McDonald's All-Day Breakfast Could Become Real This Fall

One franchisee says it might happen as soon as October.

McDonald's customers have long demanded one thing: all-day breakfast. Their wish may come true this fall.

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All-day breakfast is one of the top requests from McDonald's customers. This year, the chain began adding prep space to kitchens to make room for all-day breakfast tests in San Diego and Nashville restaurants. So far, the results have been promising, according to a memo sent to U.S. franchisees that was secured by the Wall Street Journal.

A McDonald's franchisee who leads a task force studying all-day breakfast told the WSJ that it may launch nationwide as early as October. But it doesn't look like the whole breakfast menu will be available all day — operators may have to make the difficult decision of "whether they want their new menu boards to feature biscuits or muffins for the breakfast sandwiches," the WSJ reported.

If this were to become a reality, franchisees would need to order new equipment and change menu boards.

"We're testing it out in a few markets to learn more about this possibility," a McDonald's spokesperson said in an email to BuzzFeed News. "We know your mouth is watering, but there's no news on this yet."

Currently, most McDonald's restaurants stop serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m.

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Meet One Architect Of The Minimum Wage Protest Movement

BuzzFeed News speaks with Mary Kay Henry, president of the two million member Service Employees International Union and a driving force behind the Fight for 15.

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In the midst of declining union power in the U.S., the Service Employees International Union and its president, Mary Kay Henry, have emerged as two of the most forward-thinking figures born of the traditional labor movement.

With money and advice, they have supported alternative labor structures like workers' centers and informal unions, which have increasingly gained ground as conventional unions lose membership.

Most prominently, they have helped lead the national Fight for 15 movement among fast-food workers for a $15 minimum wage, one of the most visible and energetic additions to the labor movement in decades.

As the tally of cities, states, companies and sectors raising pay grows, SEIU's approach looks more and more like a winning strategy. Today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's wage board is expected to announce the results of its inquiry into raising the minimum wage for the state's fast food workers — another milestone for the movement.

In recent months, BuzzFeed News interviewed Henry, both by phone and in person. Here's an edited transcript of the conversations.

What happens the day after the results from the New York wage board come out?

We're going to make a national demand when the wage board issues in mid-July — the demand to set up wage boards everywhere in the country for fast food workers. And then we need to think with the people in New York: what's the next wage board demand that occurs after the fast food wage board? Which I don't know if the governor is anticipating.

We have to think — okay, we can't pass minimum wage in the state? We'll just go sector by sector. Because the [law] says the governor should call a wage board if people can't lead a healthy life based on their wages. Well, that is a lot of damn workers in New York.

What might the next sector be?

I think of the answer to your question based on who's in the street. Because then the elected thinks, "Oh my god, I've got to respond to this." It's not an academic exercise, even though there might be an economic reason. It's all about building the movement and having the electeds respond to the wind.

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Are there any common misconceptions about the Fight for 15 you'd like to dispel?

We need to change the public consciousness about these workers. These are no longer high school students looking for pocket change. These are moms and dads doing the best they can.

We see fast food workers opening a story about all kinds of service and care workers in the U.S. economy — about workers in the fastest growing jobs needing to have wages and a voice through collective action.

What was behind the decision to focus on fast food workers and wage increases in particular, and what's next for the movement?

In the past, janitors formed a union outside of the law. Home care workers formed a union outside of the law. In previous times, it's been about cities and states. What's a breakthrough about this moment is that it's national, and that fast food workers used the very difficult decision to strike as a way to capture the nation's imagination.

I think we're going to see additional workers join from across the retail sector, from auto parts work, from airports. We're joining with the immigration movement, with Black Lives Matter, the environmental movement — and we think it begins with McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King.

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Backpage Sues Cook County Sheriff Over Credit Card Shutdown

The classifieds website is accusing law enforcement of restraining speech “without due process.”

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Backpage.com has struck back at Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, suing him in federal court in Illinois for "effecting an informal extralegal prior restraint of speech without due process." Earlier this month, after Dart wrote letters to Visa and MasterCard, the two giant payment networks shut down their payment networks for the purpose of buying ads on Backpage.

Since Craigslist abandoned adult personal ads following pressure from law enforcement officials and politicians, Backpage has become the internet's primary location for the ads — and the second largest classifieds site after Craigslist — and a frequent target of politicians and law enforcement officials, like Dart, who claim it facilitates sex trafficking and prostitution.

Since the shutdown earlier this month, Backpage has tried to work around it, allowing users to buy "credits" which could be used to purchase ads, then making their adult ads free, and letting customers pay through money orders or cash sent in to a Texas PO Box. Dart's office is working with A BuzzFeed reporter was unable to use a Visa card to buy credits.

Backpage's suit against Dart describes his efforts to persuade Visa, MasterCard, and American Express to cut off classified sites as a response to a failed effort to go after these sites using typical law enforcement means, including a 2009 suit where he alleged the Craigslist facilitated prostitution.

Backpage, like Craigslist, has been successful in batting away legal challenges stemming from hosting adult ads because federal law, specifically the Communications Decency Act, tends to protect web site administrators from responsibility for content posted by users.

The suit says that Dart had "targeted" Backpage since Craigslist shut down its adult personal ads in September, 2010 and then started communicating with Backpage in 2011 by requesting that the adult personal ads be removed from the site entirely.

After Backpage explained its own screening policies — including requiring payment by credit and debit cards and providing information in response to law enforcement requests — Backpage says that Dart thanked them for their "work done so far" and their "candor and sincerity," but by January, 2012, again demanded they remove their adult category.

Backpage says Dart's latest action is an example of "prior restraint," arguing that it's "a government official... banning a forum of speech simply because he dislikes it." Backpage says Dart used "false accusations, innuendo, and coercion," to effectively cripple Backpage's business and infringed on the site and its user's free speech rights. Backpage is seeking a declaration that Dart's actions were unlawful, an injunction that would force him to cease his campaign against Backpage and retract his letters, along with damages. Backpage has requested a hearing on Thursday over the injunction.

Rainey Reitman, the activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, criticized MasterCard and Visa for removing support for Backpage, writing earlier this month, "We don't need Visa and MasterCard to play nanny for online speech. Payment processors and banks shouldn't be in the position of deciding what type of online content is criminal or enforcing morality for the rest of society."

In a statement, Backpage's general counsel Liz McDougall said "Sheriff Dart's attempt to censor indirectly speech that he cannot censor directly is an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech without legal authority or due process. To give it effect would create a dangerous precedent for elected government officials of any level to become independent censors of online speech nationally and globally based on their personal morals, beliefs or whims."

Backpage has not, however, initiated legal action against Visa and MasterCard, who chose to remove support for Backpage after receiving letters from Dart in which he alleged the site was facilitating illegal activity.

Dart's office is not backing down from his its years-long campaign against Backpage. "It is regrettable that Backpage has dedicated so many resources to lawyers and lobbyists when they could be partnering with law enforcement to seek justice for sex trafficking victims," the office said in a statement. "Sheriff Dart requested that the credit card companies voluntarily do what Backpage will not – disassociate their business from online sex trafficking in the name of good corporate citizenship."

Read Backpage's complaint

Chipotle's Growth Dented By Carnitas Shortage

The chain’s stores are still ringing up higher sales, just not at the rates it saw last year.

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After a hot 2014, Chipotle's rapid pace of growth is starting to come down to earth. The recent carnitas shortage didn't help.

From April to June, sales at restaurants open for at least 13 months increased 4.3%, which is notably below the 10.4% jump earlier this year and the 16.8% for all of 2014.

The relatively modest gain last quarter was attributable mainly to price increases, with some impact from increased catering, sides and kids meals orders. Guest counts were actually down slightly during the period, but started to tick up again in July, according to the company.

Chipotle had expected same-store sales growth to slow from last year's soaring levels, and things are playing out as the company expected, said chief financial officer Jack Hartung on an earnings call on Tuesday.

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Among Chipotle's challenges this year was the shortage of carnitas. The chain stopped serving the pork in some of its restaurants when it couldn't secure enough supply that met its animal welfare standards. The company says around 95% of pigs in the country are raised "conventionally" and do not meet its requirements.

To address the shortage, it recently partnered with Karro Food, a pork supplier in the U.K. About 40 percent of stores still don't have carnitas, but Chipotle expects all locations to serve it again by the end of the year. While carnitas are only small share of orders compared to chicken and beef options, the shortage has negatively impacted stores' ability to grow comparable sales.

Looking ahead, the chain, which helped to pioneer new expectations about ethical sourcing and ingredients in fast food, is also seeing more competition from chains like Panera, and even Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, which made sweeping announcements this spring about removing artificial ingredients. Today, Chipotle launched a new campaign called "Friend of Faux" that aims to point out how Chipotle's ingredients are different, including its commitment to a menu free of genetically modified organisms.

"With competitors making pledges, we're strengthening our marketing message to continue to show the contrast between what Chipotle has always done and the changes others are pledging," co-CEO Steve Ells told investors on the call.

For the full year 2015, Chipotle expects comparable restaurant sales to increase in the low-to-mid single digits. It will also open roughly 200 new restaurants, after opening 97 stores between January and June. There are currently 1,878 restaurants.

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The Limited Too Is Back For "Millennial Moms" And Their Tweens

The company that owns and manages brands like Nanette Lepore and Kensie just bought the Limited Too brand trademark and plans to bring the chain back.

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A brand management company is planning to resurrect the once-beloved Limited Too chain in a bet that it will strike a chord with nostalgic "millennial moms."

"Over the years Limited Too has brought fun and joy to children's fashion shopping experiences and holds a special place with the millennial moms who are now having children of their own," Ralph Gindi, chief executive officer of Bluestar Alliance, said in a statement yesterday.

Bluestar, which owns and manages brands like Kensie and Nanette Lepore, reportedly acquired the Limited Too trademarks from Sun Capital Partners, the private equity firm that owns The Limited.

"We will engage in a social media and marketing blitz that will have a clear and concise message to both the tween consumer and her mom, that 'It's time to have fun shopping again,'" Bluestar CEO Joey Gabbay said in the statement.

(How time flies, if the oft-marketed to millennials are already producing coveted tween consumers.)

Unlike the Limited Too of yesterday, the resurrected version will make its way into department stores, and have an e-commerce presence. It's not yet clear how many standalone locations it will open. Bluestar says it plans to "stay true to the brand DNA and mantra of 'It's a Girls' World.'"

In a complicated twist, the new Limited Too will compete against its old self, which is the chain Justice. (In fact, LimitedToo.com redirects to Justice's website.)

Here's how that works: The Limited Too was once a part of L Brands, the company that owns Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. The company spun it out in the late 1990s under the name Tween Brands, and the business thrived for years until the recession hit. In mid-2008, Tween Brands decided to convert its 560 Limited Too stores to Justice locations, its lower-priced chain for girls that was performing better with value-conscious consumers. Tween Brands, in turn, was acquired by a company now known as Ascena Retail Group in 2009, and says it operates more than 1,000 Justice stores, selling "the hottest fashion merchandise and accessories" for 7- to 14-year-old girls.

But Justice might not have the same cache with the 20- and 30-something mom set that the Limited Too might. Justice was created in 2004, while the Limited Too emerged in 1987 — the same year many so-called millennial were born. (There's a Facebook group called, "When I was your age, we had Limited Too, not Justice.")

"The product mix will fill a void in the market where fashion, fun and value are all in-sync," Gabbay said.

Citi To Pay Over $700 Million For Shady Marketing Practices

The action comes on the fifth birthday of the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the agency that investigated and penalized Citi.

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Citi is the latest megabank to pay out hundreds of millions in consumer relief and penalties for its marketing of so-called "add-on" services to its credit card customers. The more than $700 million in money to affected customers and $35 million in penalties comes on the fifth birthday of the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the agency that investigated and penalized Citi: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The agency, known as the CFPB, said the methods Citi used to market additional products to its credit card customers violated consumer protection rules around marketing and billing. These products included services that would cancel or delay payments, credit monitoring, and services that would notify customers of lost or stolen credit cards. The CFPB said that Citi often didn't disclose the true cost of these services or their exact benefits.

In one case, the CFPB said, Citi telemarketers told customers a product came with a free 30-day trial, but in fact charged customers during those first 30 days. In other instances, the CFPB says the telemarketers failed to inform users that they would be billed unless they proactively cancelled the service.

Citi also marketed a fraud detection and alert service that some telemarketers, the CFPB said, described to potential customers as a way to alert them to suspicious purchases but instead just noted changes in their credit file.

The services, "IdentityMonitor," was marketed as being generated by the three major credit reporting bureau, but the CFPB said, "another third-party vendor generated the score using as an input the consumer's credit files separately maintained at those credit reporting companies." It cost $12.95 a month. The CFPB also said that the telemarketers used "leading questions" and sometimes interpreted "ambiguous responses" to enroll customers in the program.

These practices went on from January 2009 to October 2012. The CFPB said that these improper marketing practices affected 4.8 million Citibank credit card customers. Combined, the billing and marketing practices that Citi has agreed to halt and provided relief for affected 8.8 million customers, which is a large chunk of Citi's 23.2 million open card accounts in North America.

The CFPB also detailed billing practices that ran afoul of its rules, including billing customers for credit monitoring without proper authorization to do so. Citi, the CFPB said, would bill customers for credit monitoring even when "one or more credit reporting companies could not process the authorization." This practice continued, in some form or another, from 2000 to 2013 for some of Citi's add-one products.

Citi said that it started customer remediation in 2013 and that it will give customers credits on their credit card statements or send checks.

"Citi cooperated fully with the CFPB and OCC and has taken extensive steps to address each issue that affected customers," the bank said in a statement. "Citi previously discontinued sales of the products included in the agreements, which include credit monitoring and debt protection products and wallet protection services, and no longer charges expedited pay-by-phone fees."

This is just the latest large CFPB action relating to the marketing of these "add-on" products.

Last year, the CFPB ordered Bank of America to pay $727 million in customer relief and $20 million in a penalty for similar practices. Chase had to pay $309 million in remediation for customers along with a $20 million penalty in 2013.

"We continue to uncover illegal credit card add-on practices that are costing unknowing consumers millions of dollars," CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement. "In our four years, this is the tenth action we've taken against companies in this space for deceiving consumers. We will remain on the lookout for similar conduct and will address it as we find it."

Red Lobster Slowly Claws Its Way Back To Growth

At last, for Red Lobster, everyone’s priority at the company is Red Lobster. But will that be enough to make customers love it again?

Red Lobster's new Bairdi crab dish.

Red Lobster

The return of Crabfest at Red Lobster this week arrives nearly one year since America's largest seafood restaurant chain reluctantly became an independent company.

As one negative quarter followed another, its former owner, Darden, didn't see a quick way to reverse the restaurant's disappointing sales. So it sold Red Lobster — just one of its eight brands at the time — to private equity firm Golden Gate Capital. No one knew how things would turn out for the embattled chain.

Twelve months later, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, Red Lobster management wanted to make one thing clear: It's managed to land on its feet.

"We believe we're benefiting greatly from being an independent company," said Red Lobster CEO Kim Lopdrup. "We've had positive comparable restaurant sales growth each quarter since separation."

The company has reduced discounting. Changes in the kitchen to improve food quality and taste have boosted perception. After its prior strategy of offering a greater variety of meat dishes like pork and chicken failed to grow sales, the chain refocused on fresh seafood. The menu is now 85% seafood, up from 75%, said President Salli Setta, and true to its name, it now offers a few more lobster dishes. Cooks are also preparing some items differently: For example, starting this summer it began cooking the shrimp in shrimp cocktail in restaurants — which Setta said results in a plumper, tastier shrimp than the previous frozen and precooked option. Beginning this month, it will test breading fish to order for fish and chips. (Its widely adored cheddar biscuits will remain the same.) To promote innovation, the company tries to think of itself now as a "47-year-old startup." All of these efforts have increased guest satisfaction.

"It has gone better than any of us dared hope," said Lopdrup.

It's still too early to know how strong a recovery Red Lobster can make. Still, "that they're getting traction this soon is pretty amazing," said Malcolm M. Knapp, a foodservice industry adviser and founder of the restaurant industry index Knapp-Track. The company appears to have a coherent, focused strategy, and it's getting support from its new owner, he said, and "all of those are good things."

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Being able to say this is no small feat for a 700-restaurant chain that was portrayed as dragging the rest of Darden down with it not too long ago.

"In contrast to the rest of the business, Red Lobster had significant deterioration this quarter," Darden's then-CEO Clarence Otis told investors in December 2013 when announcing plans to separate the seafood chain. Guest traffic had been sliding for some time and comparable sales continued to fall. Facing a number of headwinds, Darden wanted to focus on fixing problems at its other ailing chain: Olive Garden.

"Red Lobster was not the number one priority," said Lopdrup. "We lost focus on differentiating Red Lobster as a seafood specialist and clearly had lost sales momentum."

Voices chimed in from every direction about what had gone wrong with Red Lobster, including bad food and high prices. Rumors spread that it would go out of business.

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