Miscellaneous

🍽 North America's 50 Best Restaurants were revealed on September 25 at Wynn Las Vegas, with Atomix in NYC topping the list. New York City dominated, featuring 13 restaurants. The top five included Atomix, Mon Lapin (Montréal), Restaurant Pearl Morissette (Ontario), Smyth (Chicago), and Tanière3 (Québec City). Awards included the Sustainable Restaurant Award to SingleThread (California) and the Resy One to Watch Award to Ladder 4 (Detroit). Voting involved a 300-member academy of experts.

🍴 Bret Thorn, Senior Food & Beverage Editor for Nation’s Restaurant News, has been with the publication since 1999 and joined Restaurant Hospitality in 2016. A Tufts University graduate, he studied at Le Cordon Bleu and in China. Thorn's career highlights include writing for The New York Sun (2005-2008), winning the 2006 Jesse H. Neal Award, and serving as IFEC president in 2005. He also contributed to the Oxford Encyclopedia (2012) and Oxford Companion (2015). Thorn resides in Brooklyn.

🏨 Badlands Hotel Capital will manage assets for nine hotels and outdoor properties across six East Coast resorts for Blue Water Development. Properties include the 145-room Commander Hotel & Suites, 60-room Sealoft Oceanfront Hotel, and 120-room Aloft Ocean City in Ocean City. Other notable hotels: 67-room Bay Resort in Delaware, and 112-room Comfort Inn in Florida. With this, Badlands manages 25 properties across North America. Todd Burbage and Al Young emphasize enhanced operations and value growth.

✈️ FlyDubai, a Dubai-based carrier with a network covering over 135 destinations in 57 countries, is adopting Accelya's NDC solution to enhance its distribution and retailing capabilities. Announced at the T2RL Engage event, this partnership marks a significant milestone in FlyDubai's digital transformation. The collaboration aims to offer rich content, dynamic offers, and improved personalization across channels. Accelya leads in NDC implementation, managing over 50% of global NDC volumes with its FLX ONE platform.

🍕 Casano's Pizza Parlor in Rutherford, NJ, celebrated its first anniversary, focusing on slow fermentation for better pizza crusts using wild fermented yeast and lievito madre starters. Dough ferments for 24-48 hours, mixed with Italian and King Arthur flour. Andolini’s in Tulsa, OK, offers crusts fermenting for 1-5 days, while Hundredfold in Elmont, NY, uses three-day fermentation. Bertucci's has been fermenting dough since 1981. Slow fermentation enhances flavor, texture, and digestibility, allowing customers to enjoy more slices comfortably.

🍴 Opa Authentic Greek Cuisine filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the Northern District of California. Assets and liabilities are both listed between $100,000 and $500,000. Five locations—Campbell, Morgan Hill, Santa Clara, San Jose, and Walnut Creek—closed. Co-debtors include CEO Molly Adams and Marcus Adams. Opa started in San Jose in 2008 and expanded to six locations. U.S. bankruptcy filings increased by 11.5% over last year, reaching the highest level since 2010.

🍴 Next month, chef Flynn McGarry will open Cove, a fine dining restaurant in New York’s Hudson Square. McGarry designed Cove's interior, inspired by West Coast modernism, featuring custom cherry and ash wood furniture, and pendant lighting. Cove offers a California-inspired dining experience, blending luxury with a relaxed atmosphere. Custom tableware, created with North American ceramicists, will be sold at McGarry's Gem Home store in Nolita.

🍴 Bret Thorn is a Senior Food & Beverage Editor at Nation's Restaurant News since 1999. He hosts the podcast "In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn" and was president of IFEC in 2005. He wrote for The New York Sun from 2005-2008 and contributed to the Oxford Encyclopedia in 2012 and 2015. Thorn holds a history BA from Tufts University (1990), studied in China (1988-1989), and graduated from Le Cordon Bleu (1986). He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

📍 Ruby Hotels, founded in 2013 in Germany by Michael Struck, sold to IHG for over $300 million. Now IHG’s 20th brand, Ruby is set to franchise in the U.S. by late 2023, focusing on major urban markets and planning 10 new properties by 2027. Ruby currently operates 20 hotels across Europe, with a presence in cities like Cologne, London, and Vienna. IHG aims for global expansion, targeting over 120 hotels in the next decade and more than 250 in 20 years.