The week in ideas, June 17, 2013

Sushi restaurants lead the ideas this week with no tipping and no kids. Chipotle lets its GMO flag fly. And a Wendy’s unit in Manatoba gets its big idea shot down by corporate.

Idea #1: No tipping. We missed this one last week. High-end New York City sushi restaurant Sushi Yasuda has banned tipping. Instead, they have raised prices and put all servers on salary with vacation and sick time. The restaurant is struggling a bit to explain the new arrangement to customers accustomed to tipping. But it is brining praise from many corners.

Idea #2: No kids. Big sales. The sushi restaurants seem to be setting the trends these days. The Sushi Bar, a new restaurant in Del Ray, Virginia, does not allow any patrons under the age of 18, and for the first week, anyway, the place has been packed. "There must be 50 kids in that joint. It's pandemonium," he said of a Caribbean-themed restaurant he operates. "We ran it by some parents that had kids, and I would say eight out of 10 thought it was a great idea. They said, 'You're on to something here.'"

Idea #3: Label GMOs. Chipotle is the first major U.S. restaurant chain to begin labeling its ingredients that contain genetically modified organisms. In addition to nutrional information, visitors to its website can now find which menu items are GMO enhanced. Soybean oil, we’re looking in your direction.

Idea #4: The 3,000 calorie burger. What started as a joke, turned into an actual menu item, which has now been banned. A Wendy’s unit in Manitoba would prepare a T. Rex burger—nine quarter-pound patties, nine pieces of chees—upon request. No more. “For obvious reasons, Wendy’s of Brandon neither condones nor promotes the idea of anyone consuming a nine-patty hamburger in one sitting,” Wendy’s spokesperson Barb Barker told Canada’s Globe and Mail.

 

 

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