Expedite is back from vacation. While I catch up, here are a few stories of note from the last two weeks. More soon!
I have a confession: I’ve never seen an episode of The Bear.
I know. I know. But I can’t be the only one. Restaurant workers’ …uh, beef with industry drama The Bear has been well documented; plenty of people say that the realistic depictions of life inside a high-pressure kitchen can trigger PTSD or just makes watching TV feel like work. (I’ve never worked in a kitchen but I do claim the latter.)
The latest and last season of the show recently landed on Hulu, and it sounds like product placement and brand sponsorships inside the show have overtaken the narrative. I’m not surprised — I do watch most seasons of Wells Fargo-, BMW- and Saratoga Spring Water-sponsoredTop Chef, I get it — but I am a little bummed about product placement with the power to shift a creative narrative. — Best Food Blog ($)
Jersey Mike’s filed for a $12 billion IPO.
A $12 billion initial public offering for a 3,300-restaurant strong sandwich chain is significant. (For context, both Sweetgreen and Cava hit about $5 billion during their IPOs.) Jersey Mike’s, which has yet to announce a date for its public market debut, was acquired last year by PE giant Blackstone for $8 billion. Its CEO, Charlie Morrison, who also led Wingstop’s IPO a decade ago, says the company could grow to 7,500 locations in the US; it’s also planning to open 400 store openings in Ireland and the UK.
The Red Lobster endless shrimp fiasco just keeps giving.
When the 58-year-old seafood chain went under two years ago, its fabled “endless shrimp” promotion (or LTO, limited-time offer, in restaurant lingo) was a compellingly convenient nail-in-the-coffin for framing the brand’s downfall. Poetic, really. But the bigger story of the once-beloved chain’s 2024 fall is more complicated than just underpriced shrimp. A new lawsuit from Red Lobster shareholders alleges that its former majority owner, Thai Union Group, tanked the business on purpose to enrich itself.
“When it was clear that the Everyday $20 Ultimate Endless Shrimp offering was wreaking havoc on Red Lobster and its balance sheet, [interim CEO Paul] Kenny doubled down,” in order to benefit the parent company, the suit alleges. — Fortune
Oh heyyy, the Bay Area has more Michelin stars than New York.
That makes a nice headline, but I agree with San Francisco Standard editor-at-large Sara Deseran, I don’t think of my city as a fine-dining town either. — SF Standard ($)
Wonder will deliver via Zipline drones in Texas next year.
Wonder tested drone delivery in New Jersey, but it’s committing to the bit in Texas. In a March interview, Wonder CEO Tony Hoggett told me that the delivery-forward chain expanded to Texas from the New York City area because of the state’s sprawl and growing population. Wonder plays good in the suburbs, he said. Hoggett previously ran Amazon’s grocery business from Austin, and during our interview I joked that maybe that’s why the company picked Texas as its expansion target — it’s probably easier to court an exec if you start building businesses in their backyard. (While convenient, Hoggett said, that wasn’t the case.)
But beyond its Wonder-friendly suburban sprawl, Texas has become a kind of ground zero for another type of delivery innovation: flying drones. Zipline, a leading drone delivery company, currently operates in major metros in Texas with a large presence in Dallas-Fort Worth. That scale and coverage is convenient for a business built on ultra-fast food delivery. Wonder customers should be able to order Zipline-delivered meals from all its Texas locations by the end of 2027 which could, by that time, total close to 100.— release
Susan Anderson, Uber’s global head of delivery, is leaving the company after 10 years.
“It’s time to take a breath again,” Anderson wrote on LinkedIn.
Liberty Mutual Investments gives InKind $320 million.
The investment arm of an insurance company is backing InKind, a restaurant finance company that gives capital to restaurants, funded by food and drink credits that it sells to diners. It’s an innovative model (I put InKind on the Fast Company Most Innovative list a couple years ago) and one that’s given $600 million in cash to over 7,000 restaurants. InKind will use its new tranche of funding in part to help develop AI-native tools designed to help restaurants on its platform drive demand during slow times. — release
I have only watched the premiere episode of The Bear. My husband is a restaurant guy and it hit a little too close to home, so he refused to watch it beyond that. Can't say I blame him, really.