The former CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., says some restaurants simply won't survive the coronavirus outbreak.
"I think you'll probably see some of the weaker companies not around when this is over," Andy Puzder told Cheddar on Tuesday.
Puzder, who is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and the author of "The Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It," believes the current stimulus package is likely to help restaurants, but it's long-term trends that will keep them alive.
"I will say that restaurants are a lot better set up to respond to this today than they would have been five or six years ago because now you've got third-party delivery all across the industry," he said. "Almost every company, almost every brand has third party delivery. That's a big deal in this crisis. I think a lot of people are ordering food online. It's very important."
He also said he's seeing an uptick in drive-through and curb-service options at chains formerly invested in the sit-down experience, such as Outback Steakhouse offering delivery.
"I think you're seeing restaurants striving to do everything that they can to survive," he said.
One upside, according to the former CEO who had touted the strength of the economy despite the coronavirus earlier this month, is that the stimulus package accounts for restaurants' business model.
The $2.2 trillion bill makes an exception for restaurants and hospitality companies, in which they can access small business assistance for individual locations, even if their whole company cumulatively has more than 500 employees.
While Trump had a bit of a "slow start," Puzder said, he's doing well in addressing the crisis. "I think his response has been great," he concluded.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
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