• If the crowd doesn’t care about the food being served in a restaurant, is the kitchen staff equally indifferent? [Diner’s Journal/NYT]

• The Federal Trade Commission wants food and beverage companies to self-regulate their marketing aimed at children. Fat chance that Coke will give up its American Idol sponsorship. [WSJ]

• With the cocktail renaissance leading some to scan out-of-print books for recipes, the prices for those books have skyrocketed. [NYT]

• The owner of Home and Guest House is opening an ecofriendly destination this fall called Greenhouse. [NYO]

• Gemma has become the latest restaurant to ban bottled water and instead serve water filtered in-house. [NYDN]
Related: Quenching an Ecofriendly Thirst [NYM]

• Mark Grossich, owner of the Campbell Apartment and other watering holes, was fined $15,000 after one of his workers filed a complaint alleging that only women were hired as hostesses. [NYP]