Subject: Fast Food Restaurants

• Chili at the drive-through

  October 8, 2008

• The $3 Wendy's Breakfast

  October 16, 2008

• Seven Layers of Sin

  January 4, 2001

• Plaza library dishes out hamburgers and their history

  Author Andrew F. Smith (on the right) getting ready to go on stage.One of the most interesting statistics in Andrew F. Smith's book Hamburger: A Global History is that one in eight people in America have worked at McDonald's. While I am not part of that 12.5 percent (Smith is) I'm interested in McDonald's and the hamburger story, which is why I went to hear him speak at the Plaza Library. The e-mail about free Westport Flea Market burgers also didn't hurt.As advertised, the Flea Market was givin

  January 14, 2009

• Welcome to McDonald's! This call may be monitered for quality purposes.

  One of the rites of teenage passage is working in a fast-food restaurant. I did it, many of my friends did it, and even Rahm Emanuel did it. Charlie Bell climbed the rungs at McDonald's from a teenage fry cook to CEO by the time he was 42.As in the Army, if you get in young and stay long enough, fast food can be a lucrative career. Also, it's one of the few careers you'd think would be immune to outsourcing. But if fast-food restaurants have their way, the person taking your order at the drive-t

  January 29, 2009

• Best Urban Renewal

  October 7, 2004

• Dinner 48 ways

  October 16, 2008

• Stroud's South

  September 11, 2008

• Fast-food nation, again

  Every time America talks about getting in shape and cutting down on obesity, some negative Nancy has to come along with data showing that we're actually eating at fast-food restaurants more. This time that naysayer is a research company called Experian Simmons which just released a study (pdf) of the fast-food industry covering a mammoth five-year time period.Flickr: Major ConfusionSadly the results are not surprising. While Americans' visits to fast-food restaurants slightly declined from 2004

  April 21, 2009

• Fast food logic

  Always give the menus at fast food restaurants a second glance because they are often more complicated than they seem. Reporter Jennifer 8. Lee found that out yesterday when she went to a McDonald's and noticed that four chicken McNuggets for 99 cents was a better value than 10 for $4 or 20 for $7. For those keeping score, that's 25 cents, 40 cents and 35 cents per nugget.A McDonald's spokesperson told Lee that the bigger sizes were useful for people who wanted an exact amount or didn't want to

  June 18, 2009

• Fast food industry readying for next month's minimum wage hike

  Only July 24, the federal minimum wage will increase 11 percent to $7.25. And even though more than half the states in the country have a minimum wage that's higher than that, fast food restaurants are worried it will mean the end of profits. As a restaurant economist tells CNN Money, even in normal times "profit margins for an average fast-food company stand around 4 percent before tax." And these aren't normal times. Although fast food restaurants have stayed busy during the recession, the mov

  June 24, 2009

• Chefs hit the drive-thru

  ​You can imagine the title -- "When Good Chefs Go Bad" -- when Esquire recently asked well-known chefs to sample fast food, uncover the secrets of chains, reveal their guilty pleasures and talk about burger joints.  Top chefs actually loved several chains, including In-N-Out and Dairy queen, but spewed their wrath on others. Some of the best quotes: On Taco Bell: "Utter bastardization of one of the finest cuisines in the world. What the fuck is a chalupa?" -- Joey Campanaro, The Little Ow

  August 20, 2009

• Breakfast Buffet: Thursday, August 27

  Spaghetti tacos are apparently better than you might imagine. [Cooking With Carrie]A guide to which beers to bring to your fantasy football drafts and a suggestion for how to avoid drafting drunk. [KC Beer Blog]A list of the off-menu items at fast food and quick serve chains, including Starbucks and Jamba Juice. [LA Weekly]Nestle Toll House returns to the shelves with a new warning not to consume raw cookie dough following the earlier voluntary recall this year for E. coli. [Yum Sugar] 

  August 27, 2009

• Would you like some sweet potato fries with that?

  ​Fries used to be an afterthought -- the sidekick to hamburgers or hot dogs. And although you're still likely to find a frozen bag of Sysco fries next to the deep-fat fryer in diners and casual-dining restaurants, french fries have become a serious selling point for burger chains.  Endless french fries slowly coat your arteries at Red Robin, while Chick-fil-A offers waffle cut fries with a healthy sprinkling of salt and pepper. Sonic takes a cue from Napoleon Dynamite and features ta

  August 31, 2009

• Lose weight by moving closer to fast food joints

  ​It sounds counterintuitive, but a new study suggests that living closer to fast food restaurants may actually reduce your chances for obesity. The University of Utah discovered that people are less at risk for obesity when there are food options within walking distance, even if those options include convenience stores and fast food restaurants. On the flip side, people living more than a half of a mile from grocery stores or restaurants were more likely to be overweight.  "Having access

  October 29, 2009