People Are Freaking Out About Starbucks' Cookies; Amazon's One-Hour Booze Delivery

Chipotle's recent E. coli and norovirus scares have caused its stock to plummet, same store sales to drop, and public image to suffer. The New Yorker outlines why Chipotle may not weather this current bout of food poisoning well, despite its past decade of success: "Chipotle built its reputation with its reliance on fresh, often locally sourced, ingredients," author James Surowiecki writes, "That approach has always been a major branding advantage for the company, but it also makes the task of insuring food safety far more complex, since it means Chipotle has to deal with many different local suppliers, rather than just a few big ones... The company has also always trumpeted the fact that it prepared meals by hand, right in front of the customer... In the wake of the outbreaks, though, the sheer visibility of the food-preparation process could make it hard for customers not to wonder about what the person building their burrito might be transmitting."

Image credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr

Yesterday, Amazon.com launched booze delivery as part of its Prime Now service in Manhattan. It's also available in Seattle. But fear not Brooklyn and the rest of the world: Amazon plans to bring its Prime Now delivery option for wine, beer, and hard liquor to 20 cities across the country, according to Re/Code. This means customers who shell out $99 a year for Amazon Prime as well as $7.99 for Prime Now one-hour delivery can get wasted faster than ever. If all goes well, one-hour alcohol delivery could be an option in your city by 2016.

Image credit: Amazon/Official

The Minnesota Vikings have had a tough season so far, so it was insult added to injury when head coach Mike Zimmer went to McDonald's, ordered two cheeseburgers and found only one in his take-out bag. A McDonald's franchisee in Minnesota caught wind of the snafu and reached out to make amends: The whole team and the coach are getting 100 free McDonald's burgers. Of course, the players and coach make millions each year, so a free ~$3 burger isn't going to cheer them up. The team opted to donate the food to The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center.

Image credit: McDonald's/Facebook

Now that Starbucks' Christmas cup controversy has pretty much settled down, people are pointing a judgemental finger at another Starbucks product: Its polar bear-shaped sugar cookies. The internet says that what should be red scarves across the bear's necks look instead like gashes gushing blood. The thing is, these cookies haven't existed for at least five years. Come on people, let's just drink some coffee and eat some cookies and get through December in one piece. [Update 12/15: Per a Starbucks spokesperson, these cookies were discontinued in 2010; the image floating around the web is old.]

Image credit: Imgur

New York State's proposed $15 per hour minimum wage initiative — backed by governor Andrew Cuomo — triumphed in court yesterday. A state board upheld the order, and in so doing rejected an appeal from the National Restaurant Association that accused the measure of being "blatant executive overreach." Wages for fast food workers in New York City are set to rise to $15 per hour by 2018.

Image credit: Getty Images