New York City — The Dolly Llama, based in Los Angeles, is coming to New York. The popular waffle and artisanal ice cream shop will debut in the East Village on March 11th. “Always on the hunt for new business opportunities, I stumbled across The Dolly Llama and it immediately piqued my interest due to the vibrant, fun branding of the unique concept,” says John Harper, franchisee of the Dolly Llama East Village. “The East Village neighborhood is an eclectic mix of incredible restaurants and an abundance of nightlife, basically …
restaurants
Los Angeles — Helbiz Kitchen, a Helbiz company, has launched its first kitchen in Santa Monica, Calif., in partnership with Kitchen United. The opening of the second location in Los Angeles is planned for later this month and will be located in the Westwood area. Helbiz Kitchen is known for its commitment to high-quality products, with an uncompromising focus on taste and flavor. The selection of products available in Los Angeles has not been modified from the menus offered in Milan, ensuring that customers in Los Angeles are able to …
Lafayette, La. — McDonald’s Corporation and Lightsource bp have formed a power purchase agreement for a 145 MWac/180 MWdc solar project located in St. Landry Parish, La. The Prairie Ronde Solar project will generate an expected average of approximately 327,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of renewable energy annually, equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of 30,700 U.S. homes once complete. The deal helps advances McDonald’s commitment to climate action and its sustainability goals, while expanding Lightsource bp’s footprint of solar assets across the Southeast. “Growing our partnership with Lightsource bp reaffirms …
Irvine, Calif. — Taco Bell has opened its latest Cantina restaurant experience in the heart of Los Angeles, along the iconic palm tree-lined Hollywood Boulevard. The latest Cantina restaurant — known for its boozy drink menu and all the craveable menu items fans have come to expect — sits on a historic 1920s Hollywood property, once a bookstore known as a book lover’s haunt for movie stars, merging a “golden-age” design with modern, digital-only ordering and pickup. The Hollywood Cantina is the first Cantina in Los Angeles County. With more …
Newport Beach, Calif. — Chipotle Mexican Grill is opening a new restaurant called Farmesa at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif. Farmesa is a fresh, bold new concept that is inspired by Chipotle’s ‘Food with Integrity’ standards. The concept will soft-open with an abbreviated menu and limited hours before officially rolling out in March. “One of our strategic objectives is to create or invest in emerging culinary spaces and restaurant concepts that fit within Chipotle’s food with integrity mission and make fresh food daily,” says Brian Niccol, chairman and …
Oklahoma City — On February 20, SONIC® Drive-In will introduce the brand for the first time in the state of Hawai’i with the opening of a new location in Kahului, Maui. Located within the Ho’okele Shopping Center, the drive-in is owned and operated by North Shore Provisions, LLC, d/b/a SONIC Drive-In Hawai’i. SONIC Drive-In now has at least one location in 47 states. The new drive-in location in Kahului will offer drive-thru service, patio seating, as well as ordering through the classic SONIC drive-in stalls. “We’ve had our mind set …
Houston — HungerRush, a leading cloud software provider for the restaurant industry, has expanded its leadership team with the addition of a new chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), vice president of finance and vice president of independent operators (I/O) sales. The growing finance team welcomes two new team members. David Tabachnick joins the team as CFO and Patrick Hughes will assume the role of vice president of finance. Tabachnick joins HungerRush from Acoustic where he most recently served as CAO. He brings more than 20 years of …
Dallas — FAT (Fresh. Authentic. Tasty.) Brands Inc., parent company of Twin Peaks Restaurant and 16 other restaurant concepts, enjoyed another strong year in 2022. The sports lodge concept opened nine new lodges, while also signing four new area development agreements (ADAs) to add 26 future lodges in the U.S. and one ADA in Mexico for an additional 32 lodges. These agreements are expected to allow the brand to surpass the 100-restaurant milestone by spring. “We’re proud of the work our teams put in to ensure that Twin Peaks stays …
Los Angeles — The Dolly Llama, the waffle and artisanal ice cream destination based out of Los Angeles, is planning substantial growth in first quarter 2023 across the country with its first New York City outpost and three locations in Texas, all within the next 2 months. The brand, which first began franchising in 2020 to expand the unique concept to major U.S. media markets, has since opened four new locations — Dallas; Jacksonville, Fla.; Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla. — and is fueling major growth in 2023. First, the Dolly …
— By Tyler Simmons — Restaurants need a new menu item: food waste strategy. Waste is a concept. We decide on a marker of when something usable becomes unusable, whether that is within a certain timeframe or due to a certain visual indicator — like a bruise on an apple or a snack past its ‘best before’ label. One minute food is edible, delicious, desirable — the next it’s unsellable, tainted, trash. Waste is an unfortunate output of system inefficiency, and the economical and environmental impact of when the …