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By Hadas Kuznits

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) Girard Brasserie and Bruncherie, at Girard Avenue and Marlborough Street in Fishtown, is still under construction, but its getting more attention than your typical restaurant opening due to its no tipping model.

That means theyll be paying all staff members a living wage plus fringe benefits.

How can they afford that? The hard and fast answer to that is the owners make a lot less money, says co-owner Cristian Mora.

Those who attended a job fair for the restaurant say Moras business model is quite attractive.

Benefits, paid days, sick days, thats wonderful! Thats every workers dream! says server Sean Lynch, 21.

Server Alexa Koch, 26, agrees:

I hope it would catch on because its better to make a living wage instead of not knowing if youre able to make a living wage and pay water, etc.

See the article here:
New Fishtown Restaurant Turning Heads With Its No Tipping Policy

At the Otra Cocina restaurant on St. Paul's East Side, Maria Capouch and her brother Miguel Linares no longer bother to serve breakfast.

Road work this summer around the intersection of Payne and Maryland avenues has decimated their dinner crowd, as well, so they close two hours early. On Thursday, they greeted their first lunch customer at 4 p.m.

"It's been really, really hard," said Capouch, who opened the cozy, family-run restaurant and catering business in January.

The Payne-Maryland intersection this summer took its place among a sea of detour signs and construction cones on the East Side. Even getting into or out of the area has become more difficult, thanks to a lengthy state project on Interstate 35E and construction of the new Lafayette Bridge.

Don Horsfall, an employee of Warning Lites, puts up a traffic barricade on the Kellogg-Third Street Bridge in St. Paul on Friday, September 26, 2014. The bridge will be closed to all users until Monday. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Then this week, the city announced more road work: The Kellogg Boulevard bridge between the downtown Union Depot transit hub and Mounds Boulevard closed Friday for restriping. When the bridge reopens Monday, its four lanes will be reduced to three.

St. Paul and Ramsey County officials say the repair projects are doing more than filling potholes. In some cases, sidewalks are being widened, lighting upgraded and improvements made for drivers and pedestrians alike.

"It's been a tough summer; there's no question about it," said city council member Dan Bostrom. "However, particularly when this intersection at Payne and Maryland is completed, it's going to totally transform this section of the neighborhood.

Bostrom is less enthusiastic about the city's plans to replace the Kellogg Boulevard bridge -- work that could take several years.

"If that thing gets shut down, that's going to be a major catastrophe," he said.

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St. Paul's East Side snarled by road, bridge, sewer work

Horizon City is getting a Peter Piper Pizza. Pizza Properties, Inc. which owns Peter Piper Pizza, announced Thursday that it begun construction on a new restaurant scheduled to open in February 2015. The Horizon City Peter Piper Pizza restaurant will be located at 13800 N. Horizon Boulevard.

The new location represents an investment of $3 million in Horizon City and is expected to create approximately 40 new jobs. The new 10,000 square foot restaurant will feature an all new look for Peter Piper Pizza including a new logo, color patterns, large and small group seating options, flatscreen TVs, and free Wi-Fi.

The game room will be loaded with new state-of-the-art games providing entertainment for every age group. The new location will boast two dining areas, one of which will be separated from the game area and main dining area for a quieter experience.

The main dining area will be colorful and designed to accommodate large and small groups alike.

A designated area for carry-out orders will make pick-up convenient for "to go" customers. According to Kirk Robison, Chairman of Pizza Properties Inc., the restaurant's look has evolved out of Peter Piper Pizza's ongoing desire to enhance the family dining experience and atmosphere in its restaurants.

For more information about Peter Piper Pizza, please go to http://www.peterpiperpizza.com.

Read the rest here:
Peter Piper Pizza in Horizon City breaks ground

Thursday, September 25, 2014 - 1:02pm

Horizon City, TX (KTSM) Horizon City is about to get a new popular restaurant! Pizza Properties, Inc. has announced the expansion of the popular Peter Piper Pizza chain into Horizon City, TX.

Construction on the new 10,000 square foot restaurant at 13800 N. Horizon Blvd. is already underway. The restaurant is scheduled to open in February 2015. The new location is expected to bring approximately 40 new jobs to the Horizon City area.

The new restaurant will feature a brand new look for Peter Piper Pizza including a new logo, color patterns, large and small group seating options, flat screen TVs, and free Wi-Fi. The game room will be loaded with new state-of-the-art games providing entertainment for every age group.

The new location will boast two dining areas, one of which will be separated from the game area and main dining area for a quieter experience. The main dining area will be colorful and designed to accommodate large and small groups alike. A designated area for carry-out orders will make pick-up convenient for to go customers. According to Kirk Robison, Chairman of Pizza Properties Inc., the restaurants look has evolved out of Peter Piper Pizzas ongoing desire to enhance the family dining experience and atmosphere in its restaurants.

Pizza Properties, Inc., is Peter Piper Pizza's largest franchisee, owning 49 Peter Piper Pizza restaurants in Texas and New Mexico.

See the original post here:
Peter Piper Pizza expanding to Horizon City location

The city of Owensboro is ready to tackle another construction project, all part of the city's downtown revitalization plan.

Bill Hughes has watched downtown Owensboro change and grow from his restaurant located a few blocks from Smothers Park.

He says the city has done a great job expanding the sidewalks.

"It's been great for all the businesses and I think they've done a super job with the design and the implementation," said Hughes, owner of Bill's Restaurant.

Construction will be moving away from the river and up Frederica Street near Hughes' Restaurant.

The city will be working on the intersections of third, fourth, and fifth street along Frederica Street after the barbeque festival.

It's all part of the city's downtown revitalization plan.

The city plans to replace asphalt at the intersections with brick pavers and replace traffic signal poles to match the ones on west second street.

Bryant Engineering is designing the plan and the city expects to advertise the bid next spring.

Hughes says construction should have some impact on the business, but doesn't expect it to be too bad.

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Construction coming to downtown Owensboro

by WHAS11

WHAS11.com

Posted on September 24, 2014 at 5:52 PM

Updated yesterday at 5:57 PM

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- It's no secret that going in, around, or out of downtown Louisville these days is a challenge. Blockades, detours and orange barrels litter the city. Now a NuLu restaurant, Taco Punk, claims the bridge construction is a big reason they have to close their doors.

"Once the bridges project started our income over last year dropped about 30 percent," explained the restaurant owner Gabe Sowder.

Sowder said last summer the restaurant was hopping, but a tough winter and then the bridge construction limiting lunchtime-goers easy access to the neighborhood, forced Gabe to make a hard decision. He chose to not put off the inevitable and close Taco Punk.

"Mostly we just depend so much on the free flow of traffic from downtown to here that people just can't make a timely circuit," he said.

Sowder admits that Taco Punk may not be in the best location in NuLu since it's on one of the blocks farther away from downtown. Restaurants closer to downtown, like Harvest, shared that they havent seen any deterrence due to the bridge construction.

"Our business has been very solid, kind of right on projection is what we are looking at," Harvest manager Tim Quinland said.

Go here to read the rest:
Owner of Taco Punk says bridge construction hindered business

Could famed power dining spot the Four Seasons be moving to a new Park Avenue home?

Eagle-eyed sources on Tuesday spotted restaurant co-owners Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder in hard hats at the construction site of 432 Park Ave., which has been billed as the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere.

The building, rising 1,396 feet in the air, will reportedly include a restaurant on a lower floor. The condo tower is being developed by California-based CIM Group and New York real estate powerhouse Harry Macklowe.

Niccolini and von Bidder told us of their 432 Park tour in a statement: Harry is a lifelong friend of the Four Seasons. When he offered us a tour, we jumped at the chance to take selfies for Facebook.

The Four Seasons has been in the Seagram Building on Park Avenue since 1959, but its lease expires in July 2016.

Niccolini and von Bidder are in negotiations with landlord Aby Rosen, but many have speculated the restaurant would move out of the landmarked space once its lease is up.

Read more here:
Could the Four Seasons be moving to 432 Park Avenue?

By Donna Jones

djones@santacruzsentinel.com @DonnaJonesSCS on Twitter

WATSONVILLE >> Not so fast.

Opponents plan to urge the Watsonville City Council to rescind its OK for a downtown 24-hour drive-through McDonald's.

The council approved construction of the fast food restaurant at Main Street near Riverside Drive on a 6-0 vote Tuesday. But the project requires changes to an ordinance governing drive-through restaurants. The council is scheduled to take a second vote on that provision Oct. 14.

Wednesday morning, DigitalNest founder Jacob Martinez launched a Facebook campaign aimed at getting opponents to the Oct. 14 meeting. By afternoon, more than three dozen people had signed on.

"There are many people in this community that have been working to make Watsonville a cultural hub along the Central Coast," Martinez said. "We need downtown Watsonville to be a cultural center, which will draw in visitors and support our economy. Fast food is not going to bring visitors into Watsonville. What McDonald's will be is a message that we support unhealthy food and lifestyles."

In giving the restaurant the go-ahead, council members said replacing long vacant and neglected buildings with a McDonald's wasn't their first choice, but the only option available after a Walgreens proposal fell through last year and no one else emerged to invest in the property.

"We have someone from our community willing to make that commitment and the reputation to make it successful," said Councilwoman Trina Coffman-Gomez.

Tila Guerrero and son Martin, who own McDonald's restaurants on Main Street near Target and on Freedom Boulevard, proposed the third location.

Read the original:
Watsonville council urged to flip McDonald's OK

COCOA, Fla. -

After a July $100,000-plus vandalism spree wreaked widespread havoc inside the aging Black Tulip, the restaurant has been rebranded and reborn after a comprehensive construction campaign.

Local 6 News partner Florida Today reports that the Tulip Restaurant & Lounge reopened with a new Latin "Floribbean" menu at 4 p.m. Tuesday on Brevard Avenue in Cocoa Village.

"It's overwhelming. I just keep saying, 'It's the restaurant I have dreamed of my entire life,'" said co-owner Tanya Colzani, standing Sunday in her redesigned second dining room.

"Working with my dad (Daniel Colzani) for 22 years and knowing something had to change physically ... it was never going to happen. Never. We talked about it and talked about it, and dreamed. You see all the chain restaurants that have redone themselves in the last year or two," she said.

"Unfortunately, we didn't have that kind of finances," she said.

David Lightholder, of Lightholder Building Contractors, estimated total renovations at $90,000 to $100,000, including landscaping and exterior work.

"We did everything. We took out the ceilings. We took out the floors. We took out the old wood on the walls, the old windows. New windows, new drywall, new insulation, new flooring, all new cabinets, new bar, electrical," Lightholder described.

Lightholder's wife, Holly, owns the home decor business Beautiful Spaces by Holly Marie. She helped oversee the rebuilding process.

"I kind of wanted to go with a Tuscan feel. It's a vision that I had. It's always been a Continental restaurant, and I wanted to change it up a little bit," Holly Lightholder said.

Continue reading here:
Black Tulip to reopen after destruction spree

A familiar Uptown property is being eyed for a new high-rise project.

Trammell Crow Co. is seeking zoning permits to build a vertical mixed-use development on the Cafe Express site at McKinney Avenue and Bowen Street.

The single-floor Dallas restaurant occupies a tract of more than an acre thats zoned for high-rise office and retail construction.

Crow Co. says the planned project at 3230 McKinney Ave. will have 271 apartments in a 20-story tower.

There will be 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, including a spot for Cafe Express.

Crow will also build an expanded facility for the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority. The streetcar line would get new trolley barn space, offices and an exhibit area in the building on Bowen Street.

The developer has been quietly working on the project for more than a year.

Its taken a lot of time to put together, Crow senior vice president Joel Behrens said. The cafe has a great restaurant, and they like that spot.

The restaurant has operated on the busy corner since 1996.

Cafe Express would move in the new retail to a space that faces McKinney. The apartment tower will be moved to the back of the lot on Oak Grove Avenue.

See the original post here:
Trammell Crow eyes Uptown restaurant site for 20-story apartment and retail tower