Casual Dining

CHICAGO Health authorities have traced a widespread salmonella poisoning during the Taste of Chicago restaurant festival here to three food handlers who were hired to staff the booth of a local restaurant called Pars Cove. The three have...

CAMBRIDGE Mass. Wagamama, the London-based Japanese noodle chain, plans to open its second U.S. location here in Harvard Square next month. The opening follows the 79-unit chain’s debut in Boston’s Faneuil Hall earlier this year. Like its...

NASHVILLE Tenn. O’Charley’s Inc., the 363-unit casual-dining company that operates O’Charley’s, Ninety Nine Restaurant and Stoney River Legendary Steaks, said it has completed the divestment of its 185,000-square-foot commissary facilities here. ...

DALLAS On The Border, the 161-unit Mexican casual-dining division of Brinker International Inc., started airing its first television commercials in two years as part of its new advertising campaign. The 30-second ads are the first with OTB...

LOS ANGELES California Pizza Kitchen Inc., noting that its ASAP fast-casual concept needs fine-tuning, said Tuesday it reduced its second-quarter per-share earnings outlook by 2 cents because of costs associated with halting the construction of a...

NEW YORK Six former servers of V Steakhouse, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s now-shuttered upscale restaurant in the Time Warner Center here, have sued the chef and restaurateur for dividing tips among restaurant managers and other tipped staff...

CALABASAS HILLS Calif. The Cheesecake Factory Inc. reported second-quarter corporate revenue rose 15.7 percent from a year ago to $373.2 million, but same-store sales for its namesake chain remained challenging. Same-store restaurant sales...

ORLANDO Fla. Darden Restaurants Inc. said same-store sales rose between 6 percent and 7 percent at its Red Lobster chain and 3 percent and 4 percent at its Olive Garden concept for the company’s first reporting period of fiscal 2008, or the five...

INDIANAPOLIS —An investor group that includes the parent of Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon disclosed last month that it had amassed a 9.5-percent stake in family-dining company The Steak n Shake Co. with intentions to “maximize...