Tampa, FL  (RestaurantNews.com)  Bucs legends, iconic Hooters Girls and hundreds of diehard fantasy football fanatics descended upon Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday, August 2 to take part in the Hooters World’s Largest Fantasy Football Draft Party. Mike Alstott, Ronde Barber and Derrick Brooks, three legendary players from the Bucs franchise, helped Hooters officially kick off fantasy football season in style. Registration is now open to book a VIP fantasy football draft party at any Hooters in America, complete with a free ESPN draft kit and season-long savings, by visiting http://football.hooters.com.

WTOP.com -  A food fight continues between Donald Trump and chef José Andrés as he abandons their restaurant deal at the Old Post Office Pavilion in the District after the Republican presidential candidate made widely criticized comments on immigrants.

On July 31, Trump Old Post Office LLC put words to action and is suing Andrés’ ThinkFoodGroup and an affiliate, Topo Atrio LLC, for $10 million and attorneys fees, accusing them of two counts of breach of contract. The suit was filed in U.S. District court for the District of Columbia.

In response, Andrés’ ThinkFoodGroup released this statement:

“This lawsuit is both unsurprising and without merit.  Simply put, Mr. Trump’s comments made ThinkFoodGroup’s participation in this project impossible and constituted a breach which the landlord, Trump Old Post Office LLC, refused to remedy.  And despite our attempts to negotiate an amicable resolution, we were ultimately forced to terminate the lease.  We had every intention of running a successful business that celebrates and welcomes people and cultures from around the world. The landlord allowed Mr. Trump to saddle us with the burden of his inflammatory statements, such that operating a high-end Spanish restaurant is no longer viable for us at this location.”

Andrés pulled out of the D.C. hotel deal after Trump made disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants during a June 15 speech declaring his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president. The Spanish-born chef said earlier this month that after those comments, opening a restaurant in Trump’s hotel was “impossible,” given his proud immigrant heritage and that of many of his employees and guests.

Fast food workers are clamoring for a higher minimum wage. But the CEO of one big restaurant chain worries that boosting the minimum wage to $15 an hour could hurt teens looking for their first job.

Sally Smith, the CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings, told CNNMoney Wednesday that her company and other restaurants may not want to hire teens for $15 an hour because that’s too much to pay for an inexperienced worker.

“It’s important to remind people that the restaurant industry trains a lot of people. Restaurants are often where a person gets their first job. They get it in high school or college,” Smith said. “So a $15 minimum wage could have an impact on youth employment.”

Read the full article

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Neighbors who live behind Terry Black’s Barbecue on Barton Springs Road have filed a lawsuit against the restaurant claiming the smoke coming from the restaurant is a nuisance.

The lawsuit claims the barbeque joint’s five smokestacks burn wood 15 hours a day which is causing damage to their property as well as mental anguish and physical impairment. Terry Black’s has been in their current location for the past year. “The smoke, both the particles and the odors permeate into homes,” said Guy Watts, the attorney who is representing 15 neighbors on Daniel Dr. who are bothered by the smoke.

Watts said for the past year they’ve tried to work out a solution with the restaurant, but nothing worked, which is while they filed the lawsuit. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter if your windows and doors are closed, you can still smell the smoke inside your house,” said Watts, who also lives on Daniel Dr. “We have a neighbor, 6 months ago never really had a respiratory problem, but he does now, my son has greater respiratory problems now than he did 18 months ago.” Read More!

Tampabay.com - Remember when food trucks were a hot new trend? In 2011 the Tampa Bay area started with about 13 food trucks; today that number is more than 150, with new ones coming onboard each week.

The trend is evolving again. An increasing number of those mobile vendors are using their food trucks to build a client base and refine a concept before launching brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Chicago Little Italy Restaurant in Lutz and Anise Global Gastrobar, Wicked 'Wiches and Chop Chop Shop in Tampa all began as food trucks, where the price of starting a business can be as low as $20,000 versus an initial outlay of more than $100,000 with a brick and mortar.

This truck-to-table phenomenon is playing out nationally in cities like New York, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Los Angeles, with a number of surprising rationales. They never planned to stay small in the first place. Read more!

Tripadvisor.com - Hungry for pizza? Come to Florida!

The top 10 U.S. pizza cities and restaurants for pizza have been listed byTripAdvisor, and Florida made the cut.

Pizza

Two Florida cities made the list for best pizza, with Orlando at No. 4 and Miami Beach at No. 10. It comes as no surprise that Chicago tops the rankings.

So how did they come up with the list?

TripAdvisor used three factors -- the quality of pizza restaurant reviews, the number of reviews and the ratio of reviews “compared to all restaurants for the city,” according to TripAdvisor.

“Using time-tested techniques and premium ingredients, the top ten U.S. pizzerias are successful as they always keep their eyes on the pies,” said Brooke Ferencsik, director of communications for TripAdvisor.

For TripAdvisor’s overall top 10 U.S. pizza restaurants, the city of St. Augustine made high marks at No. 2 for their restaurant, Pizza Time of St. Augustine. Read more!

Rhrealitycheck.Org - the lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, proposes a class of about 10,000 dave & buster’s employees who allege the company moved them to part-time status in 2013, eliminating their health insurance coverage in the process.

The employees claim this action violates section 501 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a federal law governing employee health and pension plans.

The employees allege that Dave & Buster’s reduced worker hours to avoid the ACA’s so-called employer mandate, which requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees or full-time equivalents to provide ACA-compliant health insurance coverage for those employees and their dependents, or face financial penalties. Read more!

Bay9news.com -  Florida Democrats have filed legislation to more than double the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, an eye-popping figure they hope will spark an outpouring of activism aimed at pressuring the Republican-controlled Legislature to act.The legislation, SB 6, is sponsored by Sen. Dwight Bullard (D-Miami), who for years has tried unsuccessfully to raise Florida's minimum wage of $8.05, currently set slightly above the federally-mandated minimum of $7.25 an hour, to $10.10.

Minimum wage workers, many of whom staff fast food establishments, have long complained of what they say is the inadequacy of their paychecks to meet the necessities of daily life. A so-called "living wage" is what Angel Vega, who works the counter at a seafood restaurant, says he deserves. "I feel like that would help a lot of people, you know what I mean, and get their own place and start saving," Vega said. "It would be much better, especially with the hard work, especially hard labor and all that. That would do pretty good."  Read more!

News4jax.com - Investigators say a restaurant manager in Chicago often encouraged his patrons to join the restaurant's rewards program.  Then, Alexander Pera would offer to take the check and help you pay your bill quickly.

"When he [Alexander Pera] brought it back to process it, he would make copies of the application and the credit card. He had all of the personal identifiers as well as the credit card number," explained U.S. Postal Inspector Robert Sizer.

With that information and the rewards program application he had everything he needed to fraudulently use the credit cards, and he did. Investigators say he  stole $50,000 50 victims.

Authorities say Pera took extravagant vacations as well as multiple trips to Disney World under different aliases. Read more!