Wednesday May 31, 2023

More Bay Area restaurants are closing for mental health breaks

In late July, Peterson Harter, feeling burned out, shut down his San Francisco sandwich pop-up Sandy’s for a weekend.

That one weekend turned into three as he slipped into a deep depression. His couch felt like a pool of quicksand, pulling him into a dark place where something as simple as brushing his teeth or picking up a phone call from his best friend felt insurmountable. The weight of the last year-plus — the pandemic capsizing all sense of normalcy, losing his restaurant job, throwing himself into baking bread 18 hours a day to survive — collapsed on him.

“I

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Toast IPO could value restaurant-tech vendor at $16 billion

Toast’s restaurant technology

Toast

Toast is gearing up for an initial public offering next week that could value the restaurant-tech company at more than $16 billion. That’s about double its valuation from a secondary share sale last November.

The company has taken a very uneven path to the New York Stock Exchange.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Toast was thriving by selling technology to restaurants that helped them combine their payment systems with things like inventory management and multilocation controls for eateries with more than one site. Investors valued the company at $5 billion in February 2020.

Two months later,

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Albany restaurant owners say crime is ruining businesses

ALBANY – Joe Abbruzzese and Jim Rua said they’re tired of the gunshots, watching hand-to-hand drug deals and having customers tell them they don’t feel safe outside at their restaurants at night.

They’ve built restaurants and reputations that have become cornerstones in the Mansion neighborhood. When Gov. Kathy Hochul was sworn in last month, she celebrated with dinner at Rua’s Café Capriccio on Grand Street.

The area that includes the two restaurants, Abbruzzese’s Hill Street Café and Rua’s Café Capriccio, sits just a few hundred feet from the governor’s mansion and the Empire State Plaza, with easy access to highways

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Washington Post column that disparaged Indian food prompts backlash, a correction and an apology

The Washington Post this week published a correction and a rebuttal to a humor column after backlash over the writer’s take on Indian food as “the only ethnic food in the world based entirely on one spice.”

In his weekly column in The Washington Post Magazine, Gene Weingarten penned a list of foods he doesn’t like to sarcastically dispute criticism that he “like a toddler I seem to categorically dislike, and whine about, many foods.”

Along with Old Bay seasoning, balsamic vinegar, bleu cheese (“rhymes with ‘eeuuu cheese'”), he listed Indian food.

“The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world,

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Why You Need To Visit These 12 AsiaTown Spots






Asia Food Co.




From a karaoke bar to expansive grocery stores, this Cleveland neighborhood offers something for everyone.

Asiatown might be known for its restaurants offering up authentic Asian cuisine, but there’s so much more to this Cleveland neighborhood. From a karaoke bar, dance studio, expansive grocery stores and tightknit community, it is home to more than 2,000 residents including immigrants and U.S. citizens of Asian descent. “AsiaTown is special because we have such a diverse community and businesses,” says Karis Tzeng, director of AsiaTown

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Francesca Hong’s Career in Restaurants Taught Her What Local Government Really Needs

This story is part of Heads of the Table, our celebration of 12 restaurants, people, and organizations that led the industry through the pandemic and beyond. Meet all the winners here.

The human experience is a varied one. But this past year has been one of a shared struggle that has tied all of us together in grief, anxiety, and clarity. The pandemic brought to light many things for me, most revolving around the idea of service—what it has meant for me and what it means to my city, my state, and my country.

As the co-chef and co-owner

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