A Cat Cafe Obsession; How Looks-Based Discrimination Works in Restaurants

Happy Thursday. You there, with the cat allergy or fear of animals or germs (or both), this paragraph is not for you. For everyone else, Los Angeles joins over a dozen other American cities this week when it opens its first-ever cat cafe. Oh my gosh cats, how cute are cats? And cats in a cafe?! So perfectly cute. I love small furry creatures of all kinds, but I know everyone is not like me. I get the sense that people are tired of reading about cat cafes. And I guess that's fair, but if you're tired of the concept of the cat cafe, in which you can sip coffee and have cats and kittens crawl around you and nuzzle your calves and sit in your lap and purr into your ear — and help promote animal adoption! — something might be wrong with you or your ability to connect with other living things. So now here are some photos of cats in a cafe. Please in enjoy them.

In other food world news:

— A restaurant in NYC decorated its bathroom with a faux wasp nest for some reason.

— Have you ever wondered how restaurants and bars get away with looks-based discrimination? Jezebel reports:

On the surface, it may seem harmless to run a bar with a Prohibition-era vibe, but once that establishment starts hiring employees who look the part—has a beard, looks good in suspenders, has "natural" hair—it's a slippery slope to exclusion. Subconsciously, a hiring manager might see a well-qualified woman applicant, and feel that she just "doesn't quite fit what we're going for." The same goes for black applicants or the Latinx bar back that's been there for years without ever getting a promotion. As tempting as it may be to treat restaurants like a Disneyland theme park, employees are not part of the decoration.

— All Magnolia Bakery locations will serve a new version of their signature banana pudding this week: Peanut Butter Banana Pudding is spiked with peanut butter and crunchy salted peanuts and Nutter Butters and costs $3.75 for a small. It's available on August 27 only.

— Stephen Colbert sounds confused:

— Finally, who makes the better burger: In-n-Out or Shake Shack?