Food & Beverage

Papa John's estimates that they sold an estimated 75,000 pizzas on Thursday in Ohio during a promotion that offered pizza lovers the chance to snag a pie for just 23-cents. More than 80 Papa John's locations in Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Toledo, and Columbus took park in the one-day special.

The promotion netted more than $17,500, with all proceeds going to the LeBron James Family Foundation. Papa Johns also donated an additional $10,000 to James' foundation, as well as another $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

Paja Johns offered the promotion to Ohioans after backing the wrong team in the playoffs, and giving away t-shirts making fun of "cry baby" LeBron James. After numerous complaints, Papa Johns decided on a 23-center special, taking inspiration from LeBron's #23.

Obviously more than just Cavs fans showed up for the special deal, and throughout the day there were reports of long lines, traffic problems, and complaints about long waits.

Where's the beef? It is now in Atlanta. Wendy's, which was founded and based in Ohio, has been acquired by the parent company of Arby's. The Atlanta based chain had been trying to obtain control of the Dublin, Ohio, based chain for over a year. $2.34 billion of Triarc Companies Inc was the number that Wendy's board agreed to today.

Pam Thomas Farber, the daughter of founder Dave Thomas whose passing seemed to have doomed the 3rd largest hamburger chains fortunes, expressed her displeasure with the takeover by Triarc Companies Inc.

"It's a very sad day for Wendy's, and our family. We just didn't think this would be the outcome"

Wendy's stock price has plummeted over the year and billionaire Nelson Peltz, who is the largest shareholder of Triarc, has made it his goal to takeover the weakened company. Following a poor quarter he finally won over the board who agreed to $26.78 for the company who had traded over $40 a share just a year ago.

All 7,100 U.S. Starbucks stores will close on Tuesday, but don't worry - it's only temporary. Starbucks stores across the country will close for approximately three hours beginning at 5:30pm local time. While the stores are closed to customers, Starbucks employees, internally referred to as "baristas", will be meeting for a re-education session.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the closure to re-energize the company's 135,000 employees. He hopes that baristas will share their passion for espresso, and "to pull the perfect shot, steam milk to order, and customize their favorite beverage."

Schultz returned as CEO in January, and has since been making changes to revive the company's growth. He sees this training session as a part of his focus on the coffee customer experience.

So remember, there'll be no Starbucks coffee today between 5:30pm and 8:30pm local time, and you might want to get your fix in before then.

Playboy Enterprises has launched a new energy drink designed to compete with the likes of Red Bull. Featuring a sleek, 8.4oz black can with the iconic Playboy bunny, the Playboy Energy Drink promises to give "customers a taste of the lifestyle that has always been associated with the Playboy brand."

The drink contains both ginseng and guarana extract, with "subtle notes of fruit and vanilla."

Upon its initially launch, the Playboy Energy Drink will only be available in Boston. Soon, the drink will make its way to other cities across the U.S., including Miami and Las Vegas. Other cities are also set to pick up the drink, but it's not yet clear when.

The United States Department of Agriculture issued the country's largest recall of beef products on Sunday, a recall affecting 143 million pounds of beef. Much of the frozen beef was supplied to school lunch programs.

Products affected date back to February 1, 2006, and came from the Chino, California based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co.

The USDA had begun investigating the Hallmark/Westland plant earlier this month when the Humane Society of the U.S. turned over a videotape which showed employees treating cattle to extreme cruelty prior to slaughter. The USDA's investigation revealed that plant employees were allowing non-ambulatory or "downer" cattle to go to slaughter, violating USDA rules designed to keep bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) from entering the human food supply.

All of the questionable cattle had apparently passed USDA veterinary inspectors before becoming non-ambulatory, which is why this recall is being classified as a Class II, or lower level priority recall. According to the USDA, "there is a very, very remote possibility of anyone suffering health consequences from the consumption of this product."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning and recall of potentially contaminated cheeses manufactured by Grassy Meadows Dairy Co. in Howe, Indiana. Consumers in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan are affected by the recall.

Routine surveillence by the Indiana Board of Animal Health's Dairy Division revealed high levels of staphylococcus aureus in several varieties of the company's raw milk cheeses.

The New York City Board of Health is set to vote tomorrow on adding calorie data to fast food menus in the city. If passed, such as rule would be the first of its kind in the nation, and would mandate restaurants with more than 15 locations print complete calorie information for all items on their menu.

Not unsurprisingly, the restaurant lobby has been vehemently opposed to the measure, and have been campaigning against it.

NYC's plan to add calorie information to fast food menus first made waves last year, when it would have applied to approximately 10% of the city's 23,000 eateries. But that move was struck down when the NY State Restaurant Association sued, and a judge ruled that it applied to too few restaurants.

The city rewrote the plan, which would now affect 10,000 restaurants in the city. It is unclear whether the Restaurant Association will take the new plan to court, but it wouldn't come as any surprise if they did.

According to a new Nielsen survey, wine is quickly gaining ground on beer as the young American drink of choice. While the "Millennial" generation still shows a clear preference for beer, which remains most often cited as the favorite alcoholic drink, both wine and spirits are increasing in popularity.

On the dollar basis of purchases, beer has slipped from the young adult drink first alcoholic drink of choice from 59% to 47%. Meanwhile, wine and spirits show growth at 27% and 26%.

The Millennial Generation, also sometimes called "Generation Y", is typically described as those born between 1980 and 2000, although some disagree and cut the generation off in the late 90's or start it a few years earlier. For purposes of this survey, they considered those currently 21 to 30.

The Millennial Generation, at 70 million strong, is set to become the most influential group in terms of drink buying at the exact same time the US is poised to become the world's top wine buying country in terms of dollars in 2010. Millennial consumers outnumber Generation X (those born 1964 to 1980), and rival the 77 million strong Baby Boomer generation of 45 to 65 year-olds in terms of market influence.

Ordering a pizza has long been limited to calling by phone, or in more recent years, placing an order online. Now, there's an innovative new option being pioneered by Papa John's that allows customers to order their pizzas with just a text message.

Papa John's rolled out the service this month at all of its 2,700 U.S. restaurants. It's a natural progression and extension of their online ordering, which began in 2001. Online orders now account for nearly 20% of all of Papa John's U.S. sales. So the question is, will text message ordering take off just as well?

To get started with the Papa John's text message service, you'll first need to register on their website. Yea, it's a pain, but once you're set up, you won't have to access the site. As a part of setting up your account on their site, you can add up to four favorite orders, your payment preference, and delivery address. Then, when you're ready to order, you'll be able to text FAV1, FAV2, FAV3, or FAV4 to have one of your saved orders put through. Once you've sent off your order, Papa John shoots back a reply which lets you know that your order has been received. At this point you either confirm or change the order.

After all these years, did we find out what really happened to Spuds Mckenzie? Miller Brewing Company's new advertisement features a dog jumping from a carriage being pulled by Budweisers famous Clydesdales into a Miller Lite truck.

The new advert got under the skin of the people at Budweiser. Budweiser, instead of fighting back with an ad of their own, decided to make a donation to a group that rescues animals. Their spokesman said they wanted to combat negative advertising with a positive gesture.

Miller, when told about the donation, said that their brew is the "doggone better bear" when told about the new ad.

Here is the ad that has Miller and Bud at each others throats again.