Colors Back From the Dead, But Are Workers Happy Now?

Colors is on the rebound, but what happened to that pesky lawsuit?

Posted 03/31/08 in Grub Street : NewsFeed

Tags: colors, greenwich village, labor, newsfeed, restaurant opportunities center of new york

This Year’s ‘Saveur’ 100 Is Thin on the NYC Love

We know another year has gone by in the food world because the Saveur 100 is out. The list “offers a vivid snapshot of the wide … world of food,” says the magazine, so the picks skewed global — licorice from New Zealand, anyone? — but we are, as always, only interested in the New York stuff.

Posted 12/31/07 in Grub Street : Back of the House

Tags: Back of the House, hill country, institute of culinary education, paul kirk, restaurant opportunities center of new york, reuben, rub, saveur

Colors Workers Rebel; Whole Foods Getting Into Craft Beer

The workers of Colors, originally envisioned as a co-op for orphaned Windows on the World employees, have sued the restaurant and the advocacy group that runs it, claiming that in fact none of them actually own any part of it. [NYP] Related: Marxist Meals Served at Co-op Eateries Whole Foods will be opening up a craft-beer bar with tap brews sold in carryout growlers — in September. [NYS] Animal activism has come of age, which is good news for calves, old hogs, and other unlucky beings that might otherwise be facing unspeakable fates. [NYT]

Posted 07/25/07 in Grub Street : Mediavore

Tags: beer, colors, fabio trabocchi, fiamma, flor de mayo, gilt, ken friedman, mediavore, nick morgenstern, restaurant opportunities center of new york, spotted pig, the john dory, upper west side, west village

Daniel Under Attack! (Again)

You may remember this Intelligencer item, from earlier this summer, about the face-off between Daniel Boulud and an activist group called the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York. (Coincidentally, we just responded to an article quoting an ROC spokesperson.) Well, the advocacy group is once again on the attack: The group protested Daniel's allegedly discriminatory employment practices outside the restaurant Tuesday night. A well-groomed Johnnie acting on behalf of the restaurant handed out flyers printed with, "Two, four, six, eight, Daniel does NOT discriminate!" and other lines defending the restaurant. It was signed by Daniel De La Rosa, a captain who has been with the restaurant for ten years. "This is all over four busboys who make over 50,000 a year," Brett Traussi, the restaurant's director of operations told us. "For the ROC to pick on a high-profile restaurant like Daniel to increase their exposure is regrettable." No doubt. But watching the parade of aged grandees walking in between the Scylla and Charybdis of a ROC representative and De La Rosa was a spectacle we wouldn't have missed.

Posted 11/02/06 in Grub Street : NewsFeed

Tags: brett traussi, daniel, daniel boulud, newsfeed, restaurant opportunities center of new york

Marxist Meals Served at Co-op Eateries

Restaurants run by workers seem like a great idea. Rather than having to bow and scrape before the Man, the employees of places like René Pujol and Colors, discussed recently in the New York Resident, more or less get to decide their own destinies. But they raise an age-old question (which most people haven't pondered since college): Is the worker's paradise really a practical idea?

Posted 11/01/06 in Grub Street : Back of the House

Tags: Back of the House, colors, employees only, mamdouh fekkak, park slope coop, pujol, restaurant opportunities center of new york