Month: July 2016

Latest Headlines

Texas Roadhouse rage: As chains race to douse social media wildfire, chain fires waitress for ‘kill Mexicans’ Tweet

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 12:02 p.m.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE fired a waitress in Greeley, Colo., this week after she tweeted a threat to kill Mexicans, in a flash of roadhouse rage because a customer didn’t tip her. Texas Roadhouse spokesman Travis Doster told ABC 7 News: “Our managing partner was actually mowing his lawn when he was alerted. He immediately rushed to the restaurant, met with the employee who posted this disgusting Tweet, and she was terminated.”

Former waitress Megan Olson, who goes by the name Megatron on Twitter, wrote: “If we had a real life purge I would kill as many Mexicans as I could in one night. #learnhowtotipyoufuckingtwats.” ABC 7 showed an edited photo of the Tweet; photo, top.

Olson later apologized on Facebook: “I wrote hurtful, inconsiderate, insensitive and careless words and I understand the amount of people I have offended by that. There are no excuses for what I have done. . . . I want you all to know that I do not actually feel this way.” Her Twitter account is now password-protected. (ABC 7 News)

A Facebook user reported Olson’s Tweet on the Louisville-based restaurant chain’s Facebook page Thursday, and the company responded immediately, illustrating once more how quickly companies try to extinguish bad news before it goes viral on social media.

The Texas Roadhouse case was the fourth time in less than a month where Louisville fast-food chains were attacked for employees’ discriminatory behavior. There was last Saturday’s much-discussed Taco Bell employee in Phenix City, Ala., who refused to serve two uniformed sheriff’s deputies (story, below), and two Papa John’s restaurants where employees used racial slurs on order slips, in Denver last week, and in Louisville at the end of June.

Meachem and Moore
Meachem and Moore

TACO BELL: In Alabama, dozens of residents gathered Continue reading “Texas Roadhouse rage: As chains race to douse social media wildfire, chain fires waitress for ‘kill Mexicans’ Tweet” →

Media and Marketing

For USA Today reporter confronting bad Taco Bell news, heavy is the head that wears the sombrero

A sports reporter who also aggregates Taco Bell news once a week for USA Today is clearly uncomfortable with negative news swirling around the Yum unit. The writer, Ted Berg, was especially unhappy with an incident last Saturday where a Taco Bell cashier in Phenix City, Ala., refused to serve two Lee County Sheriff’s Office deputies.

“These are emotional times, the nature of which extends far beyond the scope of This Week in Taco Bell,” he writes, apparently deadly-seriously. “But this site believes firmly that Taco Bell is for the people, and that no hungry would-be Taco Bell consumer of any race, creed or occupation deserves to be denied Taco Bell unless he or she represents an obvious and imminent hazard to the safety or well-being of the other patrons or Taco Bell employees.”

This Week in Taco Bell
Image of Berg’s blog.

Berg continues: “There’s a lot to be made of what’s going on in our world right now, and perhaps a lot that needs to be done about it. But we don’t need to make any of it about Taco Bell. Taco Bell should be a sanctuary from the never-ending onslaught of heartbreaking and awful and terrifying news we seem to face daily, not the source thereof. That those two cops wanted Taco Bell better helps me identify with and understand them, as I also want Taco Bell.”

Berg is clearly a huge, huge Taco Bell fan. Last week, he wrote about visiting the company’s southern California headquarters in Irvine, where the fast-Mexican chain made him its honorary president for the day, set him up in CEO Brian Niccol’s office “and even decorated the desk with photos reaped from my social-media history.” Berg also got to wear founder Glenn Bell’s sombrero; photo, top.

Brian Niccol
Niccol

Despite the warm welcome, Berg assured readers the visit “will not color the content of the ruthless Taco Bell journalism I aim to provide.”

Berg says This Week in Taco Bell is “the Internet’s foremost source of aggregated Taco Bell content.” But we haven’t launched Boulevard publicly yet; that’ll be Aug. 1. And then, of course, we’ll grab the top mantle for our minute-by-minute, wall-to-wall, scorched-earth coverage.

Related: Follow Berg on Twitter. He’s not alone among other over-the-top Taco Bell fans: UCLA psychology student Paige Dudek got to spend her 21st birthday in May at company headquarters after writing a letter to Yum CEO Greg Creed.

And speaking of bad news, let’s recall that former Taco Bell executive who sued an Uber driver for $5 million, after viral video showed him assaulting the driver.

Media and Marketing

LEO Weekly’s parent buys Voice-Tribune, other Blue Equity pubs

Terms of the deal, announced this afternoon, weren’t disclosed by seller Blue Equity Publishing or the buyer, Lifestyle Media, which publishes LEO Weekly, according to The Courier-Journal.

The sale includes The Voice-Tribune, a weekly dating to 1949 that focuses on society and party news; The Voice of Louisville magazine, and Modern Louisville, a newer title that targets the LGBT market.

Blue Equity Publishing has been a subsidiary of private-equity firm Blue Equity LLC since 2007.

Cops and Courts

Restaurant regulations 101: Risk factors companies face in the course of their business

Publicly traded companies disclose an array of risks to their businesses in annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawsuits and other legal proceedings are a big one, because they can spur huge monetary awards to plaintiffs.

Here are relevant passages from the “Risk Factors” section of the annual 10-K reports for three restaurant chain giants that are occasionally drawn into crime news stories; links are to the reports themselves. Continue reading “Restaurant regulations 101: Risk factors companies face in the course of their business” →

The Jennifer Lawrence Diary™

No duh! We’re definitely not getting the blues over Lawrence’s beefcake-y British ‘X-Men’ personal trainer

Jennifer LawrenceBoulevard reviews the latest media coverage of the Oscar-winning Louisville native in our exclusive Jennifer Lawrence Diary™. Today’s news, rated on a scale of 1-5 stars:

Two starsStop the presses — but not the bench presses, of course!

The British personal trainer who helped Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackman and Michael Fassbender get in shape for 2014’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past” has revealed his six secrets for getting in shape, starting with No. 1 which is to . . . start.

“A lot of people,” David Kingsbury tells Healthista, “spend time trying to get as much information together as possible, which for the most part is putting off the inevitable act of exercising more and eating less.”

David Kingsbury mug
Kingsbury

Then there’s No. 2: burn more calories than you consume (to which Boulevard says: duh). And steps 3, 4, 5 and 6? Duh, duh, duh, and duh.

“But what about ‘cheat’ days?,” Healthista asks. “We all experience cravings for naughty foods, a quick sweet treat to boost our mood on a Wednesday afternoon, it’s only human. But we have to appreciate that the more naughty foods we eat, the slower our progress will be.”

Kingsbury, it turns out, admits he indulges as much as he wants, which seems to deflate his entire argument about eating a healthy diet. So, we here on Boulevard’s health and fitness news desk are going to ignore all his advice, and concentrate on the greasy hamburgers he and Jackman are eating here:

Kingsbury and Jackman

Photo, top: That’s Lawrence as her Mystique character from X-Men alongside Kingsbury.