Colonel Sanders' nephew recently revealed what he claims is the secret recipe for KFC chicken. Although KFC has since denied that this is the exact formula, we assume that it's close. The nephew, Joe Ledington, did have it in a handwritten note taken from the colonel's second wife's will, and he claims that his job as a boy was to mix the spice blend in a tub.

The famous blend of 11 herbs and spices includes only one real surprise: a ton of white pepper.

"The main ingredient is white pepper," Ledington told the Chicago Tribune. "I call that the secret ingredient. Nobody knew what white pepper was. Nobody knew how to use it" in the 1950s.

Food scientist Dr. Steven Witherly, author of "Why Humans Like Junk Food," was taken aback when he saw the recipe.

"Wow, that much white pepper?" he says was his first reaction.

But he also thinks that it makes a lot of sense.

"I've had a lot of chefs tell me that the most underappreciated of all spices is white pepper because it has subtle but very strong effects on the sensory system," Witherly said.

White pepper is the husked form of the more common black pepper. Cooks Illustrated says that it has a more floral, earthy flavor and greater complexity, while black pepper is more aromatic with more spicy heat. Interestingly, Google searches for white pepper have doubled over the past decade.

White pepper also has some powerful physiological effects thanks to a compound called piperine. Piperine has been shown to do a wide variety of things, including activating taste receptors to make salt taste saltier and sugar taste sweeter, activating a special receptor in your brain that triggers the release of feel-good endorphins, increasing intestinal water flow and production of digestive enzymes, and possibly even helping to counteract the effects of high-fat diets.

The upshot, according to Witherly, is that it could make KFC more addicting.

"One of the theories I've put forth is that if you eat something that does something to you and it's beneficial, your brain figures it out ... it wants you to do it again," Witherly says.

KFC's alleged secret recipe is as follows:

• 2 cups white flour plus 2/3 tbsp. salt
• 1/2 tbsp. thyme
• 1/2 tbsp. basil
• 1/3 tbsp. oregano
• 1 tbsp. celery salt
• 1 tbsp. black pepper
• 1 tbsp. dried mustard
• 4 tbsp. paprika
• 2 tbsp. garlic salt
• 1 tbsp. ground ginger
• 3 tbsp. white pepper

As great as white pepper may be, of course, other factors may be more important in making it delicious. Witherly concludes in "Why Humans Like Junk Food" that the key to KFC's deliciousness is the combination of flavor-active compounds flour, salt, pepper, and MSG with a pressure-cooking technique that retains the chicken's moistness and juiciness.

And that's why 12 million people eat KFC every day.

SEE ALSO: The amazing story of Colonel Sanders

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With sales still down after an E. coli outbreak earlier in the year, Chipotle is giving out free food and drinks in an effort to rebound. 

Produced by Noah Friedman. Original reporting by Kate Taylor.

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It must have seemed like a revolutionary idea to diners of the 1920s — people on roller skates delivering food straight to their driver's side window.

Suddenly, the food that families were used to eating around a dinner table now arrived on trays or in bags, ready to be eaten on the go. Little did they know fast food was on the brink of explosion.

Nearly 100 years later, restaurants are on the brink of another massive change: robot automation.

The best estimates find that up to 50% of jobs could be automated by the late 2030s, with restaurant workers among the most vulnerable to displacement.

Some locations have already started moving away from human labor in an effort to cut operating costs. In its place, they've started relying on machines that are getting more sophisticated every day. Within the next 20 years, experts say, nearly every restaurant job once held by humans could get passed on to robots.

"A lot of what's done in restaurants is already automated," Rebecca Chesney, research and partnerships manager at the Institute for the Future, tells Business Insider. "Today's robotics can actually mimic human gestures that you'd need for cooking, for instance, way more than they could years ago."

Is the best chef a robot?

Chesney points to Momentum Machines, the company perhaps most poised to shake up the way food is prepared.

In 2014, the company released a device that essentially worked like a printing press for hamburgers. The robot pressed patties, chopped toppings, and assembled the ingredients into a sumptuous-looking sandwich. Momentum Machines went quiet for the next two years, but earlier this June the company posted a Craigslist ad looking for employees in the San Francisco area for a restaurant opening this fall.

"This location will feature the world-premiere of our proprietary and remarkable new advances in technology that enable the automatic creation of impossibly delicious burgers at prices everyone can afford," according to the ad.

As Xconomy reported, Momentum Machines' prototype could replace two to three line cooks — a savings of roughly $90,000 a year counting salaries and overhead costs. In turn, customers get perfectly-made burgers every single time.

Momentum Machines may be the most restaurant-ready system for food preparation, but it's by no means the only one. Other robots can already prepare sushi, make pizza, mix cocktails, slice noodles, and griddle pancakes.

In the future, these minds of technologies could all live under one roof.

Robots everywhere, no servers in sight

Moving from the kitchen to the front of the house, Chesney says restaurants are also looking to automate how food reaches customers.

Take Eatsa, another San Francisco-based restaurant, which has automated the way people order and pick up their food, much like the automats of the early 20th century that essentially functioned as vending machines for entire meals.

Instead of talking to a cashier to order their quinoa bowls, Eatsa diners build their meals on touch screens and pick them up from windows. There are no chefs or servers in sight.

Chesney says places like Eatsa and companies like Momentum Machines are strong signals for where fast food is heading because people crave speed and low cost — two qualities that human-run restaurants can't offer the way robot-powered restaurants can.

A future of personalized ambience

Not every restaurant will necessarily go full-robot, says Sarah Smith, a researcher at IFTF's Food Futures Lab, who works alongside Chesney. Fine-dining restaurants depend on people feeling comfortable, not rushed. And robots don't tend to inspire a warm, inviting feeling.

But fine-dining is still ripe for automation behind the scenes.

"Maybe they'll focus still on making the food by hand and focusing on quality ingredients," Smith says, "but there could be parts of the experience that could have some level of automation."

For instance, both she and Chesney suspect the psychologicalresearch into how people eat and enjoy food will get put to good use, as restaurants use automation to change lighting, temperatures, noise levels, and scents. Just as musicians can fit their fans with heart rate monitors to create the perfect concert, restaurant owners could use biometric data to make sure people eat in just the right conditions.

At the extreme might be restaurants that leverage the technology created by Project Nourished, a company that uses virtual reality to simulate just about every food experience imaginable.

Diners in Oculus Rift headsets can eat vegan gelatin that has been infused with the flavors of wasabi and ginger, while a machine pumps the room with a whiff of seafood, so that when you look through the goggles, you fully believe you're eating the sushi sitting in front of you.

Making good on their promise

Together, these changes add up to a set of dining experiences that embody what restaurants have always tried to be.

Restaurants give people a better alternative to preparing their own (often ordinary) food in their own (often limited) time. If they're automated, either in preparation, delivery, or ambience, they stand a better chance at guaranteeing a good experience for diners — even if that means huge swaths of employees risk losing their jobs.

The future is a far cry from carhops.

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The robots in movies and science fiction books that rise up to take over the world generally are able to do so because we have placed them in charge of missiles, defense systems, and other military technology.

We never see a disgruntled, order-taking bot working at McDonald's or Domino's cast off its virtual hairnet to gain sentience and overthrow its fast-food overlord.

But fast food, along with shipping warehouses, has become a hotbed for robots and other automated technology.

McDonald's has been testing ordering kiosks, Domino's has numerous ways to place an order that do not involve talking with a human being, and Starbucks has used technology to shift employees away from order taking to put them into production. It may not be a fantastic utopia where Rosie from The Jetsons does our laundry, but robot/automated technology has clearly infiltrated fast food.

Are robot fast-food workers coming?

It's not a question of whether automation will come; it's one of whether it will make stores more efficient or allow them to get rid of human workers. Starbucks, for example, has used automation to allow it to move workers into making drinks rather than taking orders, but it has not yet cut its workforce in any meaningful way.

CollegeRecruiter.com's Steven Rothberg, whose company works to find jobs for students and college graduates, believes that fast-food robots are coming, but he does not think they will supplant traditional workers.

"Many of the students and some of the recent grads who use our site are employed by fast food restaurants," he said to The Motley Fool in an email. "There's no doubt that automation will continue to impact the number and types of jobs in fast food restaurants but I don't buy the argument that digital ordering, kiosks, tablets, and other methods will replace human workers in fast food restaurants. Just look at banks. Have ATM's reduced the need for human tellers? Absolutely. But have ATM's come close to eliminating the need for human tellers? Absolutely not."

Timothy Carone a teaching professor in the Department of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, believes that automation will happen in restaurants, but not quickly or necessarily to the detriment of flesh-and-blood workers. The professor, who wrote the forthcoming book Future Automation -- Changes to Lives and to Businesses, does believe that the path toward robot workers (or at least automated workflow) will be a slow one.

"Automated services in restaurants has started and will continue for many years even while many restaurants maintain their level of manual service," he wrote in an email to The Motley Fool. "Some fast food companies will be all-in and others are taking a wait-and-see attitude. It will take years for fast food franchises to recognize a return on their automation investment though at some point an automated operation will be much cheaper than a manual operation."

Carone said that the idea that restaurants are automating due to labor costs is only partially true.

"Automation would occur at much lower labor costs than exist today or in the future but automation costs money," he said, noting that the expense will lower over time. "Whether a restaurant becomes partially or fully automated should depend on its customers and locations. Fast-food franchises located anywhere are finding its customers value automation. Restaurants at airports or similar locations that provide a captive audience but no loyalty except for brand loyalty will find automation necessary and valued by customers -- faster is better."

It's already happening

Donald Mazzela, a board member of the non-profit National Robotics Education Foundation, said his group has been looking at the issue of robots in restaurants for three years, noting that robotic interaction is being taught in culinary and hospitality courses throughout the world.

"In our latest study, we estimate average fast food establishment will switch 1.2 workers from counter service to other tasks as remote order taking, delivery by robotic applications grow," he wrote.

He expects the tipping point will be by 2020 and pointed out that ATMs have lessened the needed for bank tellers. The industry, he explained, needs time to educate customers, but that will happen, he said, because the benefits are simply too strong. He cited machines counting change, sensors, and other tools making inventory more precise and the ability to relay orders directly to the prep area as a way to decrease waste.

It's going to be a gradual change, but it's going to happen, Mazzela wrote.

A change is coming and Fred Goff, CEO of Jobcase, a social media platform helping workers without college degrees find meaningful jobs, believes workers should embrace it. He told The Motley Fool that robots will perform some jobs typically done by humans, but that will also create opportunity for flesh-and-blood workers.

"Concerns about technology displacing jobs has been a constant Luddite theme throughout the Information Revolution, and in fact since the Industrial Revolution," he wrote. Goff explained in his email that in a broad sense technology tends to create more opportunity than it displaces.

"It is not to be feared, but it must be managed," he wrote. "The challenge -- and opportunity -- for workers is for people to take control of their own work-life and navigate the positive impacts (easier access to education/training, new job creation, etc.) so that they aren't overwhelmed by the negative impacts of technological progress. Keep open to change and keep moving forward."

What does this mean for business?

Robots or automated workers come with benefits -- they don't show up late, don't steal, and never ask for raises -- but they also have a downside. So far, companies like Starbucks have balanced automating with maintaining a human touch. A robot/app may take your order, but a person makes it and hands it to you.

As that balance is lost and human interaction disappears, chains need to be worried about losing a personal connection with their customers, which could remove a reason people come back. This technology is inevitable, but it does not necessarily mean soulless eateries staffed by automatons.

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Chick-fil-A is giving away free breakfast at restaurants nationwide.

Customers can get their choice of a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit, a three-count Chick-n-Minis order, or an Egg White Grill free of charge until September 30. 

Customers must have the Chick-fil-A app to get the free food. The offer will show up on their home screen under "available treats."

Customers without the app can also get free breakfast, but they have to download it by September 10. 

This is the second time Chick-fil-A has offered free food nationwide to promote its app. 

The restaurant chain offered free sandwiches in June. 

Going forward, Chick-fil-A plans to offer even more free food through its app.

The app has a built-in rewards program that will send customers free-food offers based on what they typically order.

When customers get free treats from Chick-fil-A, they will have the opportunity to rate them. Those ratings will be factored into the app's future free-food offers.

Customers will typically get a choice of several items for their free-food offers. For example, they will be allowed to choose among a free drink, dessert, or medium fry.

SEE ALSO: Chick-fil-A is going where no fast-food chain has gone before

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Owning a McDonald's franchise can be a lucrative business.

It has been estimated that McDonald's franchisees' gross profits average about $1.8 million per restaurant in the US.

But on top of paying franchise, advertising, and real-estate fees, operators are on the hook for a lot of other costs that they can't necessarily plan for — such as upgrading kitchen equipment and remodeling restaurants.

Bloomberg's Leslie Patton compiled a list of many of these costs that have recently hit franchisees as McDonald's tweaks its menu with the addition of all-day breakfast, customizable burgers, and more.

They include: Create Your Taste kiosks ($125,000); McCafe espresso machines ($13,000); muffin equipment ($4,500); all-day breakfast equipment ($500 to $5,000); interior makeovers including upgrades to digital menu boards ($600,000); and complete restaurant remodels ($1 million to $2 million).

That's nearly $1 million in upgrades, excluding an entire restaurant remodel.

For many franchisees, the older their restaurants, the more expensive their upgrades will be. If they refuse to make the investments, the company can push them out of business by declining their franchisee renewal.

Potential for these costly upgrades is likely why the company requires that new franchisees have liquid assets of at least $750,000 to open a single restaurant.

Startup costs, which include construction and equipment expenses, average between $958,000 and $2.2 million, according to McDonald's. The total is determined by the geography and size of the restaurant, as well as by the selection of kitchen equipment, signage, style of decor, and landscaping, the company says.

Franchisees must pay 40% of the startup costs with cash and other nonborrowed resources, while the rest can be financed.

In addition to those costs, McDonald's charges a $45,000 franchisee fee and an ongoing monthly service fee equal to 4% of gross sales. Franchisees must also pay rent to the company, which charges a percentage of monthly sales.

Franchisees have historically paid about 8.5% of sales in rent costs, though some pay as much as 12%, according to a 2013 Bloomberg report.

McDonald's franchisee startup costs are similar to those of KFC, Wendy's, and Taco Bell.

Subway, by comparison, is far less expensive, costing between $116,000 and $262,850, according to the company. Subway also requires minimum liquid assets of only $30,000 to $90,000.

SEE ALSO: McDonald's is squeezing some franchisees out of business

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In parts of the country, you can't mention a chicken sandwich without invoking praise for Chick-fil-A.

Its sandwich has reigned supreme for a while, and McDonald's is taking notice.

The iconic fast-food burger chain overhauled its chicken sandwich with a new buttermilk recipe that has received some positive feedback.

I grew up in New Hampshire and went to college in Boston — which has famously banned Chick-fil-A — so I've never truly tried a Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Luckily, the much-anticipated new location in New York City sent us a sample ahead of the opening on October 3, so I decided to put the two chicken-sandwich rivals to the ultimate test.

SEE ALSO: Why Chick-fil-A is the best fast-food chain in America

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So here they are, safe, sound, and steaming hot in their respective packages.

McDonald's clearly pushes the descriptions of the food a bit more, while Chick-fil-A relies simply on its name to get the idea of tender crispy chicken across.

Let the chicken championship commence!

Starbucks Corp, the world's largest coffee chain, said it would serve its first stevia-based, zero-calorie sweetener at select cafes in the U.S. and Canada.

The "Nature Sweet" packets by Whole Earth Sweetener Co will be available in nearly 9,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. and Canada. (http://bit.ly/2clBOVe)

Starbucks had 15,300 company-operated and licensed stores in the Americas region, as of June.

Stevia is a naturally extracted low-calorie sugar substitute. "Nature Sweet" also contains extracts of the Southeast Asian monk fruit, with no artificial chemicals and is GMO-free.

Demand for artificial sweeteners like Splenda has slowed as consumers now look for products with natural ingredients. Splenda's sweetening agent, called sucralose, is made from sugar that has been chemically altered to make it calorie free. (http://reut.rs/2chqZWb)

Johnson & Johnson in August last year, said it would sell its Splenda sugar substitute to privately held Heartland Food Products Group.

Archer Daniels Midland Co had said in June it would sell stevia and monk fruit sweeteners, as nutritionists and government officials seek to slow down rising obesity and diabetes.

Companies have been building up their portfolios in stevia including Cargill Inc [CARG.UL], Olam International Ltd, Louis Dreyfus Commodities [AKIRAU.UL] and ASR Group.

(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik and Jessica Kuruthukulangara in Bengaluru, Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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Chipotle just made a cringeworthy attempt to appeal to its youngest generation of customers with a tweet referencing sex and marijuana.

The restaurant chain posted a poll on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon asking"How many burritos?" People were asked to vote between two numbers: 69 or 420.

The numbers are popular slang; 69 refers to a sex position, and 420 refers to so-called weed day, an annual holiday on April 20 — or 4/20 — celebrated by pot smokers.

The tweet started going viral Tuesday afternoon, gathering more than 1,700 retweets within a couple hours.

It appeared to be an attempt by Chipotle to seem cool and win back young customers, but it was mostly mocked on Twitter.

"You gotta chill," one Twitter user wrote, to which Chipotle replied, "Why?"

Another person wrote: "This is pretty inappropriate. It's like someone's dad trying to be cool."

A third person asked if the tweet was real, and Chipotle responded, "As real as this burrito I'm eating."

Chipotle has been trying to drive traffic to its restaurants lately with tons of free food offers after it took a nosedive in the wake of an E. coli outbreak that sickened customers in 14 states.

Here are some of the reactions from Twitter:

SEE ALSO: The hidden costs of running a McDonald's restaurant

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Depending on where you live in London, life in the capital can be incredibly stressful.

The property search agent Banda Property has just released its Quality of Living Index, ranking the best areas of the city to live in for families and professionals outside of central London.

The ranking is based on factors such as the number of nearby parks and green outdoor spaces, transport accessibility and connectivity, quality schools (issued an "outstanding" or "good" qualification from Ofsted).

Here are the capital's top 10 neighbourhoods ranked by livability, along with the average price of a home in each one:

Note: The cost of homes listed below refers to the average price of a home in the area regardless of its size.

10. Battersea, SW11 — £855,433 ($1,147,944)

Battersea ranked best for the quality of its local schools. It's also home to Battersea Park, a 200-acre green space on the south bank of the Thames.

9. Earl's Court, SW5 — £1,292,597 ($1,735,744)

Earl's Court is known for its transport connections, and proximity to open space — it's just a short walk away from Holland Park.

8. Parson's Green, SW6 — £1,044,184 ($1,402,167)

Parson's Green has a number of Ofsted-approved schools in the neighbourhood and is a rapidly developing area, rated highly for its level of building activity.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. 

"Hopefully Hillary Clinton will be elected president," Schultz told CNN's Poppy Harlow in a Facebook Live interview.

Schultz has long been outspoken about his political and social views, but this is the first time he has weighed in on the 2016 presidential race.

"I think it's obvious that Hillary Clinton needs to be the next president," Schultz said in an interview with Harlow at CNN Money's American Opportunity breakfast on Wednesday. "On the other side, we've seen such vitriolic display of bigotry and hate and divisiveness, and that is not the leadership we need for the future of the country." 

Schultz went on to say that backing Clinton was not "a perfect situation, but I think it's the right choice." 

Rumors surfaced last year that Schultz himself was considering a campaign for the White House.

He put an end to the speculation with an op-ed in the New York Times last August announcing that he wouldn't run. However, on Wednesday, he hinted that politics may be in his future.

"My own life experience has given me a unique perspective on the plight of working-class American people," he said. "I'm a young man, who has a lot of time in the future... I would never say never — but this is not the right time." 

Schultz had landed in hot water earlier in the year after he encouraged baristas to talk about race relations with customers and write "race together" on the coffee chain's cups. 

The campaign suffered a public backlash from the start, with critics accusing the company of using racial tension to sell coffee. The vitriol was so strong that it caused a senior Starbucks executive to temporarily suspend his Twitter account.

The company eventually abandoned the campaign, with Schultz saying on Wednesday that Race Together was suspended due to safety concerns in certain cities. 

Schultz acknowledged his critics in his remarks to employees earlier this year, saying, "I have been criticized because people say 'Well hisrole is to create shareholder value and profits, not to use Starbucks as a political tool.'"

But he said he can't sit quiet through the presidential election. 

"I worry if we just continue on this track and don't speak up," he said. "I'm asking myself what can we do, given our scale... to effect change, to elevate the discourse, and to demonstrate that this is not the way the country should be run."

Schultz supported President Obama in the 2012 election.

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Chipotle could be facing new pressure to franchise its restaurants now that billionaire activist Bill Ackman is its second biggest investor.

Ackman's hedge fund, Pershing Square Holdings, revealed Tuesday that it took a 9.9% stake in Chipotle. Pershing said it planned to take aim at the company's governance, operations, cost structure, and strategy.

Ackman may start pressuring Chipotle to sell its restaurants to franchisees as a method of unlocking value in the company, Stephen Anderson, an analyst at Maxim Group, told Bloomberg.

Franchising has facilitated rapid growth for nearly every major restaurant chain in the world, including McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks.

But Chipotle co-CEO and founder Steve Ells has deliberately abstained from franchising his restaurants in more than 20 years in business. When asked why, the company has said it doesn't want to relinquish any control over its operations.

"When you franchise, you give up control over how restaurants are run and that can compromise the experience," Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold told Business Insider in 2014. "What's more, our business model is so strong, we would rather not sell off our revenues to franchisees in exchange for only a small percentage of that."

Arnold also said that Chipotle shouldn't franchise if it doesn't have to.

"The reason we don't franchise is because we don't need to," he said "Companies tend to franchise because they need money to grow and/or operators to run their business. We have plenty of money for growth ... and don't have trouble attracting great people to run our restaurants."

But that was before an E. coli outbreak sickened Chipotle customers in 14 states and sent sales plunging for the last three quarters. Sales fell more than 23% in the most recent quarter.

While franchising is a common tool to unlock value in companies, Morgan Stanley analysts are advising Pershing Square against that route.

"Chipotle has no existing franchisee base to use to kindle this, and there are significant risks to culture and execution," analysts wrote in a recent note. "From a practical matter, the value in refranchising will likely come from extracting good value for the stores sold, and those are impacted now significantly by the diminished sales."

SEE ALSO: Chipotle tweets about sex and marijuana in desperate attempt to win back millennials

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In August, the Waitrose Good Food Guide 2017 published its ranking of the UK's 50 best restaurants.

While the top three eateries in the country are in Cumbria, Cornwall, and Nottinghamshire, London is still the foodie capital of the country. Fifteen restaurants in the capital make it onto the list.

The best restaurant in the UK, according to the Good Food Guide is L’Enclume, located in the Lake District in Cumbria, but four London venues make it into the top 10. Many of them also have the most expensive tasting menus in the city.

From regular award-winner Le Gavroche in Mayfair, to up-and-coming Clapham eatery The Dairy, here are the top 15, with their overall rankings in brackets.

15th in London: The Dairy (50th in the UK overall) — The Dairy, in Clapham, is one of only two restaurants in the ranking located in South London, and it has one Michelin star. It serves everything from a tasting menu in the evening, to this avocado and poached egg on toast for brunch.

14. Murano (48th) — Chef Angela Hartnett's one Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Murano, in Mayfair, has been serving hearty dishes like this wood pigeon with cocoa beans and pancetta since 2008.

13. Sketch (36th) — Two Michelin-starred restaurant Sketch in Mayfair is famous for its high-quality dishes, but stands out for its presentation. Dishes like this lavender ice cream are all served on quirky plates.

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Four of the country’s most celebrated Michelin three-star chefs are joining the casual-dining trend with exciting new spots of their own.

The Bywater Los Gatos - David Kinch

The Three-Star Chef: David Kinch 
Manresa, Los Gatos, Calif.

His New Casual Spot
The Bywater Los Gatos (thebywaterca.com), a “neighborhood joint” that opened in January serving the food of New Orleans, where Kinch started his career.

Comfort Factor
Tile floor, tin roof, ceiling fans, and bistro chairs—the whole Big Easy vibe.

Signature Dish
Oysters Rock-a-fella ($24), made with spinach-and-watercress puree, Herbsaint, and shellfish hollandaise. “It’s my favorite dish,” Kinch says. “It personifies the city.”

What We’re Drinking
A frozen daiquiri. With two kinds of rum, cane sugar, and fresh lime and pomegranate juices, it’s a serious cocktail that happens to be churned in a machine and served in a “go cup.”

Three-Star Holdover
Technique. Kinch’s fried chicken takes 2.5 days to make, including brining, air-drying, double coating, and frying in lard.

Roister - Grant Achatz

The Three-Star Chef: Grant Achatz
Alinea, Chicago

His New Casual Spot
Roister (roisterrestaurant.com),  which Achatz calls a “loud, bold, delicious à la carte restaurant” in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood, opened in March.

The Charter Oak - Christopher Kostow

The Three-Star Chef: Christopher Kostow
The Restaurant at Meadowood, Napa Valley

His New Casual Spot
The Charter Oak (thecharteroak.com), located in the formidable stone building in St. Helena, Calif., that was formerly Tra Vigne, is due to open by the end of the year.  

Comfort Factor
With live-fire cooking, family-style service, and communal tables, Kostow plans to strip away the formal trappings of Meadowood for an “elemental” experience (at about a quarter of the price).

Signature Dish
Plucked from the restaurant’s 3-acre garden, tomatoes will be slowly smoked over the fire and served with house-made yogurt and salted plums.

What We’re Drinking
Wine, chosen from a list focused on Napa Valley. Kostow’s current favorite selection: Massican Sauvignon Blanc. 

Three-Star Holdover
Custom ceramics. The Charter Oak’s dinnerware is by Napa ceramists Kelly Farley and Richard Carter, who created some of the artistic dinnerware at Meadowood.

Wall Street has growing doubts that Chipotle will ever recover from the E. coli outbreak that sent its sales tumbling. 

In a note published Thursday, BTIG analyst Peter Saleh said the company's marketing strategy has become "stale" in the minds of consumers and that its millions of dollars in free food offers aren't working. 

"The multiple promotions run this year have seen little apparent success and we believe a new approach may be necessary to drive a quicker pace of sales recovery," Saleh writes. 

Saleh thinks Chipotle needs to fire workers to reduce its labor costs, and even suggests shifting away from "food with integrity"— which has long been the cornerstone of Chipotle's appeal and marketing strategy — to lower food expenses.

He said Chipotle's labor expenses have ballooned to nearly 30% of sales since the E. coli outbreak. By comparison, in 2014 and 2015, labor accounted for 22% of sales and 23.2% of sales, respectively.

According to Saleh, customers no longer trust the company's "food with integrity" promise, so Chipotle should also consider letting go of naturally raised ingredients. 

"Chipotle has historically operated with higher food costs than many of its competitors as many of its ingredients are naturally raised and more recently, non-GMO," he writes.

In 2014, that meant Chipotle's food costs accounted for nearly 35% of sales, which is well above the 30% average of most restaurant operators.

"In the past, the economic model made sense because what Chipotle gave up with higher food costs was more than offset with lower labor, occupancy and operating expenses," Saleh writes. "While it is uncertain how long this will last, it is clear to us that Chipotle is not being recognized by many of its former guests for its investment in naturally raised ingredients."

Chipotle's sales have fallen for three straight quarters since the E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 50 people in 14 states. 

The chain's same-store sales fell 23.6% in the most recent quarter.

Chipotle says its turnaround is moving in the right direction. 

"As of our Q2 announcement (the most recent financial data we have shared), we had reduced our sales loss by nearly 40% compared to the low point (which occurred in January), so things have been moving in the right direction," Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said.

He said Saleh's suggestion that the company move away from natural foods is a "nonstarter."

At least one investor thinks Chipotle will make a comeback. 

Billionaire activist Bill Ackman and his hedge fund Pershing Square took a 9.9% stake in the company this week, and said he plans to shake up the burrito chain.

But Wall Street analysts appear skeptical of the investment.

"We see no quick fix to what CMG really needs, a revitalization of top line, and activism's traditional tools for restaurants — spin offs, re-franchising, asset sales and cost cuts — don't appear to offer short term opportunities, leaving few obvious quick levers to pull," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a recent note.

Stifel analysts had an even more brutal reaction. 

"We emphatically reiterate our sell rating on [Chipotle] shares following the news that Pershing Square has started a 9.9% activist position," Stifel analysts wrote in a note. "We cannot fathom Pershing's operational or mathematical investment thesis."

SEE ALSO: Bill Ackman might be pushing Chipotle to abandon one of its core principles

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There's no shortage of amazing restaurants in San Francisco.

We consulted the dining experts at Zagat to find the very best the city has to offer.

While Zagat's list does feature many fine dining establishments, several pizzerias and bakeries also made the list. 

Food ratings are out of 5 on the Zagat scale.

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15. Tartine Bakery & Cafe

600 Guerrero Street

Food: 4.7 

This Mission bakery is "in a class by itself," with morning buns, quiche, and banana cream tarts that are to die for. 

Lines are long and prices are high, but loyal fans say the baked goods are worth the effort.

14. State Bird Provisions

1529 Fillmore Street

Food: 4.7

Husband-and-wife team Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski have created a "cutting-edge" restaurant with a "vibe as exciting as the food," Zagat diners rave.

If you can get a reservation, the quail (or "state bird," as it's labeled on the menu) is a must-try.

13. Frances

3870 17th Street

Food: 4.7

This cozy neighborhood spot in the Castro can get crowded, but its Californian creations are worth the wait.

Applewood-smoked bacon beignets and "lumberjack cakes" are diner favorites.

New York City-based Big Foot Developers have a vision for a new kind of waterfront restaurant: a glass cube that hovers above the Hudson River.

In early September, the developers unveiled designs for "The Floating Restaurant," which would be suspended above the site of the former Glenwood power plant in Yonkers, 30 minutes north of Manhattan.

The team submitted the proposal to Goren Group (the developers that are working to convert the power plant into a cultural events space). However, lead designer Cristelle Calderón De Stefano tells Business Insider that there is no word yet on whether the restaurant will come to fruition.

In the meantime, check out the designs.

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"The Floating Restaurant" would hover between the former power plant's two smoke stacks, 160 feet above the river.

Tension steel cables would hang from the smoke stacks to support the structure, Calderón De Stefano says. Diners would enjoy 360-degree views of New York's skyline and the Hudson River.

Visitors would get to the restaurant through an elevator built inside one of the smoke stacks. From there, they would walk along a glass bridge to reach the 1,940-square-foot cube. The restaurant would have two levels, connected by stairs.

IKEA's Dining Club in London is a DIY experience which lets customers run their own restaurant. With the help of a head chef, you can cook meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes. The club features traditional Swedish food as well as British products.

Produced and filmed by Claudia Romeo

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Burger King is coming out with an absurd new menu item called Cheetos Chicken Fries.

The dish features white-meat chicken similar to that of Burger King's original chicken fries covered in crispy Cheetos-flavored breading.

"The chicken fries are cooked to crispy perfection so that they have a dangerously cheesy outside and made with juicy white-meat chicken inside," the company says.

The new menu item will be available starting Wednesday for a limited time at a recommended price of $2.89 for a nine-piece order.

The Cheetos-flavored chicken fries are the latest in a series of new menu items for Burger King.

Burger King introduced Mac n' Cheetos in June and launched a Whopper burrito in August.

The company has been launching the buzzworthy new items in the face of falling grocery prices that have made it harder to persuade customers to dine out.

Cheetos Chicken Fries are a twist on Burger King's original chicken fries, which debuted as a limited-time item in August 2014. Chicken fries were later added to the menu permanently because of popular demand.

SEE ALSO: Grocery stores are becoming the fast-food industry's biggest threat

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