Plans for the redevelopment of Kings Meadow Baths have finally been submitted to Reading Borough Council.

Proposals include restoration of the existing building, construction of a new pool, a spa, treatment rooms, bar and restaurant.

A detailed application is now open to public consultation before going to a future meeting of the councils planning committee.

Discounted prices for Reading residents if lido plan get green light

Lido plan for King's Meadow baths offers heated pool, spa, restaurant and bar

The team behind the Grade II-listed Bristol Lido were selected as preferred bidders to take over the dilapidated building in September 2013 and they set up a new company called Thames Lido Ltd for the project.

Listed Building Consent has been granted for repairs to the run down Grade II-listed baths which will be carried out before major construction works are carried out.

The application is for the full length of the north side of the pool, facing the River Thames, to be enclosed to form a single-storey restaurant.

Full height glazing will run around the pool with a steam room, sauna and lounge on the eastern side.

The west side will connect with the entrance and reception, through the bar and into the restaurant.

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Plans for redevelopment of Kings Meadow Baths open to public consultation

Mike Mitchell, front, and Willie Terrazas, Jr., stood in the Leo's Mexican Restaurant at 1921 Zaragoza in October 2012, about six months after Mitchell bought it and another Leo's at 9420 Montana from a group of El Paso investors. Mitchell had a licensing agreement with Terrazas to operate the restaurants as Leo's. Mitchell closed the restaurants in June because they were losing money. Delicias del Mar, part of a Las Cruces-based chain, moved into the Zaragoza location. (El Paso Times File Photos)

El Paso's 68-year-old Leo's Mexican Restaurant chain, which only a year ago had six locations, is down to three after two affiliated restaurants closed during the summer.

The closings are among the many restaurants that fail each year in El Paso, and among thousands of restaurants that close each year across the country. But these are notable because of Leo's long run, and because they were owned and operated by long-time garment manufacturing executive Mike Mitchell.

He spent about eight years as president of Farah Inc., the iconic El Paso garment manufacturer and its successor company, Savane International. He worked almost 30 years in the garment manufacturing industry, most of those as a top executive, before jumping into the restaurant business by buying the two licensed Leo's locations in March 2012.

"It's very difficult to make money in the restaurant business. I was working seven days a week, and always there," Mitchell, 61, said in a recent interview. "I learned a lot about the restaurant business. I was never in business by myself" before the restaurant ventures.

"I am not sorry I picked the restaurant business. I am sorry I was not able to make it work, especially with Leo's name on it," Mitchell said.

Christin Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., said in a typical year, about 50,000 restaurants will close nationwide, but at the same time, about 60,000 restaurants will open.

"These closings aren't all failures, as some are just the owners shutting one location down to open another," Fernandez said. "But it does illustrate the churn in the industry on a regular basis."

The company Mitchell formed to operate the restaurants filed for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy at the end of July. Court documents show that Mitchell's two Leo's locations, 1921 Zaragoza and 9420 Montana, had annual sales of $1.36 million in 2013 and $1.24 million in 2012. But those sales were not enough to offset costs, Mitchell said.

Mitchell blamed the failure of the Leo's at Zaragoza and Joe Battle on the far East Side on the two-year construction of two overpasses near the restaurant, which, he said in a recent interview, made it difficult for customers to get there.

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2 Leo's Mexican Restaurants closed in El Paso, a sign of changing restaurant industry

Lucas Almendinger, 31, the chef at Kim Bartmann's new Loring Park restaurant the Third Bird, talked with us about the link between cooking and guitar making, his great-grandma's German dumplilngs and what he thinks about Cub's doughnuts.

The Third Bird: 1612 Harmon Place, Minneapolis; 612-767-9495; thethirdbirdmpls.com

Our first impressions of the Third Bird

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? I had no idea. At one point, I wanted to be a writer. But then I didn't know for a long time, and I probably was a little jealous of people who were, like, "I want to be a dentist" from the time they were 8.

What was your first job in food? My mom opened a restaurant in my hometown of Edgemont, S.D., when I was 14 or 15. That was my first job, besides helping my dad in his construction business a little bit. The restaurant didn't last long, and I started working at another restaurant as a dishwasher. Then I was offered $1 an hour more to work at Subway.

How did you wind up in the restaurant business for good? I didn't really like it. I liked cooking, but I thought the hours were not awesome. I went to school in Phoenix to learn to build guitars.

You're the second local chef we've talked to (Corner Table's Thomas Boemer being the other) who builds guitars. Strange coincidence or natural pairing?

I think there are a lot of parallels. The guitar-building community is driven by a sense of community and a sense of craft. That's where I learned what attention to detail meant. I will never forget when I made the internal parts of a guitar in school and the instructor said, "I'm telling you there is a difference between good and great in the stuff that people never see." I remade those parts.

I think there's a parallel. Like a bowl of soup -- all the details in that bowl. Starting with a properly sweated mirepoix, building those flavors from scratch, all those things people never see. You didn't just throw it in a blender.

What's your first food memory?

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Third Bird chef had W.A. Frost for a classroom

diner restaurant design and construction. restaurante aos 50 diseo y construccin
DAVID THEMING WORKS. diner restaurant design and construction. restaurante aos 50 diseo y construccin http://www.davidthemingworks.com/ http://davidthemin...

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diner restaurant design and construction. restaurante aos 50 diseo y construccin - Video

HISANOHAMA, JAPAN An air of permanence has settled over the supposedly temporary Seabreeze shopping arcade.

The Karasuya restaurant, serving big bowls of steaming noodle soup at the entrance to the arcade, is well established as a lunch spot for construction workers and a snack-and-homework joint for children from the neighboring school.

Striped poles twirl outside the barber shop, where retro chairs and basins await the next customer.

Between the two rows of prefabricated buildings that make up the arcade, too far inland to get much of the salty wind, snowman lights hang cheerfully above park benches. Tables offer instant coffee and photographic reminders of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated this area, part of Iwaki city on the Fukushima coast, on March 11, 2011.

There is nothing we can do but wait, but still, its frustrating, said Takami Endo, who runs the restaurant with her husband, Yoshiyasu Endo.

Fukushima prefecture, the third largest in Japan, will hold elections for governor on Sunday, the first since the disaster. The main issue in the race is reconstruction, which remains painfully slow.

About 90,000 people in three coastal prefectures still live in temporary housing complexes that almost make trailer parks look luxurious.

The Endos restaurant and home and the other stores occupying the sad little prefabs of the Seabreeze arcade were a block or so from the seafront in 2011. But they were wiped out by the tsunami, which also precipitated a triple meltdown at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Now the Endos live in public housing 15miles away, still dreaming of the day they can return to the location where Yoshiyasu Endos family operated the restaurant for about 50years.

My husband says we will go back, even if there is no one living there to come to our restaurant, Takami Endo said.

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In Japan, Fukushima residents are frustrated but resigned

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -

Construction crews returned to work on The Diner Tuesday morning following a stop work order that shut down the project for nearly three months.

It is a breath of fresh air, Director of Operations Jonathon Scott said. We are getting back to work and to our ultimate goal to build something unique.

The Diner will be a 24-hour multi-floor restaurant serving food around the clock on the corner of Demonbreun and Third Avenue South.

The Metro Codes Department issued the stop work order because the size of the sidewalks surrounding the business was smaller than codes required.

When construction began on the restaurant, the initial plan was to preserve at least 50 percent of the existing structure, but during construction, crews were told to install an underground vault to house NES transformers.

As the vault was installed, the existing wall became unstable and the construction crew decided to tear it down for safety.

When the wall was demolished, Metro Codes notified the owners that the project would be reclassified as new construction as opposed to a remodel.

New construction in that area of Nashville is in the Rutledge Hill Redevelopment District, an area governed by the Metro Development and Housing Agency with guidelines for the design and placement of signage in redevelopment districts

One of the guidelines is that sidewalks around new construction must be wider, and in the case of The Diner, the MDHA required it to be 16 feet wide.

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Construction resumes after stop order lifted on 24-hour diner

Restaurant project construction delays are nothing new for Los Angeles chefs. Appliances and materials get back ordered. Inspections take forever. The wait can be excruciating. Just ask fans of Gary Menes, who have been waiting for the opening of his new Le Comptoir location in Koreatown at the Hotel Normandie.

It is an opening that was first announced more than a year ago. But when Le Comptoir opens in mid November, Menes will finally be up and running in the first permanent location for what had been strictly a traveling restaurant concept.

At the Le Comptoir at Hotel Normandie he plans on serving 10 diners each night at two seatings at 6 and 8:30 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday nights. The six-course prix-fixe menu will be $67 per person with an additional wine pairing for $39.

Menes, who has lived in Long Beach since the third grade, when his Coast Guard father was stationed there, has only left his hometown for stints at The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco and The French Laundry.

He and his wife, Rosa, are raising their four children there. His Long Beach roots run even deeper. Nine months ago, he took over the Gladys Avenue Urban Farm from oceanographer Charles Moore. Now this tiny farm, an eighth of an acre in East Long Beach, bursts with the produce Menes has been nurturing for his new Le Comptoir menu.

Menes makes his decisions about what to grow with one simple determining factor, It all depends on what I want to cook. Describing his cuisine as hyper-seasonal, currently Menes is harvesting black-eyed peas, purple romanesco broccoli, cheddar cauliflower and filet beans as well as Musquee de Provence pumpkins and blue Hubbard squash.

In another section of the farm, Menes shows off his prized Hokkaido squash. I am going to roast them whole, cut tranches and serve them like steak with herbs and sage rosemary and butter, then put that on top of wheat berries with an onion jus. It will have that mouth feel of meat, of something substantial, more than a plate of vegetables.

Menes plans to grow as much as half of the ingredients for his news menus at the farm. I plan to spend 50% of my time here and 50% at the restaurant. All of the cooking starts here now. On the plate is just the end result. Menes will share the farm space with his staff, who will each be responsible for harvesting produce for the restaurant there at least once a week.

Tasting the fruit of Menes labors will begin next month at Le Comptoir. He will continue to source additional ingredients from his favorite farms including Weiser and Rutiz. He'll source seafood from Stephanie Munz of Santa Barbara and pork from Cook Pigs Ranch and Tails & Trotters.

He plans to bake bread for Le Comptoir with his own 19-year-old sourdough starter and to make fresh churned butter as well. The sourdough starter will also make an appearance in the dessert course, when Menes pairs doughnuts with coffee from Trystero and his other favorite coffee roasters.

Originally posted here:
Gary Menes' Le Comptoir finally opening next month with food straight from the garden

Above, A car accident near Franks Place restaurant in Oak Harbor damaged several statues in front of the restaurant. that once stood upon a memorial wall he and others built for veterans.

image credit: Ron Newberry/Whidbey News-Times

The way Frank Pulu sees it, the statues that have stood in front of his restaurant in Oak Harbor for years represent more than a tribute to veterans of military service.

Last Friday night, Pulu believes they might have saved a life.

Several statues that stand in front of Franks Place restaurant on State Highway 20 were destroyed during a single-car accident that sent the car off the road and resting on its side.

Pulu said the brass replica of the Statue of Liberty took the brunt of the force, and he knew the impact was severe because the massive concrete base in which the statue rested was lifted from the ground. He estimates the base weighed at least two tons.

The accident also took out three other statues, including a sailor and a Seabee, a symbol for the U.S. Naval construction battalion.

The driver, Keith Ferguson, 50, needed to be extricated from his car by the fire department and was transported to Whidbey General Hospital.

Pulu had heard the driver wasnt seriously injured.

If it wasnt for the statues Pulu said, standing in front of his restaurant at a level lower than the street. I think Lady (Liberty) saved his life and saved the business.

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Car accident takes out patriotic statues at Oak Harbor restaurant

A Pucketts restaurant is pictured in this file photo.

Pucketts, the longstanding Nashville-area group of restaurants, plans to take over the space that TGI Fridays had occupied next to the Tennessee Aquarium.

The family-owned restaurant plans to open its first Chattanooga location at 2 Broad Street in spring 2015.

Known for its southern comfort food, Pucketts brand extends back to the 1950s with a small grocery store in the village of Leipers Fork, Tenn. Today, Pucketts Gro. & Restaurant has locations in downtown Franklin, downtown Nashville and downtown Columbia.

Pucketts plans to create a more expansive dining atmosphere in the 6,750-square-foot space on the riverfront, making it conducive to live music. Construction could start as early as December.

Weve been wanting to come to Chattanooga for a couple years now, said Andy Marshall, Pucketts owner. I love what the city is about. I love how active the city is that it has so many good independent operators in one area.

Pucketts makes everything from scratch, including its barbecue, an 18-hour process, Marshall said. It sources from local farms as much as it can, he said.

TGI Fridays had operated downtown from 1993 until late September, when it closed abruptly. The restaurant included more than 200 seats and operated as a franchise before the parent company acquired the location in 1996.

More details in Wednesdays Chattanooga Times Free Press.

about Mitra Malek...

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Puckett's to open restaurant next to Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga

A small restaurant offering food, drinks and video gaming may replace the SubMore sandwich shop that adjoins a gas station and mini-mart at Orchard and Aucutt roads on Montgomery's west side.

A majority of village board members voiced support Monday evening to a request from the owner of the SubMore and Orchard Shop Station for a liquor license for the proposed restaurant.

The restaurant would be owned and operated by TOPLAY, LLC, a newly formed company owned and operated by Rocky Zaiter, owner of the SubMore and Orchard Stop Station.

Zaiter told the board that his gas station and mini mart have been successful since he opened it 11 years ago, despite the 2008 recession and two years of construction on Orchard Road. However, he said the SubMore has not been profitable for many years.

He added the pending opening of new gas stations along Orchard Road south of U.S. Route 30 in the village could put his business at a disadvantage.

Currently, a Murphy Oil gas station is under construction just north of the Wal-Mart store on the south side of Route 30 and the board approved plans for the construction of a Speedway gas station and mini mart Monday evening at the southeast corner of Orchard Road and Caterpillar Drive. Speedway officials told the board they expect to build the station next year.

Referring to the new gas stations, Zaiter said, "We know we have competition and that is fair."

But Zaiter noted the new gas stations south of Route 30 will have a significant financial advantage over his station because they are in the Kendall County portion of the village.

In a letter to the board, he explained the Kendall County gas stations are able to sell less expensive conventional gasoline while his station in the Kane County portion of the village, must sell more expensive reformulated gasoline.

Zaiter explained, "The difference in price between conventional and reformulated gasoline could be as much as 30 cents per gallon. Additionally we pay four cents per gallon (more) to Kane County, while our competitors would pay nothing to Kendall County. This cost disadvantage alone would put us at a tremendous disadvantage."

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Orchard Road restaurant liquor license supported