Latest news with #NewOrleans-themed
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Panda Express eyes central Ohio fast-food sites for new locations
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Former fast-food buildings in central Ohio could soon face bulldozers making way for new Panda Express locations. The chain's development company, CFT NV Developments, purchased a south Columbus property at 3847 S. High St. for $1 million in December, Franklin County Auditor's Office records show. The site was a Long John Silver's, then taken over by a New Orleans-themed restaurant called Way Down Yonder that operated for nearly six years before closing last fall. Seafood eatery closes Gahanna location, to reopen Downtown in Little Palace site Plans submitted to the city of Columbus call for the building to be demolished before a 2,350-square-foot Panda Express location with a drive-thru is constructed. CFT made another December purchase last year in Hilliard at 3721 Fishinger Blvd., the long-time home of a Kentucky Fried Chicken location. The fried-chicken brand first acquired the Hilliard site for $380,000 in 1995, while CFT paid $1.2 million, according to the auditor's office. Records show that KFC's 2739-square-foot eatery was built in 1996. It's unclear if the building will be demolished or renovated for the new Panda Express location. Panda Express is also readying a third new location in New Albany. CFT purchased a 1.3-acre site at the intersection of Johnstown and Smith's Mill roads in October for $1.9 million, according to the auditor's office. Why opening of first Ohio Buc-ee's is delayed until 2026 A vacant site that has yet to receive an address, the New Albany property sits across from a former Panda Express at 9855 Johnstown Road that has since been converted into a Dunkin location. Panda Express is not the first fast-food chain to bulldoze a series of central Ohio buildings to make way for new locations. Chick-fil-A and Sheetz are also expanding by demolishing buildings like a Buca di Beppo, a Woody's Wing House and several Max and Erma's restaurants. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Miami Herald
07-02-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
After 26 years, chef leaves Miami Beach icon to open new restaurant in Fort Lauderdale
Like most of the people he worked with, Chef Andre Bienvenu assumed when he left the kitchen of Joe's Stone Crab, he'd be heading into retirement. After spending 26 years at the iconic Miami Beach restaurant, which opened as a small lunch counter in 1913 and grew into one of Miami's most famous culinary landmarks, Bienvenu hadn't envisioned going anywhere else. He loved his work serving locals and tourists and mentoring young cooks, but like many South Floridians was weary of the grueling commute from his home in Pembroke Pines. But fate had something else in store. A friend in the restaurant business reached out and wanted to know if Bienvenu was interested in opening his own restaurant. So instead of retiring, Bienvenu, 59, is now a partner and executive chef at Catch & Cut in Fort Lauderdale, joining the trickle of Miami-area chefs and restaurateurs testing the Broward market. 'I love the family there,' says Bienvenu of Joe's. 'The employees, the staff, they're unbelievable. I walked away learning more from them than I taught them. . . . but that commute was really tough, and it's not going to get any better.' Located on Las Olas Boulevard in the former space of the New Orleans-themed restaurant The Balcony, Catch & Cut focuses on steak and seafood. Stone crab is on the menu, but Bienvenu said the restaurant won't be known specifically for the seasonal crustaceans in the same way Joe's is. 'I'm looking at the last 35 or 40 years of my career and seeing what I can come up with,' he explained. 'We have a very good menu, and the staff has done well with it. I'm surprised by how fast they've caught on.' The two-story restaurant, which has been fully renovated and redesigned by Gravity Architecture & Design, covers 9,618 square feet, with seating for 287 diners. The large first-floor dining room features an open kitchen and a full-service bar as well as raw and sushi bars led by Chef Inyoman Atmaja, where customers can order oysters, ceviche, shrimp and lump crab cocktail or a seafood tower. Sushi offerings include spicy tuna crispy rice, hamachi jalapeño crudo, tuna tataki and a variety of rolls. The upstairs seating area is more casual, a spot to have a bite and a drink or perhaps enjoy a cocktail or glass of wine before your table is ready, with balcony seating that overlooks busy Las Olas Boulevard. The menu includes appetizers like surf and turf meatballs with Maine lobster, beef tenderloin, tomato confit and truffle crumbs; crispy wrapped shrimp with ponzu sauce; Pemaquid black mussels with fra diavolo sauce; and calamari with pickled giardiniera. There are soups like stone crab and cream corn chowder as well as crab and avocado salad. Seafood entrees include Alaskan King crab, Maine lobster tail, sea bass with steamed shrimp, clam and coconut curry sauce; blackened mahi with a roasted corn reduction and salted popcorn salad; and miso-glazed Faroe Island salmon. The meat menu, with steaks from Allen Brothers, includes the usual suspects: filet mignon, New York strip, ribeye and the wagyu cut of the day, as well as a steak burger. But Bienvenu is determined to pay attention to service as well as the menu, something for which Joe's Stone Crab has been known for decades. 'We're bringing old-school hospitality,' he said. 'Joe's does a phenomenal job with this. There are very few restaurants like Joe's, the way the family runs it and the autonomy they give their employees. Everybody's on board. I carried that philosophy with me.'' The new restaurant also allows the chef to step out of his usual role and work with front of house staff, something he truly enjoys, as well as interact more personally with diners, regulars or otherwise. 'It's exciting for me,' he said. 'I feel like more of a teacher than anything else. I feel like I'm in a classroom every day. And I'm meeting a whole new clientele. I hope they become friends. If you're going to put this much work in, you want your customers to become friends.' Bienvenu's move to Broward comes at an auspicious time. Over the past couple of years, culinary stars like Timon Balloo (The Katherine in Fort Lauderdale) and Raheem Sealey (J&C Oyster in Hollywood) are testing the Broward market. Last fall, Daniel's steakhouse from owner Tom Angelo and chef Daniel Ganem of Fiola in Coral Gables opened just south of the Henry Kinney Tunnel in Fort Lauderdale. Earlier this week, the Michelin Guide announced plans to include Broward restaurants in its 2026 guide. For Bienvenu, the move north feels like the right decision at the right time. 'There's a better mix of locals with tourists here,' he said. 'Las Olas has grown, too, with Pier 66 opening and more condos, it's a good neighborhood for restaurants. We're going to fit in really well. We're going to revitalize the neighborhood. This is no longer a sleepy little town.' Catch & Cut Where: 1309 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale Hours: 4-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 4-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 4-9 p.m. Sunday Reservations and more information: or 954-533-1838
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wanna bet? Still illegal in Georgia (and SC) to bet Chiefs Super Bowl win plus Kelce-Swift proposal
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes faces a sea of cameras inside the Caesars Superdome during the Super Bowl Opening Night on February 3, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs were made available for interviews during an energetic, New Orleans-themed event ahead of next Sunday's Super Bowl LIX. (Photo by) Who are you picking to win the Super Bowl? You could bet the Kansas City Chiefs, but you'd have to spot the Eagles a point and a half. You could bet the over/under (the total number of points scored by both teams), which the sports books have set at 49. If you bet $100 that Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce scores a touchdown, you can win $125. And if the Chiefs win AND Kelce proposes to Taylor Swift after the game – both have to happen — a $100 bet will pay off $750. Not enough to get you inside a Swift concert, but not bad. In Georgia, though, you can't do any of that, not legally anyway. We're one of only 11 states, including neighboring South Carolina, that haven't legalized sports betting. And if we're smart, we'll keep it that way. Sure, there's a lot of money to be made in betting sports, but not by you and not by me. The house always wins, and since 2018, when the Supreme Court gave states the option of legalizing sports betting, the industry has been a profit machine. They don't produce anything. They don't employ many people. But they do make a lot of money. In 2023, according to the American Gaming Association, Americans spent $121 billion on sports betting, with industry revenue jumping 44% from 2022. We don't have numbers for 2024 yet, but the growth has only accelerated since then. That kind of money and growth can generate a lot of lobbyist contracts and campaign contributions, especially in a sports-mad market such as Georgia. Over the past seven years, state legislators have grown closer and closer to legalizing the industry here. Last year, legislation passed the state Senate and appeared close to passage in the House as well, but to use a football analogy, their red-zone offense faltered at the two-yard line, and they failed to convert. A lot of the legalization push has come from Georgia sports franchises, which historically had seen gambling as a threat to the integrity of their sports and fought to keep it illegal. Now, seeing the amount of money to be made through gambling ads and other revenue streams, they view it as an opportunity to make their highly profitable businesses even more lucrative. Money talks, but sometimes what it has to say isn't pleasant. The threat to integrity, for example, has proved real. Over the past few years, we've seen major gambling scandals in the NBA, NFL, college sports, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and UFC. It has involved players, coaches, interpreters, girlfriends and even umpires and referees, leveraging their inside information or even changing outcomes to cash in on bets. Even when the games are played clean, desperate, frustrated gamblers are blaming athletes for their heavy losses, accusing them of throwing contests. It has also come at an increasingly high social cost. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, the rate of gambling addiction related to sports betting is at least twice as high as other forms of gambling. As states have legalized sports gambling, researchers have been able to watch the impact in real time. They look at various financial data before legalization, and then compare to data after legalization, and the results are sobering. In one study released in October, for example, researchers found that when sports betting is legalized in a state, credit scores begin to fall. 'We find a substantial increase in average bankruptcy rates, debt sent to collections, use of debt consolidation loans, and auto loan delinquencies,' the study reports. 'We also find that financial institutions respond to the reduced creditworthiness of consumers by restricting access to credit. These results are substantially stronger for states that allow online sports gambling compared to states that restrict access to in-person betting.' 'Following legalization, sports betting spreads quickly, with both the number of participants and frequency of bets increasing over time,' a second study found. 'This increase does not displace other gambling or consumption but significantly reduces savings, as risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments. These effects concentrate among financially constrained households, as credit card debt increases, available credit decreases, and overdraft frequency rises. Our findings highlight the potential adverse effects of online sports betting on vulnerable households.' The impact on boys and young men, avid consumers of a sports culture in which gambling talk is pervasive, can be particularly damaging. As one anecdotal indication of the scope of the problem, I know of one family that opened an on-line betting account for their 11-year-old son, a situation probably being repeated many times over with unknown long-term consequences. Part of the allure of sports is that you never know who's going to win, that anything can happen, even when your team is up 28-3 in the second half. In legalized sports betting, though, the final outcome never changes. The house always wins. Like the SC Daily Gazette, the Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@
