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- Late-night Lyft users in Orange County still have a few days to employ Taco Mode, which adds a Taco Bell pit stop to the ride home. While Lyft drivers aren’t all happy with the promotion — they’re concerned about the mess the tacos will leave behind — riders seem into it. An LA Times reporter tried it out, noting that the Taco Bell he went to “went all-out decorating itself for Taco Mode.” There were strobe lights, Taco Mode shirts, and more.
- After many delays, Noma founder Claus Meyer’s new project, the Brownsville Community Culinary Center, is set to open in east Brooklyn this August. Along with a 40-week culinary program and a community space, the center will have a seated restaurant (said to be the neighborhood’s first in 50 years), as well as a bakery and a cafe. The NYT calls it Brooklyn’s “anti-gentrification restaurant.”
- San Francisco chef Traci Des Jardin says that putting the Impossible burger on the menu of Jardiniere gave her an immediate bump in business: “The Impossible Burger was the silver bullet for us that brought in clientele we hadn’t seen in like a decade.”
- In this op-ed, North Carolina restaurateur Andrea Reusing comments on the lack of transparency around food labor in the overplayed “farm-to-table” movement. She’s spoken about this before, including in a 2013 Tedx Talk.
- Jeff Bridges, Questlove, Alton Brown, Kristen bell, Bobby Flay, and Neil Patrick Harris designed some spatulas for William Sonoma. A portion of proceeds go to the nonprofit No Kids Hungry.
- Here’s big-deal London chef Clare Smyth on success, what motivates her, and her thoughts on how to keep pushing women forward in the industry. “We should never allow [gender] to stand in our way. In a kitchen, there is no difference between the sexes.”
- Someone stole an 1800-pound barbecue pit trailer from a restaurant in Albuquerque. It took the owner six years to save up for it.
- But in happier news, an engineering grad has invented a new, more cost-effective device that tests restaurant food for allergens. The prototype tests for lactose “but future versions could be tailored to other irritants such as nuts, wheat, seafood or meat.”
- And, finally, watch Charlie Rose shill for his (fake) rosé:
