A recent study by Sharon Zurkin, Laurie Hurson, and Scarlett Lindeman at CUNY examines the language of Yelp restaurant reviews in gentrifying neighborhoods. The study finds that race factors heavily into user’s perceptions and descriptions of businesses. More than 7,000 restaurant reviews in Bedford Stuyvesant, and Greenpoint were examined. The sample set was selected consisting of trendier restaurants that have opened since 2005, along with the “top ten” best reviewed restaurants in the local area.

The authors focused on 1,056 reviews that mention the neighborhood: 720 Bed-Stuy and 336 Greenpoint. Reviews of the “trendier” restaurants were three times as likely to contain some mention of the neighborhood itself. The uneven breakdown lead authors to conclude that reviewers draw attention to neighborhoods when the majority of the residents are of black race.

Reviewers also tend to describe Greenpoint’s ethnic restaurants in a more positive light than they do historically black restaurants in Bed-Stuy. Polish restaurants in Greenpoint are described as “authentic” and “cozy,” while those in Bed-Stuy are described as “sketchy.”However, trendier restaurants in Bed-Stuy include more positive reviews.

Authors conclude that while reviewers want to preserve Greenpoint’s ethnic white restaurants, Bed-Stuy’s case is “discursive redlining” that contributes to gentrification.

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The National Restaurant Association has recently filed a petition late last week challenging New York’s minimum wage increase. The NRA is asking New York’s Industrial Board of Appeals to outstate the order from the Department of Labor to gradually raise the hourly minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 an hour.

The increase in state-wide wages for fast food workers was made official in September when Governor Cuomo announced that in yearly breakdowns the wages of all fast food chains in New York would need to increase wages. The board recommended that $15 per hour was an “adequate” wage for fast food workers and was approved by Cuomo’s labor commissioner. However, NRA has submitted a 26 page appeal claiming that the wage increase is just a “thinly veiled attempt by Governor Cuomo” to avoid the hassle of getting things approved by the state legislature and finding a different way to enact his own policies. The filings include issues of separation of powers, and argues that the board made the new wage without a representative for the restaurant industry.

Many franchise owners as well are planning to file a lawsuit that argues that “it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant” increase in costs that will be only applied to the fast food industry, not to all industries. The franchise owners believe the wage increase is “unfair and discriminatory.”

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David Chang’s spicy fried-chicken sandwich shop, Fuku, has become a major headline since opening this past summer. Lines to snatch a sandwich are out the doors, and expansion of Fuku+ followed quickly after successfully opening Fuku on the lower east side. However, customers no longer will need to wait on line for a spicy-fried chicken sandwich. Starting today, Fuku will deliver across Manhattan and up to 85th Street through Caviar.

David Chang is no stranger to utilizing off-site delivery services, like Maple, and now will deliver Fuku items through Caviar, another delivery service. Along with the famed sandwiches, the 163 Salad, Fuku Fingers, French fries, a Milk Bar Confetti cookie, and the Ssam Sauce will be available.

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Dough is already proclaimed for their perfectly formulated yeast doughnuts- crunchy exteriors with pillowy insides. However, recently Fany Gerson has been experimenting new forms of doughnuts. The first released were “doughka,” which are babka made with doughnut dough. Now, Gerson plans to formulate the perfect cake doughnut.

Gerson experimented with a lot of recipes using a traditional depositor, but because she wasn’t content with the results, she shifted to making a version that rolls and cuts. “This way, I could also play with things I could put inside,” she says. “I wanted to do a cake doughnut that has a lot of flavor and is dense but not too greasy. Cake doughnuts are much heavier in general, and as a good friend put it, they were probably created to be dunked in coffee.”

After numerous attempts, Gerson will, finally, be releasing her perfectly formulated cake doughnuts today. There are three flavors- sour cream rolled in cinnamon sugar, lemon-buttermilk, and banana-chocolate-chunk. Each cake doughnut is $2.50, and is available after noon today. With only three flavors available now, Gerson plans to explore different flavor options for the cake doughnut. One in particular that is set to be released is an apple-pear-cider cake doughnut.

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