The popularity of chicken wings makes no sense, especially since they've gotten exponentially more expensive.  I don't think I've ever paid more than $3, and usually less than $2 or $1 for something I'd term a "snack".  Chicken wings were like 20 cents a piece in the 90s (I remember BW3's having 10-cent wing night on Tuesdays) but they're often priced at or more than $1 each now. 

 

But couch potato college students regularly order 12 or 18 wings for delivery at 11pm at a cost of $9.99 or $14.99.  Add some bread sticks or a $2.99 2-liter or something else +$3 for the driver and they're dropping about $20 for a snack.  Pay with the Bearcash Card and it's daddy's money so it doesn't matter. 

 

I haven't been to Cane's since 2007 and barely remember it.  Chicken fingers are just long chicken nuggets (aka "boneless" wings) and as such are about as unhealthy as food gets.  There is probably filler in there that isn't even chicken. 

 

To each his own Jake. I'm a huge fan of chicken wings and Raising Canes. I think what Canes does well is they have a simple menu and do chicken fingers well. As for wings, I'm a huge fan of Knockback Nats and I see all types of demographics there.

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices.

 

I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.

I think it's just harder to get students to even leave their rooms these days since so many are nerds and don't want to take time off from gaming, anime and whatnot. They're young enough that the doritos an mountain dew don't starve them like it would someone over 25.

But couch potato college students regularly order 12 or 18 wings for delivery at 11pm at a cost of $9.99 or $14.99.  Add some bread sticks or a $2.99 2-liter or something else +$3 for the driver and they're dropping about $20 for a snack.

 

LMAO!  12-18 wings, bread sticks, and a 2-liter???  That's one hell of a "snack"!

It will probably do really well. There aren't really any fast food restaurants in the area except sub shops.

 

Agree that Cane's will do well, but baffled by the second comment.  At least 80% of the restaurants in the area are fast food.

 

I'm looking more at the traditional sense of fast food. Almost all of the classic fast food places have vanished (McDonald's, Arby's, Long John Silvers, etc). Obviously that area has a lot of cheap, greasy food, but not many places that are traditional fast food. The closest things to this are Chipotle and Currito. Everything else is either more of a sit down place (Keystone, Hwy 55, BW3), drunk food (Gilpins, Tiger Dumplings), or a sub shop or Indian restaurant. There aren't any true fast food restaurants in that area right now.

 

Understood - you're largely correct about that.  In fairness, Five Guys and Chicago Gyro are relatively traditional burger/fry places, but they are definitely the outliers along that stretch of road.

Didn't Five Guys close?

 

And Chicago Gyros is similar, but it's more of a sit down and eat kind of place, I find, and definitely not a "traditional fast food restaurant" in my interpretation of the vague phrase

Five Guys closed several years ago. That space is currently being built out as a purely french fry place.

Five Guys closed several years ago. That space is currently being built out as a purely french fry place.

 

I stand corrected.  I made the switch to the Newport Five Guys since moving out of Clifton a few years back and I seem to have fallen out of touch!

According to UC's site, the current TUC fast food tenants are Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Papa John's, Taco Bell, and a "Greens to Go/KumaNeko Sushi" (which has changed names a couple of times but is essentially Aramark's generic storefront for pre-made food). There are also two Starbucks on Main Campus (the CCM Cafe became a Starbucks a few years ago) and generic Aramark-operated cafes in many of the colleges (such as the "DAAP Cafe"), not to mention the Catskellar (bar food).

Looks like even Gold Star is gone from there.

 

Gold Star Chili is now a hookah bar.

 

 

Oh. I was talking about the TUC one, not Short Vine.

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices.

 

I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.

 

 

What's really annoying is that some places are serving just "flats", and other places do not separate the wings.  I don't know if those places have a stack of drums and a stack of flats or what happens to the undesired part of the wing.  I just can't believe that someone is so finicky as to declare some preference for one part of a chicken wing versus another.  I hated living in the south because I was constantly derided for eating plain food without heaps of sauce and sour cream and gravy and whatever else on it.  It was their way of getting back at me for weighing under 350 pounds. 

 

The absurd economics of chicken wings could possibly be usurped if turkey necks ever emerged from the South like the sudden rise of Nashville Hot Chicken, which nobody in Nashville had heard of until 2 years ago. 

Park Chili in Northside coming back to life, somehow someone with the middle name "Pogo" is invovled:

 

http://www.soapboxmedia.com/devnews/021616-the-park-northside-gets-new-life.aspx?utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Northside+restaurant+staple+getting+new+life%2c+keeping+the+chili&utm_content=%7bEmail_Address%7d&utm_campaign=Cincinnati+is+part+of+the+%22next+big+thing%22

 

 

This article doesn't mention that the adjacent building and the apartments above were all part of the listing.  I assume that the sellers waited around for someone to appear who wanted to continue the restaurant.  They probably sacrificed quite a bit in the sale price by doing that. 

 

 

 

 

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices.

 

I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.

 

 

What's really annoying is that some places are serving just "flats", and other places do not separate the wings.  I don't know if those places have a stack of drums and a stack of flats or what happens to the undesired part of the wing.  I just can't believe that someone is so finicky as to declare some preference for one part of a chicken wing versus another.  I hated living in the south because I was constantly derided for eating plain food without heaps of sauce and sour cream and gravy and whatever else on it.  It was their way of getting back at me for weighing under 350 pounds. 

 

The absurd economics of chicken wings could possibly be usurped if turkey necks ever emerged from the South like the sudden rise of Nashville Hot Chicken, which nobody in Nashville had heard of until 2 years ago. 

 

You go to Martino's and you're getting a whole wing no matter what.

^ The only food at Martino's I'd rate as above average....

Park Chili in Northside coming back to life, somehow someone with the middle name "Pogo" is invovled:

 

http://www.soapboxmedia.com/devnews/021616-the-park-northside-gets-new-life.aspx?utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Northside+restaurant+staple+getting+new+life%2c+keeping+the+chili&utm_content=%7bEmail_Address%7d&utm_campaign=Cincinnati+is+part+of+the+%22next+big+thing%22

 

 

This article doesn't mention that the adjacent building and the apartments above were all part of the listing.  I assume that the sellers waited around for someone to appear who wanted to continue the restaurant.  They probably sacrificed quite a bit in the sale price by doing that. 

 

I went to Park Chili for the first time this weekend, as I wanted to try it before it closed. Their omelette was not very good, and service was extremely slow (we were there 1 1/2 hours after they closed because we were waiting so long on our food). It makes me miss Tucker's, which had much higher quality food but had the same dirty old diner feel to it.

^ Have you tried Blue Jay? That has always been my go to greasy diner breakfast spot.

 

 

You go to Martino's and you're getting a whole wing no matter what.

 

Yeah, but then you're supporting Steelers fans. I'm only a casual Bengals fan but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to step foot inside that place.

Iconic OTR restaurant sets reopening date

 

An iconic Over-the-Rhine eatery destroyed by a fire will reopen.

 

Tucker’s Restaurant will reopen at 1637 Vine St. on July 25, the diner’s Facebook page says.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/morning_call/2016/02/iconic-otr-restaurant-sets-reopening-date.html

Vitor's on the west side is closing:

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2016/02/23/vitors-bistro-closing-month/80780576/

 

I only went there once but this was one of only two good restaurants on the west side, the other being Prima Vista. 

Vitor's on the west side is closing:

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2016/02/23/vitors-bistro-closing-month/80780576/

 

I only went there once but this was one of only two good restaurants on the west side, the other being Prima Vista. 

 

One of the Enquirer comments is, "Restaurants like this can't compete with the goverment subsidised establishments in OTR and Downtown." What alternate universe are Enquirer commenters living in?

^ I'm not at all surprised. We went to Vitor's via Groupon a couple months ago. There was absolutely nobody there on a Friday night. The environment was awkward and felt very dated. The chef was also our waiter. We stood around for like 5 minutes before being seated in an empty restaurant. The food was good, though.

^ I'm not at all surprised. We went to Vitor's via Groupon a couple months ago. There was absolutely nobody there on a Friday night. The environment was awkward and felt very dated. The chef was also our waiter. We stood around for like 5 minutes before being seated in an empty restaurant. The food was good, t

^ I'm not at all surprised. We went to Vitor's via Groupon a couple months ago. There was absolutely nobody there on a Friday night. The environment was awkward and felt very dated. The chef was also our waiter. We stood around for like 5 minutes before being seated in an empty restaurant. The food was good, though.

 

Unfortunately, the food is THE ONLY thing this place ever got right.  Everything else was always a mess.  Chefs should NOT be front of house managers.

The one time I went there was 2-3 years ago and by chance happened to be the night of a Bengals playoff game, which I think was a Saturday night, so nobody was there.  For whatever reason it's not "weird" being in an empty restaurant on a weeknight, but it is when it's a Friday or Saturday. 

I feel that "weirdness" stems from realizing that you're the only people in a floundering business. It takes you out of the mood and makes you painfully aware that your being there is potentially the only thing keeping them open that night which isn't generally good when trying to have a fun night out.

I now remember that I went there twice.  I went there within 1-2 years after it opened and it was very crowded.  Then the second time was when we were a group of about 10 with maybe 10 other customers split between several tables the night of that Bengals game.  I'd guess that the place had seating for 60 or more.

 

A big problem with the west side is that the population has gone nuts over the Longhorn Steakhouse on Harrison and other newer chain restaurants at the expense of all of the local restaurants in the area.  The west side very deeply believes that it is unique, but then wants the chain restaurants to prove to itself that it's as good as the east side. 

One of my good friends lives on the West Side and we were hungry one night so set out to find something to eat. We stopped by Wild Mikes and it was literally empty which we weren't going to do since, as hinted before, that's a really uncomfortable feeling (though I've heard they do well so it sounds like that was just a fluke), then we breezed by Ron's Roost which wasn't sounding very good at the time and was also looking very sparse. We then decided "screw it, let's just get pizza" so we went to grab a pizza at the new Dewey's. Line out the door.

 

Also, what the hell is up with that Dewey's layout? It's like they took a model for a space that had the ability to enter from the side and modified it to fit into a space you could only enter on the end opposite the kitchen. You enter and walk all the way to the back of the dining space through a narrow hallway to find a super uncomfortable waiting area shoved into the corner. Terrible design.

 

But after deciding Dewey's isn't anywhere near worth the 2.5 hour wait they quoted (especially when we could just drive to one of the other ones in the city and still beat that time) we drove by La Rosa's which was also absolutely packed so we wound up just ordering a pizza from Donato's or something.

Sometimes I hit Fricker's for lunch when I'm in town, and the place clearly has a lot of day-drinking regulars.

One of my good friends lives on the West Side and we were hungry one night so set out to find something to eat. We stopped by Wild Mikes and it was literally empty which we weren't going to do since, as hinted before, that's a really uncomfortable feeling (though I've heard they do well so it sounds like that was just a fluke), then we breezed by Ron's Roost which wasn't sounding very good at the time and was also looking very sparse. We then decided "screw it, let's just get pizza" so we went to grab a pizza at the new Dewey's. Line out the door.

 

Also, what the hell is up with that Dewey's layout? It's like they took a model for a space that had the ability to enter from the side and modified it to fit into a space you could only enter on the end opposite the kitchen. You enter and walk all the way to the back of the dining space through a narrow hallway to find a super uncomfortable waiting area shoved into the corner. Terrible design.

 

But after deciding Dewey's isn't anywhere near worth the 2.5 hour wait they quoted (especially when we could just drive to one of the other ones in the city and still beat that time) we drove by La Rosa's which was also absolutely packed so we wound up just ordering a pizza from Donato's or something.

 

 

For pizza, try a local westside place sometime...Werkhaus Pizza on Werk near Glenway.

Vitor's should re-open in OTR. From what I understand the food is really good, but the location sucks. It would generate so much more traffic if it was located among other successful restaurants.

Yes I'm sure that the owners were kicking themselves when OTR really took off.  They could have been one of the original restaurants down there and doing $50-100k in business every week for the past five years.

 

But people now can't remember what the context was -- the Gateway Condo building stood at least half unsold from when it was finished around 2005 until maybe 2012.  Lavomatic was all by its lonesome for at least six months and possibly a year.  It was still really lonely down there when Lackman opened, which might have been 2011.  At that time there was just Lavomatic, Senate, and Lackman.  Just three places.  That original furniture store where A Tavola is now went out of business in 2010 along with several of the other early stores like the gardening place. 

 

In hindsight, it all looks so obvious, but it definitely wasn't at the time. 

One of my good friends lives on the West Side and we were hungry one night so set out to find something to eat. We stopped by Wild Mikes and it was literally empty which we weren't going to do since, as hinted before, that's a really uncomfortable feeling (though I've heard they do well so it sounds like that was just a fluke), then we breezed by Ron's Roost which wasn't sounding very good at the time and was also looking very sparse. We then decided "screw it, let's just get pizza" so we went to grab a pizza at the new Dewey's. Line out the door.

 

Also, what the hell is up with that Dewey's layout? It's like they took a model for a space that had the ability to enter from the side and modified it to fit into a space you could only enter on the end opposite the kitchen. You enter and walk all the way to the back of the dining space through a narrow hallway to find a super uncomfortable waiting area shoved into the corner. Terrible design.

 

But after deciding Dewey's isn't anywhere near worth the 2.5 hour wait they quoted (especially when we could just drive to one of the other ones in the city and still beat that time) we drove by La Rosa's which was also absolutely packed so we wound up just ordering a pizza from Donato's or something.

 

2.5 hours for Dewey's - or any pizza place - is definitely nuts.  I do have to say though, I still consider Dewey's to be the best local pizza chain by a mile. 

 

On a side note, you gotta get back to Wild Mike's at some point if you haven't yet.  Pretty divey but the wings are truly the best in the city, and the crowd has been anything but sparse the handful of times I've been to the Delhi location.  Must've been a very off night.

A few of my coworkers are Westsiders and have told me I need to get out there. I have to be in a certain mood to do wings but I will definitely give it a try. I was told that I must have hit it on a randomly slow night since it definitely sounds like they're generally pretty busy.

Yes I'm sure that the owners were kicking themselves when OTR really took off.  They could have been one of the original restaurants down there and doing $50-100k in business every week for the past five years.

 

But people now can't remember what the context was -- the Gateway Condo building stood at least half unsold from when it was finished around 2005 until maybe 2012.  Lavomatic was all by its lonesome for at least six months and possibly a year.  It was still really lonely down there when Lackman opened, which might have been 2011.  At that time there was just Lavomatic, Senate, and Lackman.  Just three places.  That original furniture store where A Tavola is now went out of business in 2010 along with several of the other early stores like the gardening place. 

 

In hindsight, it all looks so obvious, but it definitely wasn't at the time. 

 

Vitors can't survive anywhere. He's an amazing chef, the food is not the problem, and even the location isn't a huge problem.  The problem is he runs a poor restaurant from an experiential point of view. The overall experience plain sucks at the pricepoint he was at.  The sad thing is, he could fix the problems by simply hiring an experienced front of house manager, and letting that person do their job without any micromanagement from the kitchen. I just don't ever see that happening.  It's just a quirk of his personality.  Maybe the food truck will fare better, as it is less reliant on an overall experience, and the dominant focus is indeed only the food.

Yes I'm sure that the owners were kicking themselves when OTR really took off.  They could have been one of the original restaurants down there and doing $50-100k in business every week for the past five years.

 

But people now can't remember what the context was -- the Gateway Condo building stood at least half unsold from when it was finished around 2005 until maybe 2012.  Lavomatic was all by its lonesome for at least six months and possibly a year.  It was still really lonely down there when Lackman opened, which might have been 2011.  At that time there was just Lavomatic, Senate, and Lackman.  Just three places.  That original furniture store where A Tavola is now went out of business in 2010 along with several of the other early stores like the gardening place. 

 

In hindsight, it all looks so obvious, but it definitely wasn't at the time. 

 

I think it was on its own for longer than a year, because I remember there being some sort of spat between Lavomatic and Senate when Senate was about to open, that basically boiled down to Lavomatic struggling a bit and not being happy about a restaurant opening right across the street.  And at that point, Jean Robert had already departed Lavomatic and they had redone the menu at least once.

Lavomatic opened in 2008. Didn't Senate open in 2010 about two years later?

That sounds about right.

Here is a graphic from Lavomatic's 1-year anniversary, so yes it does appear that it opened in 2008.  I would have guessed 2009 at bar trivia night. 

 

2.5 hours for Dewey's - or any pizza place - is definitely nuts.  I do have to say though, I still consider Dewey's to be the best local pizza chain by a mile. 

Which says... not so much. ;-)

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices.

 

I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.

 

 

What's really annoying is that some places are serving just "flats", and other places do not separate the wings.  I don't know if those places have a stack of drums and a stack of flats or what happens to the undesired part of the wing.  I just can't believe that someone is so finicky as to declare some preference for one part of a chicken wing versus another.  I hated living in the south because I was constantly derided for eating plain food without heaps of sauce and sour cream and gravy and whatever else on it.  It was their way of getting back at me for weighing under 350 pounds. 

 

The absurd economics of chicken wings could possibly be usurped if turkey necks ever emerged from the South like the sudden rise of Nashville Hot Chicken, which nobody in Nashville had heard of until 2 years ago. 

 

Google supports Jake's Nashville Hot Chicken theory- http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Nashville%20chicken%2C%20nashville%20hot%20chicken&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5

Chicken wing prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. I looked into this phenomenon once and found out that chickens are being bred much larger now than just 10 years ago. So there's an increasing supply of chicken by total weight, but the larger chickens still only have two wings. So what happens to the chicken price on the commodities market does not necessarily correspond to the price of chicken wings. Fewer, larger chickens result in a steady price, but fewer wings result in soaring prices.

 

I love wings, but make sure to only eat them when there are price "specials." Wild Mike's has a 60 cent wing night, and their wings are large enough to justify the cost (and the trek all the way out to Delhi). Quan Hapa has half priced wing night, which makes their wings about 50 cents a piece if I remember correctly. One of my other solutions to the problem is to just get wings in the hottest available flavors, that way I can only eat about 6 before I feel an ulcer starting to form in my esophagus.

 

 

What's really annoying is that some places are serving just "flats", and other places do not separate the wings.  I don't know if those places have a stack of drums and a stack of flats or what happens to the undesired part of the wing.  I just can't believe that someone is so finicky as to declare some preference for one part of a chicken wing versus another.  I hated living in the south because I was constantly derided for eating plain food without heaps of sauce and sour cream and gravy and whatever else on it.  It was their way of getting back at me for weighing under 350 pounds. 

 

The absurd economics of chicken wings could possibly be usurped if turkey necks ever emerged from the South like the sudden rise of Nashville Hot Chicken, which nobody in Nashville had heard of until 2 years ago. 

 

Google supports Jake's Nashville Hot Chicken theory- http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Nashville%20chicken%2C%20nashville%20hot%20chicken&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5

 

Perhaps we are reaching "Peak Chicken". 

 

Returning to the subject of flats vs. drums, I broached the subject last week or the week before with a coworker, and he said his wife only eats the flats because she thinks there is some risk that the drums are undercooked.  Okay, if you've ever worked at a place that fries chicken in a professional fryer, be it the custom pressure cookers at KFC (375F for 16:30 or a typical open oven, you know that chicken is being cooked at 400 degrees for at least 10 minutes.  A chicken wing is like the smallest amount of meat there is.  There's no way the drum of a chicken wing isn't thoroughly cooked after 10 minutes of swimming around in a couple gallons of 400 degree oil. 

 

 

 

 

...what an unreasonable fear. I worked at a KFC throughout high school and nothing raw being put into those fryers is coming out anything other than thoroughly cooked. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if chicken wings are technically safe to eat after only a couple minutes at that temperature. Like you said there's so little meat on any chicken wing that it doesn't take long at all for it to be completely cooked through.

Yesterday I saw on a KFC sign that they now have Nashville Hot Chicken - that has be the quickest I've seen a regional dish be invented and become available nationally. Accordingly, when I saw the sign I was actually on my way to the West Side for my biannual trip to Wild Mike's to get some wings. I think I had been subconsciously thinking about them since making that post last month.

City, state and region place names are being added willy-nilly to all sorts of foods buy marketers. Many with no basis in reality.

Yesterday I saw on a KFC sign that they now have Nashville Hot Chicken - that has be the quickest I've seen a regional dish be invented and become available nationally. Accordingly, when I saw the sign I was actually on my way to the West Side for my biannual trip to Wild Mike's to get some wings. I think I had been subconsciously thinking about them since making that post last month.

 

I think Yard House has had NashHotChic on the menu for about a year now.

I can't wait 'til KFC adds the Rochester Garbage Plate to its menu!

Cincinnati’s build-your-own donut bar expands

 

 

Top This Donut Bar is opening its second Greater Cincinnati this week, and it has its eye on further expansion.

 

Top This Donut Bar & Ice Cream will host its grand opening at 7466 Beechmont Ave. in Anderson Towne Center on Saturday. The new location with offer the retailer’s signature build-your-own doughnut bar along with soft serve chocolate and vanilla ice cream – a new twist that fits in the new, larger location.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/03/04/cincinnati-s-build-your-own-donut-bar-expands.html

Can't wait for the first local restaurant to copy this to generate a self-congratulatory article:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/04/restaurants-try-surcharge-boost-kitchen-staff-pay/XvSQSOCu8bpPKuVFjMUPLI/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline&s_campaign=

^ So really they just raised all their prices 3%, and called it a "surcharge" in order to capitalize off of the recent hubub about low paid workers. And of course the media, and likely a ton of customers, have fallen for their ploy.

That seems like an odd solution to the problem -- to rely on a surcharge to pay BOH more but still rely on tips for FOH. Why not just do what many a handful of restaurants have done and eliminate tipping, then add a surcharge that gets split among all employees? Of better yet, just build that expense into the cost of food rather than calling it out separately.

If restaurants did drug testing on their employees, they wouldn't have a staff.  I can't bring myself to be skimpy with tips, even though I know it's more than likely being spent on something wasteful and self-destructive.