When Flagler Countys first Chick-fil-A restaurant opens March 19, 100 lucky patrons will win a year of free food.

PALM COAST Construction is nearing completion on Flagler Countys first Chick-fil-A, and the opening will be preceded by a 24-hour First 100 event in which the first 100 people who line up outside the restaurant will win a year of free food.

The restaurant will open at 6 a.m. March 19, said Tiffany Simmons, a Chick-fil-A spokeswoman.

It is located at 1000 Palm Coast Parkway NW, at the corner of Boulder Rock Drive and a short distance west of Interstate 95.

The catch for the free-food reward is that people may begin lining up on the property 24 hours in advance, according to Chick-fil-A.

Once they arrive and register, they must remain on the property for the full 24 hours prior to the opening. If more than 100 people show up the morning of March 18, there will be a drawing for the 100 people who may stay, said Simmons.

The restaurant will fill the wait time with a parking lot party that will include games and music along with breakfast, lunch and dinner, according to Chick-fil-A.

The free-food reward translates to 52 No. 1 meals, which are placed on a digital card, said Simmons.

Its something we do for all of our grand openings, said Trey Senn, a company spokesman. We really find its an enrichment of the community ... and people really get behind the operator of the restaurant.

The owner and operator of the Palm Coast location is Glen Efford, whose brother owns a store in St. Augustine. Senn said Effords brother was discovering a number of his customers were traveling from Palm Coast to have Chick-fil-A food, so his brother saw an opportunity.

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Chick-fil-A plans 'First 100' event in Palm Coast

Opus Time Lapse: ArborBLU February 2015 Construction Update
ArborBLU, a 13-story student housing complex, is currently under construction near the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. Once completed, the buildi...

By: The Opus Group

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Opus Time Lapse: ArborBLU February 2015 Construction Update - Video

Chicagoans and tourists may have to wait until early next year to sit down and order food at the new restaurant at Maggie Daley Park.

The Four Corners Tavern Group, which will be operating the restaurant and paying $1.1 million to build it, is expected to break ground in June, said Rob Rejman, Chicago Park District director of planning and construction.

He said it could be until February 2016 before the 10,000-square-foot restaurant is open for business.

Updated renderings were presented to the Grant Park Conservancy and Advisory Council Thursday night depicting a glass-enclosed building with a green roof, skylight and atrium, which is supposed to provide an airy feel to the space, according to Bob O'Neill, president of the Grant Park Conservancy.

The year-round restaurant is at the south end of the park, replacing the seasonal cafe called The Green at Grant Park. It will be visible to passersby along Monroe Street. Its roof will be covered with grass and trees and have a plaza and seating areas.

A name has not been picked yet for the restaurant, Ryan Indovina, director of the Four Corners Tavern Group said Friday.

Last month, the Chicago Park District board approved a 10-year agreement for the new restaurant with the option of five 1-year extensions. The agreement also includes catering special events at the park and operating a concession kiosk, which will serve beverages and light fare near the ice skating ribbon and climbing wall.

Under the agreement, the Four Corners group will have to pay for utilities such as garbage and pay the park district $75,000 a year in rent plus 5 to 10 percent of gross sales.

The Four Corners Tavern Group is based in Chicago and runs 11 bars, including West End in the West Loop, Schoolyard in Lakeview and Benchmark in Old Town.

The restaurant plans a menu ofdrinks and food,such as tacos, burgers, salads and takeaway options to grab for a park picnic.

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Maggie Daley Park restaurant renderings revealed

Last call is looming for longtime waterfront restaurant Sinbad's.

The restaurant's landlord, the Port of San Francisco, wants Sinbad's gone from its prime location on Pier 2 near the Ferry Building by March 21.

With its unmatched views of the Bay Bridge, Sinbad's has been a waterfront institution in The City since the 1970s. Despite decidedly mixed reviews from diners along with repeated warnings from the Public Health Department about food-safety issues the restaurant is a popular cocktail destination for service-industry workers, locals and tourists.

Sinbad's has also been a thorn in the Port's side, documents show.

It has often been late with rent payments and has bounced checks at one time the eatery owed the Port $220,000. Sinbad's also has caused at least five sewage leaks into San Francisco Bay over the past six years, the most recent of which was in January, according to a Port memo.

The restaurant is currently in the clear with its rent after paying $142,000 to the Port. But other major agencies along the waterfront say it is past time for Sinbad's to go.

The Port is on notice from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which oversees waterfront activity, to demolish Pier 2 entirely by March, a deadline agreed to during the negotiations leading up to the America's Cup regatta in 2013.

An expansion of The City's downtown ferry terminal is also on hold until the restaurant leaves. That terminal is a vital transit hub for the Water Emergency Transportation Agency, which is tasked with figuring out how to evacuate San Francisco via water in the event of a disaster that knocks out the Bay Bridge and/or BART Transbay Tube.

Sinbad's owners, the Stinson brothers, agreed to go.

The restaurant said in 2012 it would close by Dec. 31, 2014. At that time, co-owner Tom Stinson thanked the Port for allowing the restaurant to stay until then. But last summer, Sinbad's asked for and received an extension from the Port to stay until March 21 of this year, with the stipulation that there would be no more extensions.

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Port of SF tells longtime SF waterfront restaurant Sinbads its time to go

Published 11:37am Thursday, February 26, 2015

Hardees is coming back to Austin.

Company representatives for the Northland Restaurant Group confirmed Thursday they hoped to build a new Hardees restaurant near Interstate 90 at 1406 of Fourth St. NW.

We have the best burgers in town and cant wait to come back to Austin, Dan Cole, marketing manager for Northland Restaurant Group, said.

If all goes well, company officials believe they could break ground on the restaurant in April, finish construction after about 90 days, and open the store with about 70 employees soon after.

Cole said Northland is looking to expand the Hardees brand throughout the Midwest and called the Austin location prime territory for a Hardees restaurant.

There used to be two Hardees locations in Austin, but both closed in recent years. A Hardees restaurant at West Oakland Avenue and Fourth Street closed in 2004 and another at 1300 14th Street Northwest closed in 2008.

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Hardees restaurant coming to Austin

It's hard for chef-owner Tim Ma to take a step back from Maple Ave Restaurant, which he calls his "baby." But, effective February 15, that's what he did, a move necessary to free up some time as he plans to launch three new concepts over the next two years.

First things first: Ma is crossing the river. He confirmed to The Post that he will be opening a D.C. restaurant, though he wasn't able to provide any other details.

"D.C. scares me, I'm not going to lie,"he said. "I've spent most of my life in Virginia, I'm comfortable in Virginia." He anticipates the new restaurant will open in 2016.

In the meantime, he has his hands full with a supper club and catering business he plans to launch next month, and his forthcoming sandwich shop, Chase the Submarine, which will open in early fall in Vienna, if construction stays on track.

The supper club, called Gather +Feast, will give fans of Maple Ave and Water & Wall a chance to have the chef cook in their own homes. Ma says he'll test dishes that may end up on future menus.

[Here's how to get a celebrity chef to cook in your kitchen]

The catering service, which will be sold through a Kickstarter,seems like a pretty great deal, too: For $100 per person (with a minimum of eight people and a max of 12), Ma will come to your house and cook one of several pre-selected but customizable menus. He'll also include a server, all of the cookware and dishware, all of the ingredients except for alcohol, and he'll cleanthe kitchen, leaving it "the way it was -- or better," said Ma.

That was the case at a recent Sips and Suppers dinner at the home of Quinn Bradlee, son of Washington Post notables Sally Quinn and the late Ben Bradlee,who was left with a spotless kitchen once the meal was over.

"At the end of the meal, [Quinn Bradlee]was looking at the kitchen, and he was like, 'I've never seen it like this!'" said Ma.

Ma has already worked out a few themed menus for Gather + Feast. There's a duck-centric menu with plenty of foie gras, a surf and turf (but "not lobster and not filet mignon," he said), and an ode to New York vegetarian restaurant Dirt Candy.

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Chef Tim Ma steps back from Maple Ave Restaurant as he plans a D.C. opening

Construction to expand Geronimos dining hall started earlier this month, but residents and faculty are in talks of whether or not it will cause problems.

The expansion, called the Bamboo Terrace restaurant, began earlier this month and is set to open for the new residents this coming August. The new area will carry on a pan-Asian menu, with food from various regions of China, and other parts of Asia. The renovation will take place in an area approximately 6,900 square feet.

So with such a huge addition, dorm residents wonder if it will cause problems or commotion.

I dont think it would cause commotion for the residents because Geronimos is pretty isolated from the dorms, said junior, marine biology major and housing resident Richard Yan. Most of the people eat at night when there is no construction.

Other housing residents, like sophomore CTVA major Robin Royal, expresses an concern the construction will indeed cause commotion, depending on how much space is used up versus how much space the expansion really is.

This also brings into question whether or not the expansion will cause problems for nearby traffic. Seeing as how the Satellite Student Union building is located at the northeastern-most point of campus, residents and daily commuters wonder whether construction will cause problems for traffic on the corner of Lassen Street and Zelzah Avenue.

John Johnson, assistant manager of Geronimos, disagrees with that notion, and suspects the construction will not pour out into the street corner, so commuters have nothing to fear.

Tim Killops, the associate director of Facilities and Projects, assures the project will not extend beyond the walls of the Satellite Student Union.

It definitely wont affect the dorm community, Killops said. Our project takes place entirely inside the Satellite Student Union. Any deliveries of building supplies will take place behind the parking lot of the SSU. Trucks would come in, make their deliveries and head back out, so there wont be any problem with traffic.

Housing residents should have nothing to worry about from the outside of the building. It may or may not be so for those eating inside. The construction is set to continue until the end of the summer.

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Students and faculty reflect on potential construction concerns for Bamboo Terrace restaurant

Get your teeth cleaned, then have a burrito. Construction workers are clearing a site for a new Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in the Southeast Plaza at the 800 block of Cypress Gardens Boulevard in Winter Haven. The Chipotle will share the 5,900-square-foot building with the Aspen Dental Clinic. Chipotle already has restaurants on South Florida Avenue in Lakeland, and there is another under construction at the former TGIFridays site just north of Lakeland Square mall. Chipotle pioneered the "fast-casual" restaurant style in 1993 in Denver and now has nearly 1,800 restaurants throughout the U.S.

Get your teeth cleaned, then have a burrito. Construction workers are clearing a site for a new Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in the Southeast Plaza at the 800 block of Cypress Gardens Boulevard in Winter Haven. The Chipotle will share the 5,900-square-foot building with the Aspen Dental Clinic. Chipotle already has restaurants on South Florida Avenue in Lakeland, and there is another under construction at the former TGIFridays site just north of Lakeland Square mall. Chipotle pioneered the "fast-casual" restaurant style in 1993 in Denver and now has nearly 1,800 restaurants throughout the U.S.

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The Insider: Teeth-Mex

For 10 months, the Neches River Wheelhouse has enticed hungry customers and increased traffic to Port Neches' scenic waterfront.

The restaurant could be the first of many as two Texas developers with Mid-County roots hatch a plan for more construction along the city's 51 acres of prime riverfront real estate.

The pair, Tom Frasier and Mike Bolin, have 180 days to make a pitch to the city or lose exclusive development rights.

City council members agreed Thursday to let Frasier and Bolin - who are originally from Mid-County but now live in Houston and Dallas - take six months to organize their plans. In exchange, the city agreed not to talk to any other developers.

It's too early in the process to determine what price the city would sell the property for or what kind of businesses the developers would bring in, said City Manager Andre Wimer.

The folks at The Wheelhouse are excited to see more interest in the area.

"As a rule of thumb, it's nice to have what's commonly called a restaurant row," said Shag Jordan, the restaurant's general manager.

Most cities have strips hopping with restaurants, bars and retail shops, said Jordan.

He would like to see the waterfront area become Port Neches' restaurant row.

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Duo allowed 6 months to pitch Port Neches riverfront plan

With tax season comes good news for some restaurant developers in downtown Allentown: The taxes they paid on alcohol last year can be recaptured and used to pay off their construction loans.

But their gain is the state's loss, critics note, as millions in newfound tax revenue are removed from the public coffers.

The gaggle of new restaurants that opened last year in Allentown's Neighborhood Improvement Zone around PPL Center can file for the first time to apply the 24 percent tax they paid at state stores to their building debts. And the benefit, which the state Department of Revenue spelled out in guidelines in November, doesn't just apply to Allentown's NIZ.

It also will help developers in Bethlehem's City Revitalization and Improvement Zone as they try to emulate the success of the NIZ.

"Twenty-four percent that's a big number and a big help when you're trying to make the financing come together," said Dennis Benner, whose proposed developments along Third and Fourth streets in Bethlehem's CRIZ could have as many as 10 restaurants. "It's really important that the state has made this decision."

Giving developers access to the alcohol tax money is appropriate, said state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who wrote the NIZ law. That money wouldn't exist, he noted, if not for the restaurant and bar sales inside the NIZ.

"This is not a windfall for those developers, and it's not a change in the law," Browne said. "It was in the law, and always the intent of the law from its inception."

It's a tax some developers worried they could not tap because it was generated outside the special taxing zones, but they were reassured last fall after the Department of Revenue reviewed the matter. The state hasn't made any major change but clarified the intent of the NIZ law adopted in 2011, Browne said.

Most state tax revenues generated within the 127-acre NIZ can be harnessed by the property owner to pay off building projects that create jobs. It's perhaps the most generous tax incentive ever offered by Pennsylvania and has spurred $1 billion of new development in Allentown, including a hockey arena at Seventh and Hamilton streets.

It's been so successful that it served as the model for similar tax zones in Lancaster and Bethlehem, where the CRIZ features similar tax incentives, with a few added restrictions.

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Booze used to boost development in NIZ, CRIZ