 Feeling a bit cash-strapped this Tax Day? These food and drink freebies and discounts from restaurants, stores and snack vendors just might take a bite out of your financial fretting. - AMC Theatres - Arby's  Starting Thursday, Starbucks customers will have the option to save their planet - and their wallets - a dime at a time. The coffee giant is offering $1 plastic cups, which can be reused for drink purchases at a discount of ten cents. Jim Hanna, the director of environmental affairs at Starbucks, told USA Today that while the company has sold reusable tumblers for some time and offered the ten cent discount, he expects that the modest price of its new one, available at company-owned stores in the U.S. and Canada, will encourage consumers to take action more frequently. The new effort comes largely in response to consumer criticism over the volume of paper coffee cup waste - approximately 4 billion cups globally each year - generated by Starbucks.  Popular U.S. pizza chain Papa John's faces a $250 million class-action lawsuit for blasting customers with illegal text messages. The plaintiffs allege that Papa John's franchises sent customers a total of 500,000 unwanted messages in early 2010. The spam texts offered deals for pizza, and some customers complained they were getting 15 or 16 texts in a row, even during the middle of the night, according Donald Heyrich, an attorney representing the class.  A former personal assistant of Waffle House's CEO accused him of forcing her to "perform sexual services," among other degrading acts, during her nine years of working for him, according to an Atlanta police report. Police blacked out the woman's name in the report, but gave a graphic account of her accusation, based on an interview that she gave Atlanta police on September 28. CNN obtained a copy of the police report Friday, as news of the allegations against Joseph Rogers Jr. spread around the media. The Wall Street Journal labeled it a “Halloween horror story.” The Internet called it something else: a “pumpkin panic.” During the first week of October, the Journal reported that Starbucks stores around the country were running out of the syrup used to make its Pumpkin Spice Latte — one of several fall drinks the chain releases seasonally, for a limited time. Customers, like those who frequent StarbucksGossip.com, were shocked. “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” wrote one user. The answer is simple.  On pins and needles awaiting the results of November's election, or falling asleep combing through the latest polling data? The answer might be more convenient than you think. The 7-Eleven chain of stores is running a fourth "7-Election" campaign to predict the winner of the 2012 presidential election. While the method - having customers select either a red Romney or blue Obama cup for their coffee - is decidedly unscientific, the results in previous installments have closely mirrored those of the last two elections, and accurately predicted the winner in all three.
 Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up. Some key statistics from the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council: 
Two years ago, I met Square CEO Jack Dorsey at Third Rail, one of his favorite coffee shops in downtown New York. He held up a small plastic square and told me that the future of payments was in this tiny device. The entire industry was about to change, he said. Dorsey was in the middle of a major change himself. Recently ousted from Twitter, the company he cofounded, he rebounded by shifting his famously intense focus to a new pain point: the way we pay.  Editor's note: All summer long, the Southern Foodways Alliance will be delving deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. Dig in. Last week we took a look at McDonald's roots as a barbecue restaurant before it converted into a fast-service hamburger stand. Pit-cooked barbecue ultimately wasn't a good match for the demands of fast-food chains, but that doesn't mean that entrepreneurs didn't try. In the early 1960s, businessmen Bill Newman and Ben Burch teamed up with Frank O. Howell, Jr., who was running a local barbecue chain in Memphis, to create Little Pigs of America and franchise it nationwide. It's sweaty, hot and gross as heck all across the country this week. Summer should be good for something, right? To heck with bathing suit season; you deserve some free cold beverages, ice cream (sorta), and chicken. July 11: 7-Eleven – Free Slurpees |
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