FoodBozo.com

As experiments go, this one isn’t flashy.

But the success — or failure — of one Starbucks cafe on the edge of a trendy Seattle neighborhood could ripple through the nation’s coffee house industry.

Because where Starbucks goes, others follow.

Dubbed “Olive Way,” the store is the biggest percolator yet for ideas that the world’s largest coffee company has been testing separately at nearly a dozen locations around the globe. And what succeeds at Olive Way will most likely be spread to other Starbucks stores around the country.

Read more here: Starbucks shop tries wine, ‘coffee theater’

A bill was introduced at Queen’s Park on Wednesday aiming to make eating out a healthier experience.

The private member’s bill from NDP health promotion critic France Gelinas would require major chain restaurants to list calories on their menus to encourage healthy eating across Ontario.

Read more here: Calorie counts on menus proposed for restaurant chains

The owner of a popular Toronto gastropub who asks to remain nameless is showing off what he calls his “nightly journal,” though “naughty journal” is a more accurate descriptor. Most of the handwritten entries deal with the dull details of restaurant life—nightly sales, tables turned, supplier snafus. Where reading turns interesting, even salacious, is in its dutiful recording of customer misbehaviour collected via staff and fellow customer complaints. Names are used when they’re known. Otherwise, physical descriptions suffice.

Read more: How to get on a restaurant’s hit list

Written by: Michael Hill, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Writers Sue Manning in Los Angeles and Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

Dieters can’t believe everything they read: The food at many popular chain restaurants and in the freezer section of the supermarket may contain a lot more calories than advertised.

A U.S. study of 10 chain restaurants, including Wendy’s and Ruby Tuesday, found that the number of calories in 29 meals or other menu items was an average of 18 per cent higher than listed.

And frozen supermarket meals from Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice and South Beach Living had eight per cent more calories than the labels said, according to the study, published in this month’s Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The researchers and other experts aren’t accusing restaurants and food companies of trying to deceive customers. They said most of the discrepancies can be explained by variations in ingredients, portion sizes and testing methods. For example, the teenager behind the counter might have put too much mayonnaise on one sandwich.

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