Restaurants

Bars and restaurants in parts of Germany have gotten a warning from the authorities: anyone who has closed their business for one year without interruption is threatened with the expiry of their restaurant licence. This mainly affects pubs, bars and clubs, many of which have had to close not only since the recent lockdown, but consistently since March 2019.

The city administration of Bad Waldsee stated: "We certainly didn't want to annoy the innkeepers with this information letter, on the contrary, we see the letter as support to prevent the deletion period from taking effect. In order to make this notification as informal as possible, we have deliberately offered a non-bureaucratic phone call or email as feedback in the letter,"

The Michelin Guide has awarded a star to a vegan restaurant in France for the first time. It was awarded to ONA, where top chef Claire Vallée avoids meat, fish, dairy products and honey in her dishes.

Vallée founded ONA in 2016 with the help of crowdfunding and a loan from an eco-bank. Gourmet lovers will find it in Arès, west of Bordeaux.

The name of the restaurant, which is currently closed due to the pandemic, stands for "Origine Non Animale," meaning ingredients that are not of animal origin. According to the Guide Michelin, guests could choose from seven gourmet dishes using ingredients such as pine nuts, celery, sake or tonka beans.

New York City restaurant owners have filed a $2 billion class-action suit against city and state officials in Manhattan's Supreme Court, stating a violation of the constitutional rights of mover than 150,000 New York City restaurant owners.

"It’s been nearly six months since New York City restaurants were mandated to shutdown indoor dining, and Mayor de Blasio still does not have a reopening plan, even though the rest of the state has been dining indoors since June," so Andrew Rigie, Executive Director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance.

Together with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation Guy Fieri has raised $21.5 million for a new Restaurant Employee Relief Fund. The fund has started distributing the money to individual workers in the restaurant business, giving each a grant of $500. Over 40,000 grants have already been awarded. Guy Fieri has stated that he reached out with personal video messages to CEOs involved in the food and restaurant industry to ask for donations to the fund.

The Chief Executive Officer and founder of the steak restaurant chain Texas Roadhouse, W. Kent Taylor has announced to forgo his regular salary payments as well as additional bonus payments in order to make the salary payments of frontline restaurant workers possible. The company also announced that it would not pay dividends in order to have more money on hand because of the coronavirus pandemic.