Food & Beverage

Female shopkeeper sitting stressed out at the store entrance frustrated

Restaurant Settles EEOC Lawsuit Based on Denying Cook’s No-Sundays Request: 6 Steps for Handling Religious Accommodation Requests

by Fisher Phillips in Food & Beverage, Human Resources, Legal. Posted August 20, 2024

A North Carolina restaurant franchisee has agreed to pay $40,000 and take other corrective measures to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC after being accused of denying a cook’s no-Sundays request. While restaurant employers have long been grappling with the challenges of a persistent labor shortage, and staffing becomes even ...

GrayRobinson Alcohol Law Team: Why the Heck Do They Need My Fingerprints?!

by Beth Goldberg in Food & Beverage, Legal. Posted March 21, 2024

Why state regulators require fingerprints, personal questionnaires, and detailed financial disclosures before issuing alcohol beverage licenses The alcohol beverage business is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the United States. A wide variety of enterprises engage in the retail sale of alcohol beverages, including hotels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, golf courses, fraternal organizations, private clubs, ...

Franchise business concept , businessman hand choose wood blog with franchise marketing.

Franchise Law 101: FAQs

by Marisa Rauchway in Food & Beverage, Hotel Development, Legal. Posted December 21, 2023

1. What laws govern the franchise relationship? Franchising is governed by a complex set of federal and state franchise laws. On the federal level, the FTC requires – with limited exceptions – franchisors to provide a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) to those seeking to purchase and open a franchise anywhere in the United States. FDDs are ...

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Grabbing a Slice of the Pie: NFTs in the Food and Beverage Industry

by Foley Lardner in Food & Beverage, Legal, Technology. Posted September 19, 2023

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have grown in popularity across several areas, and it seems that the food and beverage industry might be jumping on the trend. Specifically, fast food giants like Pizza Hut and Papa Johns have launched NFTs to promote products, according to a recent report by Research and Markets (https://bit.ly/47lifH4) looking at NFT usage ...

Foreground focus is on a glass jar labeled "tips" in chalk. The jar is sitting to one side on a rustic wooden table, full of coins and bills, with coffee shop scenery in the background.

Labor Department’s “New” Tip Credit Rule is Here to Stay…For Now: A 10-Step Plan for Hospitality Employers

by Fisher Phillips in Food & Beverage, Human Resources. Posted August 10, 2023

A federal court just refused to block the U.S. Department of Labor’s infamous 80/20 rule, which applies to employers that take the tip credit toward their minimum wage obligation under federal wage and hour law – which means now’s time to ensure you’re in compliance. Several restaurant industry groups filed a lawsuit seeking to halt ...

FOOD HALLS: Legal Risk Considerations

by HospitalityLawyer.com in Food & Beverage, Legal. Posted July 27, 2023

The food hall revolution has captured the attention of both restaurant consumers and developers. Consumers are drawn to food halls due to the abundance of menu choices they offer, while developers see them as a way to mitigate investment volatility by licensing space to multiple food service entities under one roof. The food courts and ...

National Overview of Server Ages and Function

by Gray Robinson in Food & Beverage, Legal. Posted May 31, 2022

We all know that the legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one and over. But what about the legal serving age? In today’s environment where COVID and even post-COVID labor shortages are a problem, a factor on-premises retailers and their managers need to consider is the age and even the combination of ages ...

Website Litigation Under the ADA:
Protect Your Property from Lawsuits

by Conn Maciel Carey in Food & Beverage, Legal, Lodging, Risk Management, Technology. Posted May 26, 2022

Despite the pandemic, lawsuits filed across the country against hotels and resorts alleging their websites violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) have not slowed down. These lawsuits continue to allege two different types of ADA violations, each of which are addressed below: The first type of website accessibility case deals with whether a hotel ...

Testing for Food Contamination: Looking at the Whole Picture

by Rimkus Consulting Group in Food & Beverage, Safety & Security. Posted June 26, 2021

“…No officer…I got high at my company pitch-in dinner” The case of THC-laced BBQ sauce There are several things that are required to happen to get that steak on your plate. There must be a healthy cow; the cow needs acceptable food and must be processed in a hygienic manner. That steak must be packaged ...

Ghost Kitchens: Casper or Beetlejuice?

by David Denney in Coronavirus (COVID-19), Food & Beverage. Posted June 24, 2021

Introduction. Third-party delivery, in just a few short years, changed the face of the food and beverage industry as we’ve known it. Ghost Kitchens are, simply put, cooking facilities producing food and beverages only for delivery or take out. There is no dine in option. Pre-COVID, ghost kitchens were few and far between, created by ...