This week on Nation's Restaurant News, Replenishment of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund might not be dead yet after the bill was dropped from the Congressional spending package in March: both the House and the Senate are talking about voting on additional relief for the restaurant industry this week. As first reported by Roll Call, the U.S. House of Representatives is “likely to vote” on a $55 billion COVID-19 aid package for small businesses hardest hit by the pandemic, including $42 billion for the restaurant industry.
Also, as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz takes the helm (again) this week as interim CEO after Howard Johnson announced his retirement, he is making his position on unions clear:
“We can’t ignore what is happening […] as it relates to companies […] being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization,” Schultz said during a town hall-style partner open forum at Starbucks. He also added that Starbucks union SBWorkers United — which currently represents nine Starbucks cafes across the country — is “an outside organization trying to take our people.”
In other news, this week on the Extra Serving podcast, a production of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches, and Leigh Anne Zinsmeister spoke about Wendy’s entrance into the metaverse with the new “Wendyverse” restaurant.
On April 2, Wendy’s will officially enter the metaverse with a new virtual restaurant. Rather than hop on the trend of simply trademarking its name, the Dublin, Ohio-based quick-service restaurant has created a virtual reality restaurant in the Metaverse 2.0. This will give users the opportunity to interact with one another and the brand in a new way.
See what else was trending this week on NRN.com
