Latest news with #Drive-InsandDives'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ray Ray's Hog Pit to open new location in former Wizard of Za shop
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ray Ray's Hog Pit, a fleet of barbecue eateries featured on 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,' is trading one of its food trucks for a new central Ohio storefront inside the space previously home to Wizard of Za. The brand's longtime food truck parked outside Ace of Cups is shuttering to make way for a new brick-and-mortar location inside a shared space with sushi chain Fusian at 4214 N. High St. in the Clintonville neighborhood. Fusian was most recently roommates with Wizard of Za, a pizzeria whose Sicilian-style pies garnered a month-long wait during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trapper Johns Livery reopens with new owner after 2024 closure Closed in January, Wizard of Za was created by Youngstown native Spencer Saylor, who sold his pizza through his Instagram in 2020 and later collaborated with Paceline Restaurants, the owner of Fusian, to move into the Clintonville store. Paceline acquired the Wizard of Za brand in 2022 and expanded with a second location in Dayton that closed last year. Ray Ray's Clintonville move comes after the brand opened its first full-service restaurant inside a historic Marion building on May 13. Although Ray Ray's is known for food trucks and walk-up eateries, the Marion restaurant marks the brand's first foray into full-service dining. Watch a previous report on the Marion restaurant in the video player above. The barbecue fleet is currently home to several other central Ohio eateries, like the food truck parked outside Aardvark Wine & Beer in Linworth. The brand also operates a walk-up window at Land-Grant Brewing in Franklinton, a drive-thru in Westerville, and a casual dine-in and pick-up location in Granville. $250 million facility opens down the road from Intel in New Albany, creating 225 jobs Ray Ray's Reload, one of the brand's renovated food trucks, was parked outside The Bottle Shop in Victorian Village for most of 2024 before moving in November to Hoof Hearted Brewery in the Short North. Chef and Ray Ray's owner James Anderson was featured on 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' in 2017, praised for his 'succulent smoked offerings' at the 'one-of-a-kind' barbecue truck. During the episode, Guy Fieri tried Ray Ray's Mangalitsa Brat Burger and St. Louis Spare Ribs. Ray Ray's new Clintonville shop will open in June. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
CHRB Food Fight? California's Top Horse Racing Regulators Clash After Humboldt County Fair Dates Request Is Denied
Guy Fieri tried, but even the Food Network star of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' couldn't save horse racing in his small northern California hometown of Ferndale, the site of the Humboldt County Fair since 1896. Racing has been a mainstay of the fair most of the years since, but that is coming to an end in 2025. On Thursday, for the second month in a row, the California Horse Racing Board voted against approval of the Humboldt County Fair's dates request for three consecutive weekends of racing between Aug. 13 and Sept. 1. The regularly scheduled meeting was held in Sacramento at the California Exposition and State Fair Grandstand. Technically, the April vote, 3-2 against granting the dates, meant no action was taken by the board because a majority of four of the seven CHRB seats is required. One commissioner, Damascus Castellanos was absent from the April meeting, and one board seat was open because of the resignation of John Carvelli in February. Thursday's vote was 4-3 against the request, with chairman Dr. Gregory Ferraro and commissioners Dennis Alfieri, Thomas Hudnut and Castellanos voting no. Voting in favor of the Humboldt County Fair dates request was vice chairman Oscar Gonzales, along with commissioners Brenda Davis and Peter Stern. Stern was recently appointed to fill the vacant CHRB seat by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The vote came after presentations by representatives of the Humboldt County Fair, recognition that a number of local, state and Congressional politicians had written to the CHRB in support of approving a race meet in Ferndale, and pleadings from owners, breeders, trainers and track employees who said a meet would be beneficial to California racing and breeding. One speaker read a letter from the well-known television star Fieri, who annually attends the fair and whose food career was launched as a teenager with a pretzel cart on the fair grounds. In pleading for approval of the dates, Fieri wrote in his letter, 'To put it very bluntly, taking this meet away from Ferndale would be a bullet to the heart of the fair community. There's no other way to say it.' Speaking against the request for dates was Bill Nader, president and CEO of Thoroughbred Owners of California. Nader outlined the disastrous results of the short-lived Golden State Racing meet at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton last year, which the CHRB approved over TOC protests. That meet, Nader said, required a bailout from Southern California interests and caused severe financial losses to the California Authority of Racing Fairs, which had previously operated fair meets throughout Northern California. CARF ended up selling equipment needed to operate a race meet to a track in Wyoming and has refocused its business on helping Northern California fairs operate their off-track betting facilities. "We need to be very careful with how we govern and how we go forward to protect and preserve California racing," Nader told the CHRB commissioners. The denial of the Humboldt County Fair dates mean there will be no Northern California racing this summer. Since Belinda Stronach, owner of Golden Gate Fields, closed the Bay Area track in June 2024, the only racing was the short-lived Golden State meet from mid-October through mid-December. The CHRB last month voted 4-1 against a request by newly formed Bernal Park Racing to conduct a June 10-July 6 meet at the Alameda County Fair. Bernal Park Racing, an entity started by owner-breeders George Schmitt and John Harris, was set to operate the Ferndale meet if the dates had been approved. Schmitt spoke at the meeting and said he and Harris deposited $1.5 million to help fund the Humboldt County Fair meet and had spent over $100,000 so far on fees and other fairs have applied for 2025 dates. After the dates request was voted down, vice chairman Gonzales, who has clashed with chairman Ferraro in past meetings and was particularly critical of him over the Ferndale vote in April, called it a 'serious, serious, serious mistake that this board made." Gonzales asked the CHRB's executive director, Scott Chaney, the logistics of calling for a follow-up meeting to address the request again. "Commissioner Gonzales, how many votes do you want to have on this?' Ferraro asked. 'You've lost twice. Do you not accept the vote?' 'I don't. I don't, Mr. Chairman,' Gonzales responded. 'Well, that's your problem. That's not the problem of the board,' Ferraro answered back. As chairman, Ferraro can veto calls for a special or emergency meeting and said he would do so if Gonzales tried to have one scheduled. Later, during a public comment period, Gonzales irked Ferraro again, complaining about a back-and-forth between Ferraro and a member of the public. 'Are you being particularly rude today," Ferraro asked, "or do you just have a problem?' The meeting was then adjourned. If Fieri was there to serve lunch, a food fight might have broken out between California's top two horse racing regulators.
Miami Herald
01-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
A Guy Fieri food favorite is making way for a new Hollywood high-rise
Locals strolling Hollywood's Young Circle may have noticed changes afoot within the aging La Piazza complex, a low-slung shopping strip crowned with apartments on Hollywood Boulevard. A Cricket phone retailer is shuttered. The FedEx facility is gone, too, having moved to Tyler Street. And one of La Piazza's last holdouts, J28 Sandwich Bar — an 11-year-old Peruvian eatery and TV-famous favorite of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' host Guy Fieri — is expected to close its location by the end of May. They're clearing out to make way for a long-promised demolition. In La Piazza's place will rise Soleste Young Circle, a sleek, 23-story apartment tower and the latest luxury residences to spring up along the busy traffic circle. At 1845 Hollywood Boulevard, Soleste Young Circle will feature 378 units, swanky spas, resort-style pools with cabanas, a fitness center and roughly 7,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurants and shops. Go to for the full story.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Luxury apartments are headed to Hollywood, and that means spots like J28 Sandwich Bar are out
Locals strolling Hollywood's Young Circle may have noticed changes afoot within the aging La Piazza complex, a low-slung shopping strip crowned with apartments on Hollywood Boulevard. A Cricket phone retailer is shuttered. The FedEx facility is gone, too, having moved to Tyler Street. And one of La Piazza's last holdouts, J28 Sandwich Bar — an 11-year-old Peruvian eatery and TV-famous favorite of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' host Guy Fieri — is expected to close its location by the end of May. So what's happening here? Answer: They're clearing out to make way for a long-promised demolition. In La Piazza's place will rise Soleste Young Circle, a sleek, 23-story apartment tower and the latest luxury residences to spring up along the busy traffic circle. At 1845 Hollywood Boulevard, Soleste Young Circle will feature 378 units, swanky spas, resort-style pools with cabanas, a fitness center and roughly 7,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurants and shops. It joins the fleet of new and under-construction high-rises now ringing Young Circle, and if you ask Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy, the project represents one of the final puzzle pieces helping the city realize its urban vision of a vibrant downtown. 'With high-rises like these, we wanted to transform Young Circle into a center of economic growth, and that plan is succeeding,' Levy said. 'We need more density. All the restaurants down there can't just survive on Friday and Saturday night dinner business. They need breakfast and lunch clientele and people who live at the doorstep of those commercial spaces.' Which is why the transformation of La Piazza into Soleste Young Circle has been a long time coming, said Raelin Storey, Hollywood's assistant city manager. 'The La Piazza parcel has been a gap in the redevelopment around Young Circle and the vision for the area that was put in place 20 years ago,' Storey says. 'The new residents who will live at Soleste Young Circle will add to the vitality of the local economy.' Soleste's developer, Miami-based The Estate Cos., hasn't announced when it plans to demolish La Piazza or break ground, but city records show it applied for 12 building permits on Dec. 4, all awaiting approval. A demolition permit wasn't among them. Developer Robert-James Suris, a partner at The Estate Cos., could not be reached for comment about the Soleste project's timeline despite multiple attempts by email, phone calls and texts. Hollywood's Community Redevelopment Agency, which owned the land under La Piazza for decades, agreed to sell the building and land in July 2023 to 1845 Young Circle Holdings LLC, which is owned by The Estate Cos., for $1.5 million, according to property records. (The land and building are currently valued at almost $9.2 million.) Though some businesses have already cleared out ahead of La Piazza's expected teardown, a few remain, including a dry cleaner, a salon-spa and an independent coffeehouse, Le Cafe In. A Papa John's pizzeria is still there but its franchisee, Coastal City Pizza LLC, recently registered for a new space a block north at 1860 Radius Drive, in the Radius Hollywood condo. Also hanging on are Marco and Javier Rondon, the chef-owners behind the acclaimed J28 Sandwich Bar, who have fretted over the Soleste project ever since the city gave the green light in 2023. The goal is to relocate, Javier Rondon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, though soaring rents nearby and a 'lack of turnkey spaces' have delayed the move-out, leaving the restaurant in limbo. For now, J28 is operating on a month-to-month 'verbal agreement' with its landlord after the 10-year lease ran out a year ago, he said. 'We did so much remodeling already, it's hard to let it go,' said Rondon, who estimates they spent $100,000 on J28's build-out. 'But if we move anywhere else, our rent will be doubled, which means our prices will double. 'And no one wants to spend $30 for sandwiches in Hollywood,' he added. Rondon thinks J28's Hollywood legacy is worth saving. Known for chicharron and lomo saltado sandwiches on crusty, housemade white rolls, the eatery has drawn praise with a high-profile stint on Food Network's 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,' a rare four-star review in the Sun Sentinel and a spot on Yelp's 'Top 100 Places to Eat in Florida' list. Their food costs are high because of imported ingredients such as rocoto peppers, aji amarillo and lucuma, a Peruvian fruit, he said. 'If we moved, we'd lose quality,' said Carmen Spangaro, Javier Rondon's wife. 'We couldn't make bread from scratch or have imported goods anymore, which is not authentic Peruvian.' For his part, Hollywood's mayor, a self-proclaimed J28 fan, doesn't want to see this 'displaced tenant' leave the city. So Levy and Hollywood's CRA have suggested nearby storefronts, including at Block 40 Food Hall on the southern end of Young Circle, he said. 'As far as I know, J28 is in negotiations with other brokers, [but] they're not finding anything,' Levy said. 'Sometimes a tenant needs some place very specific.' And their specific need is a space that's move-in ready, Rondon added. He's still looking. So Rondon has privately told fans they'll close in late May, ahead of the wrecking balls. He stressed that he doesn't blame Soleste's developer for J28's possible demise. 'The developers gave us plenty of warning and they're doing the right thing,' he said. 'But our fan base knows us here. We tried to drag it out as much as possible, but everybody's moving out and it's the end of the line.'
