Restaurants

Shares of P.F. Chang's soared nearly 30% Tuesday after the restaurant chain agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Centerbridge Partners in a $1.1 billion deal. Here's what it all means for the rest of the dynamic casual dining industry.

Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco is an important part of Yum! Brands' strategy to turn the chain's fortunes around in the U.S. It's also a crazy idea, and one of the strangest menu items you can find at America's fast food chains.

Don Thompson, a champion of McDonald's expanded menu offerings and spruced-up restaurants will soon take the top spot at the world's biggest burger chain.

With all the sturm und drang surrounding Facebook's upcoming May IPO, few media outlets are giving much oxygen to the IPO of online review hub Yelp, due March 2. It will give Yelp a market cap of around $800 million -- and the company isn't even profitable.

Chances are, you'll be more generous with your honey this Valentine's Day than last. Consumer spending on the holiday is expected to exceed last year's levels, according to the NRF and American Express.

Everybody knows the basic rules for saving money on food. Don't eat out. Ditch the steaks in favor of ground beef. Stick to staples. But a recent USDA report shows that, in 2011, some classic money-saving guidelines proved useless as food prices went through the roof.

Frugal foodies, rejoice! A growing list of websites is making it easier to indulge in culinary adventures that won't take a big bite out of your wallet. Here are five sites designed to help you find foodie-worthy restaurants that are affordable, too.

Running a restaurant has never been easy, but it's getting harder to succeed these days for eateries that shun the social couponing and new media games. A decade ago, all you needed was a strong concept, a healthy strategy and a few ads in the local paper, but the Internet has changed everything.

The 63 restaurants Friendly's closed on Wednesday resulted in about 1,260 layoffs -- more than 12% of the company's 10,300 person workforce. Everyone from managers to dishwashers were told Tuesday evening that the following day would be their last at Friendly's.

The world's fourth Elvis-themed restaurant is scheduled to open in a mall in Georgia this year. But not in the Peach State in the heart of the Dixie -- the Elvis American Diner is in the Republic of Georgia. Seems that in the former Soviet Union, the King and 1950s Americana are considered pretty nifty.