Business

Last year, when Applebee’s sales took a hit in the pandemic, the chain slimmed down its menu. Now its sales are recovering, but Applebee’s is sticking with the change. “We’re going to keep [the menu] lean,” Applebee’s president John Cywinski told CNN Business. During the pandemic, Applebee’s cut down its menu from about 160 items

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for free right here. In a pair of new interviews, White House press secretary Jen Psaki is sharing a lot about her approach to the job; the frantic news cycle; media fragmentation, and the role of Twitter. In a

The pandemic has been a tough time to be in the business of shuttling people from Point A to Point B. For months, government rules and fears about catching Covid-19 meant everyone stayed put. Finally, though, there are signs of change — and Uber, for one, is thrilled. “Uber has already begun to fire on

Three dollar store chains will make up almost half of all the new stores opening up in the United States this year, a reflection of the dollar store sector’s outsized growth in the retail industry as other chains close shops or stop building new ones. About 45% of the 3,597 store openings that large retail

Earlier this week, Eleven Madison Park’s chef and owner Daniel Humm made an unexpected announcement: When the famed New York City restaurant reopens its doors next month, meat will be off the menu. It might seem like the perfect time to get people on board with an all-vegan menu. Plant-based proteins are as popular as

Rio Tinto shareholders have rebelled over payouts to former CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques and other executives who quit last year after the company destroyed a 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site in Australia. More than 60% of the votes cast at the mining company’s annual general meetings in London and Sydney were against its remuneration report, according to

As the pandemic crushed the US economy last spring, sawmills shut down lumber production to brace for a housing slump. The slump never arrived and now there isn’t enough lumber to feed the red-hot housing market. The shortage is delaying construction of badly needed new homes, complicating renovations of existing ones and causing sticker shock

Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk is selling a new use case for NFT: “Smart event” tokens that have real value rather than digital art. Vaynerchuk’s VeeFriends NFT collection will give buyers three-year access to his VeeCon business and marketing convention. Customers can buy the tokens with etherium cryptocurrency. But he sees a broader future for NFTs

The latest plea for a break-up of Tribune Publishing’s newspapers is coming from inside the pages of a Tribune publication. In Wednesday’s edition of the New York Daily News, reporter Larry McShane practically begs someone local to “step up and save New York’s Hometown Paper.” McShane and many of his colleagues fear that Tribune’s current

The New York Times has a new statistic about its reach: The site has more than 100 million registered users. The number of users implies that at least that many people are considering but do not yet pay for The Times. Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien shared the number Wednesday as part of the company’s

Some of Europe’s biggest supermarkets and food companies have threatened to stop buying agricultural products from Brazil if a bill they say would encourage deforestation in the Amazon becomes law. In an open letter published on Wednesday, 40 grocers, food suppliers and investment firms urged Brazilian lawmakers to reconsider a legislative proposal that would legalize

General Motors posted strong first-quarter earnings and said it’s on track to hit the high end of its full-year profit target despite the computer chip shortage dogging the industry. The largest US automaker posted net income of $3 billion, about 10 times what it posted in the same quarter a year ago, when it was