Pepsi to pull sodas off school shelves worldwide by 2012

By Mark Fisher | Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 11:56 AM

PepsiCo plans to remove its full-calorie, sugar-sweetened sodas and drinks from schools around the world by 2012, according to this PepsiCo news release and this Associated Press story. Also, The Consumerist has an interesting piece about it.

The AP story notes that, “The move, aimed at fighting childhood obesity, follows the success of similar changes in the U.S. by PepsiCo and rival Coca-Cola,” apparently in 2006.

Did I miss that entirely? Are there no “regular” Cokes and Pepsis available in local school vending machines?

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Restaurant owners/managers: let us know if you’re serving a special Easter menu

By Mark Fisher | Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 06:59 AM

Let us know whether your restaurant will be open Easter Day. We’re looking for special menus and events — Easter brunches and dinners with special menus, for example — rather than businesses that are regularly open on Sundays and which are not doing anything out of the ordinary for the holiday. But those who are open and serving a special menu should email their information to me at mfisher@daytondailynews.com by noon Monday, March 22 with their restaurant name, address, phone number, the hours they’re serving on Easter Sunday, details about their special menu and prices, and whether reservations are accepted/required.

We’ll put together a list for this Taste web page and also for a news story in the March 26 Go! section of the Dayton Daily News.

Thanks for your help.

Mark Fisher

mfisher@daytondailynews.com

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Miamisburg bar unveils new BBQ menu

By Mark Fisher | Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 11:48 AM

MIAMISBURG — The Dark Horse Tavern unveiled a new barbecue menu this week.

The bar at 209 Byers Road has installed “an old-school style wood smoker” and is now “serving some top-notch barbecue,” Steve Jones, kitchen manager for Dark Horse, said today, March 16.

The new menu items include hickory-smoked brisket, ribs, pulled pork, chicken, sausage, salmon and chicken wings, Jones said. The brisket Dark Horse serves has been smoked for 16 hours, he said.

A full-slab babyback rib dinner costs $16.50, while a brisket dinner is $11.99, and a pulled-pork dinner is $8.99. A “Brisket Melt” sub sandwich costs $7.50, and a pulled-pork sandwich is $6.50.

Dark Horse “is still a bar first,” Jones said, but the new barbecue offerings reflect a significant expansion to the menu. The bar has added a parking spot for customers picking up carryout orders and has installed a cash register near the front door just for to-go business, he said.

Dark Horse’s kitchen hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. It is closed Sunday. For more information, call (937) 866-6960.

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Jay’s hires exec chef with plenty of Dayton experience

By Mark Fisher | Monday, March 15, 2010, 06:16 PM

DAYTON — Chris Cavender — chef, former restaurant owner and current owner of Cuvee wine shop in Bellbrook — has been hired as executive chef at Jay’s Restaurant.

Amy Haverstick, co-owner and general manager of the restaurant at 225 E. Sixth St. in Dayton’s Oregon District, confirmed the hiring late this afternoon, March 15, and said Cavender’s first official day in his new position will be Monday, April 5 — the day after Easter.

“I feel it’s going to be a partnership moreso than just hiring an employee,” Haverstick said. “I feel I’m going to learn a lot from him.”

Cavender, 49, served as executive chef at TomKatz restaurant in Springboro and was co-owner of TW’s Restaurant in Miamisburg. His other Dayton-area restaurant stints include The Florentine in Germantown, the Blue Dog Cafe, Legends, and NCR Country Club, as well as early experiences at Peasant Stock and l’Auberge.

“I think I’ll be a good fit at Jay’s, in part because of my experience in seafood,” said Cavender, who has a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales in Providence, R.I. Cavender was the guest chef for a German wine dinner earlier this month at Jay’s.

Cavender replaces Justin White, who left Jay’s in late 2009 to take a position at the Dayton Country Club. Cavender said his hiring will have no immediate impact on Cuvee, which will remain open, but he said the wine bar’s future is uncertain.

Both Haverstick and Cavender said they foresee resuming popular cooking classes and hosting more wine and beer dinners and luncheons.

Haverstick — whose oversight of the restaurant grew after her father Jay died while hiking and taking photographs in Death Valley last year — said she also foresees a “revamping” of Jay’s menu.

“There will be some menu changes, definitely, while keeping the staples that are most popular with our guests,” she said.

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Vote for “Best Fine Dining” in Dayton

By Mark Fisher | Monday, March 15, 2010, 04:20 PM

This week’s ActiveDayton Best of Dayton online voting is for “fine dining,” with a veritable plethora of restaurants listed — so many, it’s difficult to vote for one.

Still, you should.

Voting just started today, and will extend through noon next Monday, March 22. You can vote here and return to the same link to check results (the “view results” link is just below the list of nominated restaurants).

Just as in politics, no whining is allowed from anyone who didn’t vote!

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Local Paneras to post calorie counts by fall

By Mark Fisher | Monday, March 15, 2010, 07:08 AM

Panera Bread restaurants are gearing up to become the first nationwide chain to voluntarily post calorie information for all of its menu items in its restaurants.

Dayton-area customers will have a wait a bit longer than Panera diners in many other cities to peruse posted calorie counts, however.

This Associated Press story reports that calorie counts will be posted by March 24 at all 585 company-owned stores, but the Dayton-area Panera restaurants are franchise-owned. Judy Ketner-Dollison, Columbus-based marketing director for Panera Bread/Breads of the World franchisee for the Miami Valley’s Paneras, said all Dayton-area Panera Bread locations will be posting calorie information “by early fall, approximately September.”

Some restaurant industry officials have opposed requirements to post calorie counts, but some cities have approved laws mandating such postings, and proposals to do so are pending in city and state legislative bodies.

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Buffalo Wild Wings teams up with Children’s Medical Center for March Madness

By Mark Fisher | Sunday, March 14, 2010, 04:48 PM

Dayton-area Buffalo Wild Wings have teamed up with the Children’s Miracle Network for the rest of the month of March to help raise funds for The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton. Through March 31, Buffalo Wild Wings’ customers can purchase a paper basketball for $1, with the proceeds going to CMC of Dayton, according to medical center spokeswoman Betsy Woods.

The following Buffalo Wild Wings locations are participating:

— 1900 Brown St., Dayton

— 6210 Wilmington Pike, Centerville

— 2082 S. Alex Rd., West Carrollton

— 2776 Centre Drive, Beavercreek

— 7875 Waynetown Boulevard, Huber Heights

— 774 N. Main Street, Springboro

— 891 S. Main Street, Engelwood

— 262 E. Stroop Road, Kettering

— 4661 National Road East, Richmond, IN

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CiCi’s Pizza poised to reopen under new ownership

By Mark Fisher | Thursday, March 11, 2010, 03:05 PM

CiCi’s Pizza will reopen at its former Huber Heights location at 7631 Old Troy Pike under new franchise ownership.

The tentative target date for the opening of the pizza buffet restaurant is March 29, CiCi’s manager Frank Palmer said this afternoon, March 11, between job interviews. The restaurant will open with about 50 employees, Palmer said.

The new CiCi’s franchise is owned by a partnership led by Suresh Balachandran of Centerville, and has no connection with the previous owners of Dayton-area CiCi’s locations, Marwin Management, Palmer said. Four Dayton-area CiCi’s closed abruptly last May in an action that surprised both customers and many employees.

“We plan on making it a lot better this time,” said Palmer, who was a CiCi’s manager for Marin Management. “We are more focused on cleanliness, and on accountability.”

There are no current plans on opening any of the other three CiCi’s that closed last year, although if the Huber Heights restaurant is successful, franchise owners will look for a good location to open a second restaurant “from the ground up,” Palmer said.

Restaurant officials are planning a special offer for the opening day for the first 100 customers through the door, but details and a confirmation of the opening date are still to come.

But Palmer is encouraged by the response of passers-by who notice the activity going on inside the restaurant and the “opening soon” sign on the door. “People are very excited,” he said.

The new CiCi’s will seat about 180. For more information, call the restaurant at (937) 236-2424.

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L’Auberge hires new executive chef who launched his own career there 3 decades ago

By Mark Fisher | Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 07:11 AM

DAVID LEASE

KETTERING — David Lease’s 30-year culinary career has spanned the globe. Now he has returned to l’Auberge, where it all started.

“I have come full circle,” said Lease, who has been hired as l’Auberge’s new executive chef. “This building is filled with memories for me, every square inch of it.”

Lease, 52, was a 17-year-old Centerville High School student when he started working at l’Auberge busing tables. He worked his way up to line cook for the restaurant’s co-founder and executive chef, the late Dieter Krug, who saw promise in young David and sent him off to a restaurant in Chicago to hone his skills. His career then took him to Germany, Italy, San Francisco, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and Belize over the next three decades.

The chef returned to the U.S. to explore opportunities here and was visiting his parents in Washington Twp. when he ran into l’Auberge owner Josef Reif at Dorothy Lane Market. Reif invited him to stop by the restaurant and talk. Within a week, Lease was hired.

“He stayed in touch with us as his career went up the ladder,” Reif said of Lease, who returned to l’Auberge to cook for a one-night “culinary olympics” event in 1996, when he was working in Thailand. “A restaurant like ours needs a chef with worldwide experience. He has the talent to create and to make a difference.”

Lease will replace Jared Whalen, who has accepted a position of executive chef at the Kenwood Country Club in suburban Cincinnati. The two are working together for this weekend’s Opera Guild of Dayton Masterpiece Ball: An Evening with the Great Chefs, for which the l’Auberge chefs will serve Chef Dieter’s signature dish, Veal Orloff, Lease said.

Lease said Whalen has established relationships with several local growers, and he’s looking forward to putting his own touch on some of those local ingredients. He also is looking forward to getting back behind the stove, after supervising large staffs and performing administrative duties at luxury hotels in some of his international positions.

“I’ve got a plethora of flavors floating around in my head,” the new executive chef said.

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Caffe Anticoli looking for new home

By Mark Fisher | Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 06:23 AM

CLAYTON — Leo Anticoli, owner of Caffe Anticoli, is pondering his next move — literally.

Anticoli said he has chosen not to renew the lease on his restaurant at 8268 N. Main St. in Clayton and is now looking for a new home for Caffe Anticoli. The move will likely occur on or shortly after Aug. 31, the restaurant owner said.

Until then, “We are open for business as usual now and will continue to be as we anticipate a move in the fall when our current lease agreement expires,” Anticoli said.

Next year, 2011, will mark the 80th consecutive year Anticoli’s/Caffe Anticoli has been in business in the Dayton area, but Anticoli noted that the eight decades included three different locations: from 1931 to 1951, on East Fifth Street in the St. Anne’s Hill District of Dayton; 1951 to 2000 on Salem Avenue in north Dayton; and from 2000 to 2010 at its current location in Clayton.

“Although our fourth location is yet to be determined, we are confident we will find the perfect spot to continue what has become an 80-year restaurant odyssey spanning 3 generations of my family,” Anticoli said.

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New-concept Fazoli’s opens today

By Mark Fisher | Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 10:25 AM

The new Fazoli’s restaurant that we wrote about last week opens today at 2419 Miamisburg-Centerville Road, across from the Dayton Mall in Miami Twp.

The prototype restaurant’s hours will be Sunday through Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. For more information, call (937) 439-4645.

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Centerville pizzeria relocates

By Mark Fisher | Monday, March 8, 2010, 01:44 PM

CENTERVILLE — Johnny’s Slice of New York Pizzeria has relocated to 57 W. Franklin St., around the corner of sorts from its original location at 298 N. Main St.

Michele Rivera, the pizzeria’s co-owner, said this afternoon, March 8, said the move was a good opportunity to get closer to the heart of town and to locate to closer proximity of nearby schools. The new Johnny’s is located in a 200-year-old brick two-story building adjacent to Centerville Insurance. The restaurant seats 30, about the same as the previous location, and has two rooms, one of which will be a student lounge, Rivera said.

The restaurant’s menu includes pizza, calzones, sandwiches and salads. Rivera said she intends to add two pasta dishes within the next month.

Hours of the new Johnny’s are Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday noon to 8 p.m.

The phone number remains the same: (937) 567-8840.

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EO Burgers now open at The Greene

By Mark Fisher | Friday, March 5, 2010, 05:01 PM

EO Burgers, which had to postpone its opening at The Greene in Beavercreek earlier this week until Greene County health inspectors made sure everything in its new kitchen was up to code, opened today, March 5, at 5 p.m.

The restaurant’s hours starting tomorrow will be 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11:30 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday. For more information, call (937) 431-1242, or check out the EO Burgers web site.

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Judge evicts Miami Twp. restaurant, orders liquidation

By Mark Fisher | Thursday, March 4, 2010, 04:46 PM

A U. S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Dayton ruled Thnursday, March 4, that the assets of Cena Restaurant, 2854 Miamisburg-Centerville Road, will be liquidated, and the restaurant property itself reverts back to the landlord, Glimcher Properties.

The order — agreed upon by attorneys for Cena’s owner, Eva Brcic-Christian; Glimcher, which also owns the Dayton Mall; and PNC Bank, successor to National City Bank, which was a creditor of Cena’s — calls for Cena to “immediately surrender the leased premises” to Glimcher, and allows the company to “take any an all necessary actions to compel eviction.” Some of the restaurant’s contents considered collateral for the bank loan will be surrendered to PNC Bank, according to the order, which was effective immediately.

Brcic-Christian said Thursday she was “devastated by the situation that caused the ultimate closure of Cena. Had the break-in not happened, I’m sure we would have pulled out of bankruptcy by the end of the year.”

The restaurant owner said she has not received insurance money that would have allowed her to make timely repairs to the steakhouse. “It is really unfortunate because of the 20 staff members who have been displaced because of this criminal act,” she said..

Cena, which opened in late 2007, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in August 2009 and continued operating through Christmas Eve. It has been closed since a burglary, vandalism and fire Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. No one has been charged in the incident.

Click here for the Feb. 24 story entitled “Creditors push for liquidation of Cena”.

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EO Burgers’ opening at The Greene postponed

By Mark Fisher | Thursday, March 4, 2010, 10:38 AM

The EO Burgers restaurant at The Greene that we mentioned on Monday was “tentatively scheduled” to open yesterday (Wednesday, March 3) is in fact not yet open and is awaiting final approval by Greene County health inspectors, Michael Gibbons, president of Ann Arbor-based Mainstreet Ventures, said this morning, March 4.

“We worked all night correcting things,” Gibbons said, but at this point, the opening is on hold until health inspectors give their final approval.

Whenever it does open, EO Burgers’ hours will be 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11:30 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday. For more information, call (937) 431-1242.

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