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of an incompetent person based on an incident in which she tried to stop bystanders from helping to save her son's life. Hey, at least nobody will accuse her of being a helicopter mom now.
Paul Ryan and the $350 Bottles of Wine
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), a leading advocate of shrinking entitlement spending and the architect of the plan to privatize Medicare, spent Wednesday evening sipping $350 wine with two like-minded conservative economists at the swanky Capitol Hill eatery Bistro Bis.
