Month: July 2016

Cops and Courts

‘Shocking’ video of customers jumping counter at U.K. KFC; and cops taser Taco Bell attacker in north Florida

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

Crime scene tape“Shocking footage” — that’s what the U.K.’s Mirror calls it — has emerged showing customers leaping over the counter at a KFC in Finsbury Park last night after the Wireless festival in London.

Police responded to a call for help from the restaurant’s employees, and a 17-year-old festival goer told The Evening Standard she felt “very squashed and intimidated” inside.

The trouble started when two “rowdy” men entered the restaurant and jumped ahead of a line of customers who’d already been waiting 15 minutes to place orders, according to the teenager, whom the newspaper didn’t identify by name.

“Then a man queuing heard [an employee] was going to call the police, so he questioned him and then jumped onto the counter, then about five others climbed over and stole chicken,” she said.

Taco Bell

In Lake City, Fla., police say they were forced to use a Taser three times on an unruly man who threw food at employees yesterday morning at a Taco Bell restaurant.

Jonathan Prouty
Prouty

Jonathan Prouty, 35, was unhappy (obviously, but that’s all WTLV reports) and got into a fight with customers and employees before leaving the store off of U.S. Highway 90. Officers say they caught the suspect not far away, where he didn’t obey commands to stop and eventually started swinging at officers. That’s when they broke out the Taser.

Texas Roadhouse

Further south in Florida, in Pompano Beach, a 27-year-old man is being held on a $110,000 bond after a fight in a Texas Roadhouse parking lot in Boynton Beach over a cellphone sale that went awry. The man, Christopher Charles has been charged with robbery with a firearm, armed burglary and aggravated battery.

Christopher Charles
Charles

Charles told police he bought a phone that turned out to be fake through the mobile app OfferUp. He confronted the seller in the restaurant parking lot, where they’d agreed to meet, and a physical altercation followed, according to the Palm Beach Post. Charles showed the alleged victim an unloaded gun during the fight, police said.

Charles was arraigned this morning.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.

Latest Headlines

Humana dives another 3% as investors watch DOJ fallout; and prison time for N.C. man who duped ad agencies over fake Brown-Forman contract

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:30 p.m.

AdWeek cover
Ad exec fraudster appears on trade weekly’s just-published cover this week.

HUMANA‘s shares fell another 2.6%, or $4.15, to close at $154, as investors watched developments at the Louisville company and proposed acquirer Aetna, after executives mounted an 11th-hour battle Friday before antitrust officials to save the companies’ $37 billion merger. Aetna’s shares closed down 0.5%, or 56 cents, to $116.44. Last week, Humana tumbled 11% and Aetna a smaller 2% after news first leaked about the Department of Justice talks on Thursday (Google Finance). The company’s charitable foundation today announced a $225,000 grant to the Louisville Urban League to launch “It Starts with Me.” The insurer’s employees will visit the California, Parkland, Russell and Shawnee neighborhoods, helping families get health insurance, connect participants with support resources and find after-school activities for children (WLKY). Based in Louisville, Humana employs 12,500 employees in the city.

BROWN-FORMAN: A former North Carolina advertising executive was sentenced to 57 to 81 months in prison for defrauding two ad agencies in a scheme where he faked a series of contracts in 2012 with Brown-Forman and Coca-Cola Co. supposedly worth $269.9 million. The man, Bill Grizack, went so far as to create email addresses with domains closely resembling addresses of actual Brown-Forman employees, and used “burner” cellphones for made-up  conversations with the whiskey giant (AdWeek).

Rick Bubenhofer
Bubenhofer

Former Brown-Forman public relations chief Rick Bubenhofer has opened a boutique public relations agency, RBPR, with offices in Louisville and New York (TR Business).

In Nashville, the distiller’s Jack Daniel’s unit later this month is opening its first branded retail store outside its corporate home in Lynchburg, Tenn. Called the Nashville General Store, the outlet will sell clothing to barware and custom-made musical instrument displays. But it won’t sell whiskey because the store would need a liquor license (Tennessean via USA Today).

The Filson Historical Society is nearing completion of a $12 million expansion and renovation project partly underwritten with nearly $600,000 in contributions from Brown-Forman’s founding Brown family. The project includes a new, 20,000-square-foot Owsley Brown II History Center honoring the late Brown-Forman CEO. Founded in 1884, Filson is devoted to Kentucky and Ohio River Valley history and culture (Courier-Journal). Here’s a drone’s eye view of the project:

AMAZON Prime members now make up more than half the online retailer’s customer base, according to a new study. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates Amazon counts 63 million Prime members among its shoppers — an increase of 19 million from last June (Fortune). Amazon stock traded at a new intraday high of $755.90 before giving back some; shares closed at $753.78, up $7.97, or 1%. Investors are anticipating tomorrow’s second annual Prime Day super sale; the stock closed at $. The retailer’s stock has soared 70% from a year ago vs. a much smaller 2.8% gain in the S&P 500 index. The company employs a total 6,000 workers at distribution centers in Jeffersonville and Shepherdsville.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE‘s stock also traded intraday at a new record 52-week high, $46.83, but closed at $46.54, up $1.12, or 2.5%.

Food and Dining

At Butchertown Grocery, an amazing dinner (especially fried chicken and waffles)
Butchertown Grocery.png
In the early-to-mid 1900s, the building housed Gunkel’s grocery store.

This was Boulevard’s first visit to Butchertown Grocery. Here’s what our party of four had, pulling information from the restaurant’s online menu, which doesn’t include prices.

Starters
  • basil-fed escargot: herb butter, gruyere cheese, and a sliced baguette
  • sweet corn ravioli: bacon, leeks, and parmesan
  • gnocchi: mushroom, parmesan, fines herbs
  • roasted baby beets: asian mix, spicy yogurt crema, pepitas, and a chardonnay vinaigrette
Entrees
  • miso-glazed salmon: baby bok choy, marcona almonds, and tea broth
  • pei mussels: garlic, herbsaint, herbs, and butter
  • diver scallops: parsnips, fried leeks, crispy quinoa, and orange butter
  • chicken and waffles: chiles, fried rosemary & leeks, mint, and syrup
Dessert
  • beingets
  • coffee in a French press
  • something chocolate we can’t find on the website menu 😦

Where: 1076 East Washington St. When: Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday brunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. How: 502-742-8315. Reservations.

Related: Butchertown Grocery gets 4½ stars on both Open Table and Yelp.

Just Instagrams

Hotel gift shops sell newspapers, toothpaste, soft drinks and the like — but mattresses and bedding? Louisville-based 21c Museum Hotel does. Plus, those ubiquitous ceramic penguins, of course, all at Shop at 21c.

Latest Headlines

This New Zealand journalist ate a daily pizza for 222 days — 350,000 calories! — and has Pizza Hut to thank; plus, a Ford truck job seeker’s cautionary tale

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 11:56 a.m.

 

Richard Meadows‘ plan began simply enough: The Auckland journalist was feeling weak and out of shape, with nagging injuries that hobbled his amateur career in strength sports.

“What better way to restore myself to peak physical condition,” he writes in a first-person account in this morning’s Star-Times newspaper, “than to hit the gym hard while devouring an entire pizza every day? With a whopping 1,600 calories and a decent chunk of protein, the Domino’s $5 range represented absurdly good value for money.”

But then social media, plus a tad bit of Meadows’ oversharing, led to a betrayal by an unhappy Domino’s — throwing a wrench in his plan. “To commemorate my 100th pizza, I’d posted a photo to their Facebook page, reclining on the boxes I’d collected and sharing a few highlights from the journey to date: ‘Bowel movements now arrive every hour on the hour, and the cheese nightmares are becoming less frequent!'”

His post racked up several thousand “likes” that same night. But when he woke up the next morning, “my heartfelt tribute had been deleted without explanation,” he said. “The relationship was over.”

Pizza Hut boxThat’s when Meadows — who also documented his caloric journey on Instagram — turned to a Pizza Hut restaurant on Dominion Road in Auckland. Within days, he and the manager, identified only as Hriday, were on first-name terms. “Hriday never judged me for my gluttonous ways, and we soon built a rapport. He worked long hours, and Sunday was his only day off. If I went to a different branch during the week, he would worry.”

Meadows called the project done on Day 222, a number that had a nice symmetry to it, and he got a final blood test to mark the occasion. “After taking in over 350,000 calories of the stuff, my vital signs improved in almost every measurable way,” he says. “How can this be?” Continue reading “This New Zealand journalist ate a daily pizza for 222 days — 350,000 calories! — and has Pizza Hut to thank; plus, a Ford truck job seeker’s cautionary tale” →

Cops and Courts

Papa John’s worker arrested for allegedly faking $1,300 knifepoint holdup; and at touch of a button, KFC manager foils armed robbery

The latest crime news across the world of 48,000 restaurants.*

Crime scene tapeIn Deland, Fla., about 41 miles north of Orlando, an employee was jailed yesterday after being arrested on a grand theft charge for faking a robbery at a Papa John’s early yesterday morning, according to news reports.

A dozen deputies and officers from the DeLand Police Department, plus a K-9 unit and a sheriff’s office helicopter responded to a 911 call at 1:30 a.m. from Justin Miller, a night-shift manager at the restaurant at 1129 N. Woodland Blvd.

Miller, 24, claimed he was robbed by a man armed with a pocketknife outside the back of the restaurant as he was closing for the night, authorities said, according to the Orlando Sentinel. He told cops the robber took two deposit bags with $1,332 inside.

“He was maybe a couple inches taller than me,” Miller told 911 dispatchers. “I couldn’t really tell. It looked like he was wearing all black clothes — maybe a hoodie and a ball cap. I couldn’t see his face.”

Justin Miller
Miller

Authorities searched the area for about 40 minutes, but couldn’t find a robber, said the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Growing suspicious, they reinterviewed Miller. He began showing signs of deception, the newspaper said, and finally told deputies there was no robbery. He then led deputies to an outside chimney house where he removed a cement block and pulled out the missing money.

In addition to grand theft, Miller was also charged with giving false information to law enforcement and making a false report of a crime. He was being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail after being booked in what looks like his Papa John’s uniform.

KFC

In Rockford, Ill., a man entered a KFC restaurant at 1502 Kilburn Ave. through a side door at about 5 p.m. yesterday, then stood by one of the cash registers, unnoticed by employees in the back.

Alerted by a banging noise, one female employee came to the front, where she was confronted by the suspect, who pointed a small black handgun at her.

“The suspect demanded the employee open the register and put the money in a white bag he was carrying,” according to the Register-Star newspaper. But she couldn’t open the register because she didn’t have a key.

Seeing what was happening, the manager pushed an alarm to alert police. The suspect, later described as 6 feet tall, then fled.

* Yum has 43,000 KFCs, Pizza Huts and Taco Bells in nearly 140 countries; Papa John’s has 4,900 in 37 countries, and Texas Roadhouse has 485 restaurants in five countries. With that many locations, crimes inevitably will occur — with potentially serious legal consequences for the companies.